Minutes April 5, 2023

 COTMD Board Minutes April 5, 2023

The Board gathered at Virginia Winn's house at 7pm to enjoy some dessert and coffee.  The meeting was called to order at 7:27pm.

Regular board members attending: Marguerite, Virginia, Fred, Dianne, John, Karl (via Zoom)

Guests: Maris, Gail

The minutes of the previous meeting (March 1, 2023) were approved by voice vote.

Dianne presented the Treasurer's Report.  The following specific items were noted:

(1) The treasurer is waiting for some additional records from Victor to address a $80 discrepancy.  It is believed that this amount was paid to Susan Fort for the use of the Lexington Contra Hall for the August 2022 dance; the treasurer is looking for a bit of documentation for that.

(2) A spreadsheet of the current operating expenses (since restart in August 2022) was discussed.  The spreadsheet PDF is posted in the COTMD board blog. The line item "Hall Credit to CMFA" was noted. John stated that the actual amount should be $884.12 instead of the number $750 recorded in the spreadsheet; as that was the number communicated to Joseph at CMFA.

(3) At the 2nd dance in March, there was a discrepancy of $110 discovered in the actual cash on hand in the kitty.  There may have been some uncertainty about the amount in the kitty at the opening of the admission table.  (Since Dianne and Fred were playing in the band that evening, and Marguerite was at home ill, Karl stepped in to help.  Consequently there may have been some uncertainty about what processes should be followed.)  A discussion ensued over possible oversights, the responsibilities of board members in accounting, and note made of updates to written procedures for instructing those who staff the admission table.  Dianne and Karl agreed to cover the missing funds and to treat the episode as a learning experience.

(4) CDSS membership fees have been paid.

(5) IRS filings need to be made this year as they have not been for at least during the time of Covid.

(6) ACTION ITEM: Get copies of COTMD 501(c)(3) legal status (i.e., Letter from CDSS) to CMFA.

The Treasurer's Report was approved by voice vote.

Report on the last two dances: Low attendance was noted and there was some discussion as to possible conflicts.  The first March dance was during UofSC spring break; it also conflicted with the Carolina Meltdown that same weekend.  The second March dance also had low turnout.  There was speculation that another concurrent event was ongoing then.

A discussion ensued regarding how to get more publicity out.  Some other locations for distributing flyers were mentioned: Skyline Club, Bill's Pickin' Parlor, State Government bulletin boards, The Star newspaper.

ACTION ITEM: Karl and John would work together with Virginia to update the flyer to include the notation "501(c)(3)" somewhere in it.

Karl briefly discussed the UofSC table at Russell House.  The expense of that is likely to be much less that originally thought.  There seems to be some uncertainty about the dates available for when the table can be put up.  It was noted that the time remaining in the semester is short as classes end in late April.  Having the table in August when school starts up again seems like an important goal.

An idea for promotion using "business cards" that would also allow the bearer to have a free admission to a future dance was discussed.  Many thought it sounded like a reasonable and low-cost way to help get attendance up.

The content of the business card would be something along the lines of:
"Admit ONE -- CHECK IT OUT -- QR Code for more info -- Contral Cola 501(c)(3)"

ACTION ITEM: Virginia and John would work through creating an initial batch based on the ideas discussed.

The following were also noted as ACTION ITEMS:
Gail -- check with singles groups at some local churches to gauge interest;
Karl -- put flyers up in the Lexington (Town) library;
John -- put flyers up in the Richland library;
Maris -- put flyers up in Bill's Pickin Parlor;

Marguerite presented the Booker's Report.  Three piece out of town bands are more expensive that our current payment guidelines allow.  Some configuration (subset) of ContraForce is often willing to come up to play possibly on shorter notice however current rules limit the amount we can pay; the difference is quite small.

The following motion was made, seconded, and approved by voice vote:

"The president is authorized to approve exceptions to the current payment rules for bands and callers requested by the Booker."

The renewal of Board membership is required in May.  The current officers agree to continue in their roles.

President: John Wetzel
Vice President & Booker: Marguerite Frongillo
Treasurer: Dianne Britton
Secretary: Fred Druseikis

Virginia Winn and Karl Smith agreed to continue as at-large board members.

Gail Sullivan and Maris Burton have agreed to become at-large board members.

At this point it is not known if either Kenny Greer or Barbara (Bob) Fellenstein wish to continue being on the board.

Update: Per e-mail, Kenny has agreed to continue.

ACTION ITEM: We need to verify that Kenny and Bob wish to continue.

Next Meeting: Wednesday, May 10, 2023.

Adjourn: 9:37pm

Minutes, March 1, 2023

 COTMD Board Meeting March 1, 2023

We met at Virginia Winn's house around 7pm to enjoy some dessert and conversation.

The meeting was called to order at 7:37pm.

In Attendance: Margurite, Virginia, John, Dianne, Fred, Karl (via Zoom)

The minutes of the last meeting were approved.

The results of the two dances held in February were discussed.  Attendance was about 40; a notable number were present at 7pm for instruction - so callers should be prepared to teach as soon as there are enough bodies.  Joseph and one of the CMFA board members popped in during one of the dances to see what was going on.

Dianne gave the treasurer's report.  The dollar figures for funds in the bank and in the kitty (working funds) were reported.  A Venmo account for COTMD payments has been created and can accessed via QR code.  There is also a QR code for email lists.  Dancers who wish to pay online can do so using the Venmo app.  We ask that they add fifty cents to cover the transaction cost.  Accounting for gate receipts is made slightly more complicated because of this.  The report was approved.

John is preparing a letter to Joseph at CMFA detailing the serial numbers of the equipment being transferred to them.  Joseph does not want to make a big deal of this nor go into great detail about the discussions for paying for the use of the hall. In short CMFA gives special consideration to 501(c)(3) organizations use of the facility without expecting payment.  (This may have something to do with how CMFA does its budgeting and making a big deal about it just complicates things.)  In this respect they are different for us rather than individual artists renting the space.

The COTMD board approved the concept of 20% of gross receipts (paid admissions) as a reasonable benchmark figure to give to CMFA for hall use.  (Editorial: the point of this is to recognize that by not accounting for an actual cost we are not being truthful to ourselves about what it costs to produce a dance series, and therefore whether or not we are solvent in the longer run.  Nothing is forever and we may be required to find an alternative space for whatever reason.)

The Booker reported increasing difficulty with lining up bands and callers. Wisdom dictates the use of "duos" for out of town bands.  As of this meeting there was no band for March 25.  At the meeting Sherlock's Meow agreed to play for the dance.  The board OK'd the booker to discuss price flexibility for out of town bands as some subset of Contraforce may be willing to play for us.

There was considerable discussion about the issues of what dates there were to be scheduled.  At the time of the meeting there was no venue committed for May 13 or May 27.  The realities of scheduling dances and getting low attendance because of other competing factors was considered (yet again.)  We are pursing a very aggressive scheduling plan with two dances a month.  Keeping up that pace puts a strain on everyone when there is not enough hands to help out.

The uncertainty about scheduling dates creates considerable stress for all involved in the booking process, as dates too near the present vastly reduce the number of possible callers or bands available to book on short notice.  This is a major issue.

Booking Action Items:
    John will give Karl the list of OK dates for the dance series.
    Karl will give consideration for how to adjust the list to maintain momentum as we work to rebuild the dance community.
    Karl will communicate back to the board and with Joseph on the dates.

A motion was made and seconded: that Karl is authorized to spend up to $350 for expenses related to ContraCola event promotions at UofSC Russell House.

The next meeting will be Wednesday, April 5, 2023 at Virginia's.

The meeting adjourned at 9:07pm.

Minutes, January 18, 2023

 Minutes, January 18, 2023

The meeting was held remotely, using Zoom software provided by Karl.  Attendees were Marguerite, John, Dianne, Fred and Karl.  The meeting itself commenced around 7:20 when it was apparent no one else would be joining.

The first item was the treasurer's report, provided by Dianne.  This took some time as there was a lot to review.  There was extensive discussion of how to account for funds we "would have spent" if we were paying CMFA 20% of our door.  It was agreed that this needed to be accounted for in such a way so as to account for what we actually spent AND for what we would have spent.  We also agreed that Dianne could deal with this issue as she sees fit.

There was also one item that came up that requires further information.  There is a notation in one of the charts that Dianne showed us, which seems to imply that we gave CMFA $80 dollars for our very first dance at the pink room.  It is not clear right now whether that was put down as an expected expenditure, or whether those dollars were actually paid out, and if so, by who, and to whom.  Dianne is going to check with Victor on this.  It may also be possible to determine whether that $80 dollars disappeared out of the cash kitty, out of the bank account or didn't go away at all, by looking at all the funds we had before that dance and comparing it to all the dollars we had after that dance. 

Next, John reported on the status of the installation of equipment in the pink room (equipment slated to be transferred to CMFA ownership to compensate them for allowing us free use of the room until we have recovered those expenditures).  The status is that all equipment we purchased for this transfer has been installed, and all that remains to be done is to test the bluetooth part of the system, and then brief CMFA staff on how to use the gear.  The formal transfer will take place after those things have been done.

Next, Marguerite provided the status of her booking efforts.  We are making good progress, but some slots (bands and or callers) for upcoming dances remain to be filled.  This discussion also covered the next agenda item, which is the status of which dates at CMFA we have been able to reserve for our use.

Next, the status of our social media outreach was discussed.  Dianne and Karl are handling this, and based on recent increases in attendance at dances, these efforts are effective and are bearing fruit.  One important issue we discussed was how to keep control of our branding and continue to use variants of  the text string "contracola" and keep that within our ownership in the online universe.

Next, John reported that he had collected all information that he thinks he needs to correctly identify which persons and entities are covered by our insurance.  John will write up what he thinks are correct identifiers, and negotiate with our insurance agent to correct our insurance documents in a manner acceptable to us and the insurer.

Next we discussed our future plans, basically how far ahead to try and plan dances.  Marguerite pointed out that planning as far ahead as possible makes her job easier (more lead time).  On the other hand, our future plans ought to be somewhat guided by finding out what works and what doesn't.  For now, we seem to be happy with looking ahead about three months, except that, as Karl pointed out, there are some special cases where we have to decide what our plans are way ahead of time, such as during the November and December holidays.

The attendance at our last two dances was the next agenda item, but this had already been covered earlier during the discussion regarding our social media outreach.   

We finished by setting our next board meeting as Wednesday March 1.