Tuesday January 4, 2022, 7:00pm
Attendees: Nathan Brown, Christian Montes, Erin Trampel, Rameka Jennings, Alex Welch, Austin Rexroad, Grace Diebolt; Staff: Lee Hartman, Ian Bradt, Jeanine Asay, Jessie Riggins; Members: adsf
Acting Proxy: Rameka acting proxy for Rose.
Called to order at 7:05 pm.
Reports
Secretary, Rameka
Nov. minutes submitted to be posted on the website.
Would it help if I sent out a calendar invite for Board meetings? Let me know your preferred email address and I will send it to the group.
Dec. minutes are approved to be posted to the website.
Artistic Director, Lee
Wonderful concert on Dec 12. Some excellent playing and I’m really proud of the band as we are navigating the pandemic performances well. Thank you to the board for your wonderful gift. It was totally unnecessary but thank you. Looking forward to starting rehearsals on Jan 13. Planning for our !!20th!! Season is well underway. Just need to hear from the Gem before we solidify dates. THank you for all your work. Arts KC Project grant will be written this month.
We applied for the Neighborhood Tourism Development Fund grant, and we requested $15,000.
Assistant Artistic Director, Jessie
Looking forward to rehearsals! I have a venue tour scheduled for this Thursday for the B&B Live space. Christian and I also went to the Arts Asylum open house in December, and they are very excited to partner with us in the future! Their new space will have two performance spaces, and they should be ready for performances to start happening late spring or early summer.
I sent an email asking if we could get the Pride Bands logo updated on the website, but have not heard back. I sent over different versions of the new logo in that email. Please let me know if I need to resend. This is a very important step in helping Pride Bands with their legal paperwork. I also included several versions in B&W for programs.
Jessie will upload all the Pride Band logos to the drive.
Board Chair, Christian
Next month will be our annual meeting (February 10th). We will have a board meeting on the 8th to finalize the agenda for it. Please let me know if there’s anything you’d like to talk about. I’d love to keep it short and sweet but, we will provide as much opportunity as you’d like to speak. The meeting will also be hybrid. Hopefully we can get everything working with a some hotspots and a computer in the basement. I’m open to ideas for that.
Almost done getting the demographic surveys into an excel sheet. Lee when do you need them by?
I have 2 out of the 3 winners for the costume contest (Joy and Steph), does anyone know the third person? I tried to catch them on the way out but they didn’t hear/see me.
I almost have the initial documents for the board expectations almost done. My plan is to have a bit of a retreat with the new board, hash them out, and get them agreed upon.
As part of the Pride Bands Conference task force, we will need to collect a little bit of data on interest as to why you do or don’t attend conferences, and what you’d like to see at them. A survey will be hitting my inbox that I will forward to the rest of the band as well to gather this info. But if you’d like to have a chat, please let me know and we will set one up!
Christian is finalizing Board member expectation document and is planning on organizing a board retreat. We will be sending out reminder of the annual meeting and canceled chili cook-off to membership.
Treasurer, Nathan
Financial report redacted.
Nothing else to report.
Business Operations, Ian
Gem Theater
The Gem Theater is agreeable in-principle to our proposal to make the Gem our new permanent home.
We will need to schedule a time with them to meet, discuss the specific details, and make sure that we’re all on the same page. That will then have to be followed by official paperwork to formalize the agreement.
The likelihood of all of that occurring before the end of February when the current agreement with the Church expires is low. We will, at some point, need to engage the Church to assess their willingness to let us move forward on a month-to-month agreement until the Gem is finalized.
Recommend that this discussion wait until after we’re able to meet with the Gem in case something doesn’t work out.
Our point of contact at the Gem is out through this week but we can engage next week and find a time.
February Concert Timeline
I’m going to set an art deadline for the February concert of 16 February. We’ve missed the last two print deadlines and called in favors to ask our vendor to scramble and reprioritize us over other work for other clients who submitted their art in a timely fashion. This should not be standard practice as it does not allow for anything to go wrong and we risk our relationship with our vendors. To that end, I need to move the art deadline earlier.
December Concert Metics - 156 Tickets Sold, 140 Attended
Ian will organize the meeting between MAFB representatives and Gem employees.
Kelly, Social Director
We did a group order for Wicked. I have the tickets and will distribute them at the first rehearsal. I’ll contact those individual members to let them know as well. There has been some interest in Fiddler on the Roof in May, and I’ll poll the members to see if they want to include any other shows in the 2022 season. Hamilton will return to KC in March 2023 and I’ve already let our group sales rep know that we will probably do that one again too.
Seven members thus far have expressed interest in the Pride Bands Alliance conference in Chicago in May. I’ll give that a second push once rehearsals resume and then start coordinating with those individuals. My goal is to help coordinate travel times, hotel sharing, and perhaps an outing in Chicago. Amtrak (train) will be the preferred mode of getting there and back.
With the current Omicron rampage, I won’t be encouraging after-band socializing or other casual outings until the current transmission statistics are reduced and members will feel more comfortable. Individual members may make their own suggestions and requests to the group–it just won’t be coming from me as the band’s social chair.
I have a schedule conflict preventing me from attending the board meeting live. Please send me any comments or questions directly.
Nothing else to report.
Jeanine, Librarian
ASCAP report has been submitted for 2021.
Awaiting receipt from ASCAP.
Webmaster, Erin
Board minutes on website updated. Someone mentioned making the board minutes more visible on the website. What does everyone think about adding them under the ‘about us’ dropdown in the navigation or on the ‘leadership’ page?
Erin will correct minutes to state: Financial records for Show Me Pride Ensembles d/b/a Mid America Freedom Band are available upon request by membership or where required by applicable law. For additional information, contact info@freedomband.com.
Committee Reports
Fundraising, Rameka
The timpani campaign is officially closed - we killed it! Total funds raised - $6,958!! This does not include a forthcoming donation and match. I am working on reconciling the timpani expenses, etc. I noticed that we received a match from a donor's employer via the timpani campaign. Do we need to keep this campaign open, if we may have other matches coming in?
Kind of holding on working on new fundraising efforts to see what’s up with omicron. I want to do a live event!!!!
Corporate matches will come via check and be credited in the flip cause back end.
Marketing, Grace
Grace and Lee will work on some upcoming concert social media strategy.
Membership, Alex
Nothing to report.
Election, Alex
We had a total of nine nominees, five that accepted and filled out the form, and four interviews were conducted after one person withdrew last minute due to some unexpected conflicts. The four candidates interviewed were Christian Montes, Joy Hope, J.J. Pearse, and Steven Irving. Unfortunately because we only have three spots open, we had to make a tough decision, and the committee recommends that our slate of candidates for election be Christian, J.J., and Steven.
Nothing else to report.
New Business
Slate Vote
Christian made a motion to accept the candidates (Christian Montes, J.J. Pearse, and Steven Irving) as proposed by the Election committee to be voted by slate vote at our following membership meeting.
Grace so Moves
Alex Seconds
The motion to accept the candidates proposed by the election committee to be voted by slate vote will be adopted without objection.
Motion carries.