Minutes from 3-5-2011

SMCT Board Meeting Minutes   March 5, 2011

Eddy Building

Present:  Cassi & Russ Ducharme, Artie Robillard, Bob Hollis, Carol Mauro, Chris Brostrup-Jensen, Kaila Rubin

Laurie Murphy has resigned as the Creative Director but will still be the Youth  Representative Mentor.  The Board is able to appoint someone to fill the position through the annual Membership meeting or end of term.  Cassi D. has expressed interest & is ready to move into this position.  Board voted to appoint Cassi until annual
meeting when a general vote can be taken.
Liz DuBois has been acting as the assistant Creative Director & will continue in this role.   Cassi will coordinate efforts with Liz & work to create an organized structure for mentoring the position.  Cassi already has ideas for the position.

Rehearsal space –

All use of the Paine school is closed for 6 months (through Sept.).

Ponaganset
– We asked for a waiver from payments to use their space, but haven’t heard back.  A room for rehearsal is $40/night,
Stage to rehearse is $100/night, & stage for performances is $200/night.

Coventry,
RI – Former Middle school located on Flat River Rd in Western Coventry is available almost anytime.  No charge or limited charge is expected, but not yet confirmed (Bob H. to meet with Town Official).  Has stadium seating & might even be available for a long-term lease.   Have to have a 10 year lease on a space to get specific grant money for site work.  Show is scheduled for the end of April & rehearsals could start there in April.  Currently using Woody Lowden on Tues from 7:30 – 10 PM for choreography rehearsals as Audra Hebert comes down from Putnam.  Use North Foster Baptist Church on Thursday & collect money for use of space each rehearsal.  We should offer free tickets to Social Services in Coventry, perhaps in lieu of payments for the space.  There may be some people who will not be able to make the move to this new location.
Voted to use Coventry space for Footloose & see how things go.  Will need to revisit for other performances.  Could Mr. Toad be done totally on the Foster Fairgrounds?
Perhaps rent a tent?  Would need to rent portable toilets & may need to have someone sleep there each night that the set is on site.  Potential for fire hazard?  Chris will talk to Brian.

*Info above has changed since the actual meeting & costs for the old Middle school prevented the move.
Now plan to use the Coventry Senior Center,            50 Woods St., Coventry, RI  for Footloose!

Organizational
Structure Meeting- Cassi D. chaired the meeting on 2/19.  *Minutes of this meeting are attached separately.  Some important considerations include getting the contact info. on the Website so people know who to get in touch with when they have an interest or concern to express.  Should assign email addresses that will follow the individual assigned to the position, such as
President@swampmeadow.org .  Should clarify who does what as part of each position (president runs the meetings, for instance) & what should be covered in each meeting.  Example given of Footloose production meetings to discuss details of the individual show vs. Board level discussion when there is an issue with a show or shows that is more general.   A specific discussion of Organizational Structure will be scheduled for another time.
Email Cassi with any ideas or interest you have.  cducharme82@gmail.com

Full Season Playbill – Carol M, Mary Jo & Dennis Chretien are currently involved with this.  They are experimenting with what would work & a proto-type setting for Footloose is expected.  Official start would not be until the Summer play.  There is a meeting planned in mid-May (after Footloose is over) to get all the details worked out & Artie R. is asked to be involved.   Chris B-J
hopes to be out of the country through most of May.  Bob will work on getting this together & setting a date for the meeting.

Grant Writing –  Several under way.  Should hear in May from the Scituate Arts Festival, expect to receive $1000 from CAST, RISCA has a 4/1 & a 10/1 deadline,  others are on-going.

Personnel Issues – There needs to be a Policy on complaints against individuals & how we will handle these situations.  People don’t always get along or respect boundaries.
Do we handle it at a member-level or Board-level?  Bob is working on a current issue & will report the results at the next meeting.
Box Office –  Looking at shared lines & different services (Line2 vs. Google Voice) & costs from free to $15/month).  For Footloose, no change will be made.  Trying  to work on something that is available wherever we’re located & doesn’t rely on one person to monitor it.  May be good to have someone on-call on Production nights.  L2 is an iPhone application & Google Voice is on Internet.
If we buy one cell phone it may not solve the general issue.  The Box Office should travel with the event.  Can we use the Website until we have a specific phone number?  What is the Universality of either service?  Landline available at many sites, but what is our access?

SMCT Fiscal year starts June 1st each year & the Summer Children’s production is generally the start of the season.  Would like to offer Publicity  packages such as an annual fee to advertise in our Playbill & maybe sell Season tickets.      *We want as many people as possible to attend the annual meeting in June.  What day of the week is better?  An evening after work or a weekend during the
day?

Should we place a monthly ad in the Foster Home Journal with a blurb about visiting the www.swampmeadow.org website for up to date info, or promoting upcoming events?
Articles are free, but not everyone reads them.  Ads cost about $50/month, but this would come out of the Admin budget, not the specific event budget.   Ads must be into FHJ by the 19th of the
month.

Reminder to get any info for Publicity written up as completely as possible & sent to Artie for publication, Eric or Andy for the Website, Cassi for Facebook
& Kaila for email.

School is expected to go until June 24th due to many snow days.  Artie needs Brian to get him the dates for the Mr. Toad auditions.

Events meeting scheduled for March 13 @ 3 PM at Mary Jo’s house.  Topics will include the Golf Tournament, Calendar Raffle, Karaoke, Follies, Dinner Theater & any other suggestions.
Creative Director meeting is scheduled on March 14 @ 7PM @ Trinity Church in Scituate.  Cassi will review current productions & check  their status towards completion: Footloose & Mr. Toad are good.  Dinner Theater (Dr. Horrible) for Sept. 24/25?  Romeo & Juliet for the fall 2011 production.  Still want to try & get rights & a time for Christmas Story & Jesus Christ Superstar
(asap).

Need someone to run the Box Office & Website Store.

Next Meeting is for Officers on April 11th @ 7 PM at Bob & Carol’s house.