Tuesday December 7 , 2021 7:00pm
Attendees: Alex Welch, Christian Montes, Nathan Brown, Ruth Robarge, Erin Trampel, Rameka Jennings, Austin Rexroad, Grace Diebolt, Rose Rodriguez ; Staff: Ian Bradt, Jessie Riggins, Lee Hartman, Jeanine Asay, ; Members: Kelly Pangburn
Called to order at 7:05 pm.
Reports
Secretary,
Oct. minutes submitted to be posted on the website.
Nothing to report.
Artistic Director, Lee
Arts KC project grant released on Nov. Lee will work on it. Concert is on Sunday! Unfortunately, Cynthia Doll had a scheduling conflict, so Debra Leiter is going to take the part. It will be great! Working on figuring out scheduling for the upcoming spring concert, since we have small ensembles. There are no auditions for the ensembles, anyone that would like to play is welcome to join.
Assistant Artistic Director, Jessie
Looking forward to being back in rehearsals in the Spring. Working with Evie at the Arts Asylum to come tour their new place. If anyone has a lead for a burlesque troupe, please shoot me an email.
Nothing to report.
Board Chair, Christian
Read Ian’s email if you have not read the contract for the Gem. We will be voting on it later tonight.
Ideas from Pride Bands/Conference.
Address update.
Ideas from Pride Bands Alliance Conference:
Diversity & Inclusion Committee, or Diversity & Anti-Oppression Committee. Many of the larger bands have a committee like this and it works well to recruit new playing members of diverse backgrounds.
Attendance policy to be considered for Board members. We will start re-reviewing our commitments and make public attendance, etc. for voting members. Christian is communicating with other bands for their assistance and ideas.
Arkansas has a few smaller LGBT+ bands that are interested in joining the Pride Bands Alliance. We volunteered to help guide and share ideas, bylaws, etc.
It will take a little bit of time for the diversity and inclusion committee to be formed as Christian gathers resources.
To clarify, considerations regarding Board member attendance there are several things to consider before enforcing.
Treasurer, Nathan
Financial records available upon request.
Is anyone using Canva? We have had some charges, but we are not aware of anyone using the service. Christian will look into canceling the subscription.
Business Operations, Ian
Ian met virtually with the American Jazz Museum regarding a few things. We were previously overcharged in our last invoice. Lee caught the overage after we had paid. The American Jazz Museum will transfer a credit in the amount for our Holiday concert.
Ian is reaching out to see when we can load-in on Saturday. He is hoping it will be a similar process as last time. He will confirm, but plan at 6pm at the Church on Saturday.
Ian is still working on getting an off-duty officer scheduled for Sunday. It came at the last minute last time, so he will pass on the contact information for payment.
Season tickets are being handled a little differently this year. We will issue new tickets for all season ticket holders that will hit their inbox this evening. So we don’t have to check-in/out, allowing for better tracking in the back end of FlipCause. Hopefully this process will make things easier for the front of house.
Ian will work on the Missouri Arts Council invoice for reimbursement.
Jeanine, Librarian
Receiving music for the educational concert. Will begin scanning and uploading soon.
Jeanine will submit the ASCAP reporting for the 2021 calendar year.
Webmaster, Erin
Minutes from October uploaded after November meeting, timpani campaign made hero image on website
Nothing else to report.
Kelly, Social Director
Nothing to add. Kelly is still a little hesitant to organize social gatherings. He is considering proposing/arranging group travel for the Pride Bands Alliance Conference in Chicago. There are options to take the train, instead of driving.
Are children allowed at the concert? Yes - as long as they have a negative COVID test.
Raising a point - we should provide safety statistics for the Jazz District regarding safety concerns for members at evening rehearsals. A good consideration is having a buddy system for safety.
Kelly will look into group tickets for Wicked.
Committee Reports
Fundraising, Rameka
We have raised $4,755 of our $6,500 (new target) goal! I’m sending out packages for donors this week. I will have the mugs this week too (they took forever)! PLEASE remind me to grab the CDs at rehearsal this week!
Lee will look into corporate matches regarding matches for the timpani donations (do they have to be ear-marked for the timpani campaign or can they go into general operating funds?)
Ian will work on a text to give options for the concert. Additionally, we will plan on having a QR code in front of the house for people to purchase single tickets.
Text to Give Number: 816-653-3700
Code for Timpani Campaign: TIMP
Code for General Donation: PRIDE
Marketing, Grace
We will start doing press releases for the upcoming season. Grace will post about the upcoming concert on Instagram. She would like us to take a group photo in our holiday gear, so we can use it as an opportunity to mail out a holiday greeting card.
Membership, Alex
Membership is not meeting this month due to Election Committee taking priority and half of membership committee is also on Election Committee.
I’d like to get a survey sent out to the membership after this concert to do a temperature check on the membership and how they feel we are doing as an organization to see where they think we are doing well and also some areas for potential improvement.
I think it’d be fun to have an ugly sweater contest for the concert if we think we could pull it off. Have folks that want to enter take a picture of their concert garb and post on the band’s Facebook page and have folks vote by reacting to the posted pictures. Winner could get a $25 credit to the merch store or something?
We will put out a call in the holiday concert reminder for everyone to wear their ugliest holiday sweater. We will select the top 5 to pull out for a live audience voting (cheers) at the concert.
Election, Alex
Election committee is formed and working on getting candidates vetted. Board members whose terms are up are Christian Montes, Ruth Robarge, and Austin Rexroad. Ruth has chosen to step down after her term ends and Austin and Christian have communicated their intent to run for re-election. Thank you for everything you’ve done during your tenure on the Board Ruth! We appreciate you!
Election committee consists of Erin Trampel, Jeanine Asay, Jared Pressler, Christina Graber, and James Arcano. We have received nominations for James Arcano (declined), Katherine Kashka (declined), JJ Pearse (thinking about it), Liz Brent (declined), Steven Irving (Accepted), and Joy Hope (Accepted). This is more nominations than I can remember from recent years, which is exciting! Nominations close on December 15th and interviews will be held on December 16th during normal rehearsal time since we have a concert the Sunday before and will not be having rehearsal that week unless otherwise communicated with individual nominee. After interviews, the Election Committee members will meet to discuss candidates and before we present our recommendations to the board. . For future elections, we may look into fine tuning the process to move away from the slate vote style to put more say into the hands of the membership.
Election runner will be used to rank/file candidate selections for board nominees.
Old Business
OKR Update
Report given at meeting
New Business
Gem Committee Update
Ian did a great job capturing all the committee's requests in a formal proposal for the Gem Theater. This is only a proposal for partnership. Negotiations and a contract would be the next step after the partnership proposal was accepted.
Ian will update the history section with our awards received (3).
Motion to accept the proposal as written with Lee’s addendums was accepted to carry through the proposal with the Gem Theater partnership.
Executive Session
Meeting adjourn movement at 8:14pm.
