Meeting Minutes

November 17, 2002 Alumni Council Meeting

Recorded by Stephanie Segal Hartman and Jeffrey Paul Bobrick

In Attendance:
Stephanie Segal Hartman
Jeffrey Paul Bobrick
Noah Landow
Eric Weiss
Bob Solomon
Via Conference call: David Golden and Charlie Ledley

Executive Director’s Opening Comments

Jeffrey: Welcome everyone. Before the meeting officially started Noah, Stephanie and I were informally discussing the database. We are going to save the rest of this discussion for the end of the meeting, in case people have to leave early. This is going to be a problem-solving meeting. It is good to know what the problems are, because then we can begin to solve them.

Several members of the committee have spoken to Mickey and this conversation has allowed David to move forward with scholarship. Eric would you like to begin with the report on the conversation.

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Report on Agreement with Buck’s Rock Camp (part 1)

Eric: Charlie, David and I had a phone conversation with Mickey two weeks ago regarding the interaction of the camp and our organization. We discussed how scholarship candidates would be picked and Mickey shared with us the standards the camp uses so that we can set our standards similarly. Mickey, like this organization, wants to be sure that the candidate will fit into the Buck’s Rock environment.

We discussed the financial arrangement and the cost of sending an adolescent to camp. The numbers discussed and agreed upon were based on the amount of time the scholarship recipient was at camp (1 or 2 months), and if the camp is holding a spot for us that would otherwise be filled.

Additionally, Mickey gave us information on the average amount a camper spends in the canteen and in project fees so that we could be sure to take this into consideration.

Finally, we discussed recruitment of volunteers. We as an organization are of course free to recruit volunteers who are post the CIT level. At the CIT level, only people with whom we have a personal connection can we recruit to volunteer. Mickey is not comfortable with us recruiting the CIT as a mass group.

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Scholarship Report

David: Most importantly, we need to find candidates who will take advantage of what Buck’s Rock has to offer.

We had a Scholarship Committee meeting a few weeks ago and discussed a few options for how we will find and select Scholarship Program applicants.

My recommendation following this meeting is that, at least in our first few years of offering scholarships, we partner with a New York City based organization. I think we will be best served at this point by partnering with 1 or 2 arts organizations that work closely with the kids in their programs. These organizations know their kids’ maturity, level of independence and artistic interest.

We would have kids nominated by the organization, go through our selection process and then we would place then in the main applicant pool of the camp for review.

Last week we had a fiscal planning meeting (Bob, Charlie, David, Jeffrey and Stephanie participated). We reviewed our current finances, talked about what we can save and possible future endowment.

The goal is to send one child this summer and to continue with 1-2 scholarship over the next few years. This way we will be able to build enough funds to expand the number of scholarships offered.

Additionally, since we would like to offer the scholarships for two consecutive years to all recipients. We have to save enough funds after the summer for full tuition, because a vacant spot one summer could be full the next, so we have to prepare for that scenario.

Eric: What groups specifically are you think of partnering with?

David: I have two programs in mind that are after school arts education programs for schools in which the arts have been cut: Arts Connection and Studio in School.

Noah: What is the role of the partnering organization?

David: It is intended to be identification and selection of candidates, but my hope is that additionally they can help with transitional support.

Jeffrey: Can we vote on whether or not to move forward with the partnership model David has described? All in favor.

Group: Yes.

Stephanie: Do we have an application?

David: We will sit down with the organization and discuss with them our criteria.

Stephanie: Once we have partnered do we have something to hand to candidates to fill out, so that we can stay on a timeline? If the recipient is going into the general pool, when would we have to make our selection?

David: No we don’t have anything in place, but the selection should take place by the end of February to be in time for the camp application process in March.

Jeffrey: Thank you David. Charlie, do you have anything more you would like to comment on regarding the conversation with Mickey?

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Report on Agreement with Buck’s Rock Camp (part 2)

Charlie: Eric covered most of it. We still need to be clear with Mickey concerning member recruitment, so that we don’t over step our bounds. Mickey did very generously offer to place information in one of his mailing if we would like. We certainly should think about this and take him up on this generous offer when the time is right.

Jeffrey: So, Charlie you will follow-up with him to clarify the CIT issue and also to get a clear idea of Mickey’s position regarding large donors. Is it the same, if we know them, we may approach them and if not, we should discuss with him?

Charlie: Yes, I will speak to him again regarding these issues. I believe though you are correct. If we know them okay, if not a cold call would not be the way to go and we would need to go through someone else.

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Publicity Report

Jeffrey: Great. Alex couldn’t be here, but his letter is ready to go out. It is a general information letter with a call for some specific volunteers. Hopefully we will get a response to get some grant writers from it.

Additionally, in regard to potential big donors, perhaps we can get Marc Ritcher to help on this project since he is familiar with a lot of campers and their parents.

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Legal Report

Eric: Nothing to report all is well.

Stephanie: Did we solve the fiscal year question?

Bob/Eric: we keep the calendar year as our fiscal year since that is what is on our application to the IRS.

Jeffrey: Stephanie can you look at the by-laws to see if this affects our voting on executive committee positions?

Stephanie: Yes.

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Financial Report

Bob: We need money. Our expenses are lean, which is good, but we need funds. I anticipate having the non-profit mailing status in time for the mailing, this will save us a lot as long as we are mailing several hundred letters.

Noah: Let me know the guideline for setting up the labels ahead of time, so it will make sorting easier.

Bob: sure.

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Newsletter Report

Jeffrey: I will report for Jackie on the newsletter. Jackie plans to have a newsletter ready by December. This will be the Winter/Spring edition.

After the conversation with Mickey took place and he kindly offered for us to have a table at the camp reunion, Stephanie and I spoke and tossed around some ideas.

We talked about a simple newsletter, one page front and back, with the primary article being on the reunion.

The submission deadline is next Thursday and Roger Bailey has agreed to do a comic strip for the newsletter.

Noah: When is the reunion?

Jeffrey: Sunday, Dec. 8th. From Membership, Juliet apologizes for not be able to attend she is celebrating her dad’s 60th birthday. Lew, also was not able to attend, but he did email a report which I will read

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Events Outreach Report

Lew (via e-mail): Here's where I think things stand in the world of outreach...

1) We are observing progress with the web site and as it moves forward we will be able to incorporate the outreach activities features we are currently discussing. At the moment, completing other aspects of the site is a higher priority.

2) The results of the meeting/meetings with Mickey and Laura will help shape some future activities and resource availability.

3) We are hoping to hear from some individuals interested in serving as Decade Captains -- so it is important that Juliet's calls for volunteers get widely circulated and posted. I am anxiously awaiting some calls and e-mails in response to these, so that we can begin to ramp up a contact program, Getting the volunteers for Captains is the critical first step.

4) Feedback regarding the proposed " Activity Sign Up Board" appears largely positive, so I would propose we move ahead with this as soon as Noah indicates he is ready, and we can begin to see real traffic on the website. Stephanie is quite correct in the assumption that we don't want anyone to be able to post activities on the board. Persons wanting to post an activity should forward the request to Outreach and we will oversee what actually goes to the site for posting.

The basic idea is to have something like the old bulletin boards on campus where people used to post request for rides e.g." Wanted : three riders to go to Boston the weekend of Jan 3rd-- share expense and tolls ."

Our version would be an electronic Post-It Note- perhaps like this:

Wanted : 6-8 people to attend tour of Martin Guitar Factory
When : 2nd or 3rd Week of February - Mondays, Tuesdays or Fridays
Where : Nazareth PA -- about 90 minutes from NYC. We can
organize car groups or meet a bus coming from
Port Authority
What's Up : A great factory tour and it's free ! Cool
guitar shop on premises too. Good food
down the block.
How : Contact Lew Frisch ( 1962-1964) for details
lewfrisch@earthlink. net 610-748-9342

Tentatively On Board : we list names of those who
have signed up, updating
every week or so.

Status : Must firm Up by 1/15 /03.
This could be updated with remarks like
" Need 2 more to fill a car" or SIX OF US
WENT ON FEBRUARY 9TH AND IT WAS
GREAT except for the blizzard that
left us stranded in a snow drift.

This gives a general idea of what I had in mind.

We think this would be a really attractive feature for the Web site. I think it would be important to stress that each activity would essentially be run by the person named on the board, usually the person who submitted the request to Outreach.

HOWEVER, we would want that person to communicate to campers and alumni through Outreach as regards the posting, updates to the posting and the final results of the activity. I don't think we want them directly interacting with the bulletin board. We are in one way or another sponsoring these activities, so we do have to maintain a degree of oversight regarding what goes our Web site and how the activities come off.

There was some concern that the initial posting needed to contain a good number of activity notes, and should appear to be active and well organized.... I think Juliet's comment about this is really on target:

"In terms of looking organized--I think we can make it look more enthusiastic than organized and spin it so that it's ok in that way. Just like the camp offering a lot of activities and allowing campers to choose among them--and they're not too concerned when a particular activity isn't popular other than from the pragmatic standpoint of how much they're paying the staff and using other resources--we can provide a forum for offering a lot of activities and allowing or members to participate as little or as much as they desire. at least that's sort of the way I envision it."

So my closing thought is let's all start thinking about activity notes we or our friends might like to post, so that when the Web site gets ready for this, we're set to go. If we can get some Decade Captains then they could also be very useful in spreading the word about the Board. Anyone who can make a useful contribution to working with Noah (when his schedule permits) on the templates/graphics/etc-- the nuts and bolts that we'll tack the information onto -- this would be very much appreciated.

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Web Site Report

Noah: No progress in the past two weeks. A dump from Ian from the central database came in, it contained as much information that was salvageable from the old system – addresses from the past mailing, Ernst memorial list and people who went to the old web site.

I have all directory address and all email addresses from Jeffrey and I am keeping track of the source.

Once that is done, we will need to figure out a way for volunteers to help merge purge the information. If we have volunteers in place we can set up something soon that will allow them to access the system and work on it from his/her computer.

Interim Solution: I will do my best to try and clean up the database for the mailing.

One of the issues raised is what are the categories we want to establish to place names so that we can access difference list for specific purposes. Can we go through and try to establish some target groups?

Group: Executive Committee, Active volunteers, Alumni Council, Events only people, Private (info not to be shared), Donors(members/non-members), Prospective members

Noah: Okay, good. We can expand upon this if necessary. The non-directory components of the new site are up and running. I am concerned with the calendar page and who will maintain it. Jeffrey will take stewardship of the front page. The projects page we will develop in small bits.

Jeffrey/Stephanie: I think the calendar page will come under the Events Outreach domain.

Noah: okay.

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Future Planning

Jeffrey: Future meetings: Executive Committee Tuesday, Dec. 10th, 7 p.m. Eric’s office. Alumni Council meeting Jan, 7th, 7 p.m. Eric’s Office.

Should we look to plan more meetings.

Group: Yes.

Jeffrey: Stephanie can you bring to the January meeting potential dates from now until Camp begins.

Stephanie: Yes.

Meeting adjourned.