Tuesday July 8, 7:30pm
Attendees: BOARD MEMBERS Christian Montes, Rameka Jennings, Joy Hope, Nick McWilliams, Adrienne Hixon, Debbie Farrell, Ashton Duplechain, Lisa Klockenga; Staff, Bailee Young, Ian Bradt, Jessie Davis, ; Members:
Acting Proxy: N/A
Called to order at 7:35pm
Committee Reports
Fundraising, Adrienne
We made ~$1200 from Up down fundraiser
Volunteers needed for Bingo. Need several different positions covered
Plenty of bingo prizes provided as long as everyone follows through
Drive for attendance at Bingo. Tables can be reserved in advance and often sell out. Incentive for band members-prize for highest attendance per section or something?
Need to schedule committee meeting to discuss opportunities after hamburger Mary's
Marketing, Jessie
This week we should have all of the season dates set for the concert and jazz bands. Once we have Flipcause (or whatever platform we are switching to) set up with the tickets, we need to immediately release a season announcement and start driving ticket sales.
We are working with Fundraising committee to promote the HamBingo event coming up. After that, we will switch into a “Come Join Us” organic campaign on our social media pages. Please share these posts far and wide!
We would like to start a newsletter, but will need help with content! This will go out (quarterly?) to our database of concert attendees, etc. to keep them engaged with us and interested in our upcoming events (as well as donate!). Some great items for this are meet the section posts, community highlights, etc.
NEED: Flipcause or other ticket platform set up so we can send out the season announcement
NEED: If your committee has any announcements, please send to us by end of week to be included in an upcoming email to the membership.
ACTION ITEM: Jessie to add all marketing initiatives to S23 Timeline and Tracker
ACTION ITEM: Jessie to prep email to members with upcoming start dates, season concert events, and other notes/news
ACTION ITEM: Committee to plan first iteration of our newsletter, with a goal to send out no later than Mid-September
Membership, Nick
Season Kickoff Picnic - 21Sep2025 time TBC; Loose Park shelter reserved
Next committee meeting planned 29Jul2025 715p
July bookclub date TBC
May 2025 Membership survey summary
Participation & Satisfaction
Total responses: 41
Enjoyment this season:
Loved it: 32
It was OK: 7
Did not play: 2
Returning next season:
Yes: 38
Maybe: 2
No: 1
🚧 Common Barriers to Social Participation
Top challenges:
Work/life balance
Social anxiety
Scheduling conflicts
Age or physical limitations
Distance/travel time
🧩 Preferred Social Activities
Strong preference for:
Casual and outdoor events
Smaller group gatherings
Ideas included: potlucks, bingo nights, float trips, book clubs, and museum visits
💬 Communication Preferences
Most popular methods:
Discord (17 mentions)
Email (14 mentions)
Text messaging (9 mentions)
Some noted that older members struggle with Discord
💡 Suggestions & Feedback
More structured section leadership
Quarterly social mixers
Listening parties or music previews
Recognition for long-time members
More inclusive and varied music programming
Improved rehearsal space layout for socializing
Pride, Christian
Pride was amazing! Thank you to all those that helped contribute their time and ideas and made this event super successful! Thank you Lucas, Erin, Jennifer, Helena, and all the volunteers who signed up to help!
This committee will be tabled until April 2026 unless we have need for another Pride opportunity.
Performance Opportunities, Debbie
Mid Mo Pride in Columbia, Mo and Lenexa Pride are both on October 4th. The fact that these are scheduled on the same day and the proximity to 10/11 concert were points made.
Seven Days events for April 2026 aren’t scheduled. In contact with their board and promoting Mighty Mo @ Porch Concert and comp tickets for 10/11 concert.
Reaching out to Kansas City Indian Center and Haskell College for potential collaboration opportunities.
A mission partner application request has been made to the Matthew 25 Committee @ Second Presbyterian Church, the host of Porch concerts. Propose $1000 donation for member scholarships.
Merch,Erin
First committee meeting is scheduled for July 15th at 7:30 pm, where the goal is to finalize the merch plan for the fall and christmas concerts and start planning the logistics for the limited edition t-shirts.
Grants, Bailee
Made an initial facebook/discord post to gauge interest in membership in the grants committee.
Might meet in August depending on interest, but will probably wait until concert band season rehearsals start to establish the first meeting.
Created a log of previously applied and possible new grants for us to apply for this fiscal year.
Missouri Arts Council opened July 1st for 2026
Jon Sims Endowment Fund Award application is due July 15th
NEED: Name of grant group that approached us at Pride. KC Pioneers Grant?
https://www.kcpioneers.org/grant-program/
AD Search Committee, Jessie/Ian
The search committee has been evaluating our 9 candidates, and working on narrowing down our top 2 to bring into the next round. The committee will meet later this week to make final decisions.
Artistic Committee, Jessie
The October 11th concert has been planned, and Jessie will send out the music order to the treasurer and librarians later this week. JJ will work on getting a percussion meeting scheduled, and will reach out to past percussion section members (Jody, etc.) about rejoining.
On that Oct. 11 concert will be:
White Rose March, Sousa
Cosmopolitan America, Butler
Suite of American Dances, Bennett
Divertimento, Bernstein
The Eyes of the World are Upon Us, Jolley
Shenandoah, Omar Thomas
Folk Suite for Band, W.G. Still
By the first rehearsal, the Artistic Committee will have a poll/Google Form in place to accept suggestions for the holiday concert. This will be an opportunity for our members to suggest holiday and winter pieces from our library that they enjoyed playing in the past, and the Artistic Committee will meet and finalize the selections in late August. No additional music purchase for this concert.
The finale concert on 4/18 will be entirely planned by the new Artistic Director. We may need to consider additional music purchase budget at that time.
The Chamber Concert (For Those Who Speak in Many Voices) will be a FREE concert given at the Church. The Artistic Committee and New AD will serve as coaches for the ensembles. Among the committee, we have woodwind, brass, and percussion experience to cover all bases.
GATHER BOARD OPINIONS ON THESE DATES: Saturday, February 7th - 2:30 pm Sunday, February 15th - 2:30 pm or Saturday, February 21st - 2:30 pm. All are currently available on the Church calendar.
Feb 21 decided
ACTION ITEM: This committee needs to get final dates over to Erin for the Season Postcard.
ACTION ITEM: Committee to set up Google Form to accept holiday suggestions.
Reports
Secretary, Ashton
Added concert dates for next season to the google calendar
Not sure how to integrate the google calendar with discord/FB
Please let me know if you want committee meetings/other events added to the calendar
Assistant Artistic Director, Jessie
The Artistic Committee has finalized the Oct. MAFB concert and the music order will be placed this week. We’d like rehearsals to start August 14th. JJ will meet with percussion before. Heard on spreadsheet Jeanine Asay, and I’ll get that ready.
Still working on jazz, as AD and MAFB planning has taken most of my time lately. Hopefully I have some date suggestions to add here before the meeting :) (UPDATE: I did!)
SWING BAND: The Swing Band is open to all without any audition or instrumentation restrictions (within reason…). The later MAFB picnic lends itself perfectly to having this group perform a quick set for our friends during that event. Rehearsals will be at the church, Thursday nights in the 6–6:45 MMJO slot.
August 21, August 28, September 4, September 11, September 18
Performance for MAFB members on September 21st
MMJO: given the Swing Band opportunity we have this season, MMJO will start rehearsals later in the year on Thursday, September 25th. Below are our suggested concert dates, and I just need to finalize with the Church that we can get on the calendar for them.
Friday, November 14
Friday, January 23
Friday, March 20
Friday, May 15
NEED: There is a Pride in the Park performance for September 27th that was originally going to be MMJO. I have a conflict that date, would the Pep Band be interested in performing in our place? It is in Sedalia, MO and we would need to ask members to carpool over.
ACTION ITEM: Jessie to send music order to librarians/treasurer this week
ACTION ITEM: Jessie to add all concert events to S23 Timeline and Tracker
Production Coordinator, Bailee
Jazz band concert went great! Congrats Jessie and MMJO on their final concert! Brought in approximately 63 attendees.
Idea: next season, award for section with most collective volunteers?
Board Chair, Christian
Updated budget and covenant documents for review. You will receive them tonight and you have until Friday to get your votes into Ashton.
Quarterly check ins on budget (Nov-ish)
Big thanks to Joy for finding us an awesome accountant that got our taxes done! They have also offered their services for this year. Do we think we can have our stuff together to send in by September for taxes?
Vice Chair, Rameka
We will start using this document and reviewing it at every meeting to stay accountable to ourselves and each other. Each chair is responsible for adding tasks to the sheet based on appropriate timing (I hope this will be useful to discuss and update during your committee meetings). Rameka will be the master timeline keeper, accountable for adding dates to the event calendar sheet. I welcome feedback and edits to make this user friendly and accessible for everyone!
Please make sure you are reviewing and updating your committee roles and responsibilities. I would like to discuss this during the August meeting, prior to the start of the season.
MAFB Committee Job Descriptions
Based on feedback from membership, does it make sense to have a more formalized Section Leader committee/group? I’m happy to take that on.
Treasurer, Lisa
Report available upon request.
Executive Director, Ian
Need to submit updated name tag order for new Board and staff members
If you did not get one last year, please email me your preferred name and pronouns before 31 JUL
Recommend adoption of OneCause moving into the next season. We would leave our Flipcause subscription in place until it expires at the end of its current term and notify Flipcause that it is not authorized for renewal.
This will likely cause a bit of a delay in getting the new season membership/participation agreements/dues up and running as well as the next season of ticket but probably all workable by end of August.
There are still a few things that we would need to figure out how to do in OneCause but the benefits assess that the outweigh the challenges.
Librarian, Jeanine
Curious about scanning needs for the fall concert, if the music selections are finalized. Would someone be able to share that information with me? Jessie’s music spreadsheet last year was amazing, if she is willing to set up something similar. 🙂
Jessie will put together a spreadsheet for you
Brand Manager, Erin
Season branding in progress, Touch version of the postcard is ready, just waiting for final mighty mo dates. The rest of the branding is being drawn up.
Website hero is currently advertising the hamburger Mary's fundraiser, will be reverted to “join us” messaging until the new season is announced after the fundraiser unless something else needs to be there.
Old Business
No Old Business
New Business
Discussion Topic
Marching Tenors ($450) (Ashton)
Band will buy tenors
Committee sign ups at first few rehearsals (Ashton)
Potential social time where committee heads can pitch their committee and talk with members
Adding a link on our website landing page for committee descriptions and contacts
Adoption of OneCause for our primary engagement platform(Ian)
Price? About twice what we currently pay for flipcause, “free” options exist but are very unreliable
Key difference: flipcause does rate guarantee to cover transaction fee if enough people choose not to cover it (we haven’t had this issue so we haven’t needed this feature).
Nick motioned To adopt Onecause as a primary platform to replace Flipcause
Lisa seconded, motion passed
Meeting adjourned movement/time. 8:39pm
