NORTHWEST CHORAL SOCIETY
MEETING MINUTES
June 3, 2014
CALL TO ORDER:
The June Board Meeting of the Northwest Choral Society was held at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, 1095 Dempster/Thacker, Des Plaines, IL. The meeting was called to order at 6:10 PM by NWCS Board President Penny Perles. The following board members were present:
Meredith Bechtel Mary Jane Matecki
Greykell Dutton Penny Perles
Kelsey Green John Schindler
David Hitch Diane Szuberla
Noreen LaValle Ruta Veitmanis
Tammi Lothson Robyn Waldman Borek
Also present: Alan Wellman, Artistic Director.
MEETING MINUTES:
Three meeting minutes were reviewed:
The meeting minutes of the April 12th board meeting were reviewed and no corrections were needed. Ruta Veitmanis made a motion to accept the minutes. The motion was seconded by Mary Jane Matecki. The motion passed.
The meeting minutes of the April 29th Annual Meeting of the Whole & Election of Board Members meeting were reviewed and no corrections were needed. Mary Jane made a motion to accept the minutes. The motion was seconded by David Hitch. The motion passed.
The meeting minutes of the May 13th meeting were reviewed and no corrections were needed. Kelsey Green made a motion to accept the minutes. The motion was seconded by Mary Jane. The motion passed.
TREASURER’S REPORT:
Noreen LaValle presented the treasurer’s report for April. Cash disbursements totaled $3,128.05. Cash receipts totaled $2,911.33. Our regular account balance was $7,513.37. Including the J. Melcher Memorial Fund and petty cash, our final total was $10,565.37. Cash deposits were made to two of our venues for the next concert season. Mary Jane made a motion to accept the treasurer’s report. Kelsey seconded the motion. The motion passed.
Noreen also presented the treasurer’s report for May. Cash disbursements totaled $10,420.90. Cash receipts totaled $5,373.79. Our regular account balance was $2,466.26. Including the J. Melcher Memorial Fund and petty cash, our final total was $5,518.26. Ruta made a motion to accept the treasurer’s report. Robyn Waldman Borek seconded the motion. The motion passed.
CORRESPONDING SECRETARY’S REPORT:
Mary Jane will be sending out thank you letters for our May concert.
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:
Alan Wellman reported that he had not yet heard back from the JRC regarding our Annalise concert next spring. We would like to hold our concert there and invite their choir to join us. David Hitch will stop by there and try to talk to someone.
ADVERTISING COMMITTEE:
Kelsey will do more advertising on Facebook. She will also list the audition dates and information. A suggestion was made to occasionally feature a chorus member on Facebook.
DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE:
Tammi Lothson suggested we use community bulletin boards in places such as Starbucks to advertise our auditions. Robyn also suggested doing this in schools which have music programs, such as Harper. Penny answered that we have tried these techniques before. She always encourages members to post posters and other information in their churches and other places that they think may be appropriate.
David is working on the letter that we will send to the members of our mailing list. We will emphasize our 50th anniversary in the 2015-2016 season.
Tammi, Robyn and David will work on applying for more grant money.
MEMBERSHIP COMMITTEE:
Greykell Dutton will continue tracking all inquiries about our group during the summer. She will send out information as needed.
PUBLICITY:
Alan suggested that we send out a press release advertising our Minneapolis/St. Paul trip.
Several suggestions were made to reevaluate how we publicize our group and concerts. The traditional newspapers are not enough. We need to make more use of all the possibilities on the internet. If there is an on-line version to a newspaper, we already advertise there.
Meredith Bechtel brought in a sample advertisement from a choral group she used to belong to.
PROMOTIONS:
Diane Szuberla submitted the ticket sales report for our May 10th concert.
◦ We received $3,612.00 in ticket sales. 187-198 people attended (all tickets have not yet been returned). Both the money and the attendance numbers are the lowest for a spring concert in 4 years.
◦ 42 members sold 183 tickets, 98 of these by the top 11 selling members.
◦ 39 tickets sold at the door.
Diane also submitted the ticket sales report for the 2013-2014 concert season.
◦ We had only 2 concerts this season – December and May.
◦ We received a total of $8,027.00 in ticket sales. We had budgeted to receive $11,500.00, so we had a budget deficit of $3,527.00.
◦ Our total audience attendance was 164 adults and 223 seniors/students, plus 36 gift tickets and 6 tickets to helpers. (Unmarked tickets were split between seniors and adults). Gift tickets were sent to donors as a thank you.
WEBSITE COMMITTEE:
We have received a proposal from Doug Buchan of Buchan Consulting LLC to create our new website. The Joomla platform will be used. It is the most user-friendly content management system. Once created, we would control the website. Several board members would be trained. Doug would continue to help if the need arises. He is giving us a discounted rate of $500.00.
The website committee will meet with Doug in person to discuss the details. If they are pleased with his answers, then the committee is asking permission to hire him. John Schindler made a motion to allow the website committee to hire Doug Buchan to create our new website if they are satisfied with the answers to their questions. Tammi seconded the motion. By voice vote of ‘aye’ from the members present, the motion passed. There were no ‘nay’ votes.
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL CHOIR TOUR:
The bus will be picking us up and dropping us off at St. Raymond’s church in Mount Prospect. Mary Jane needs to know how many people will be leaving their cars in the church parking lot.
50th ANNIVERSARY COMMITTEE:
The committee members are Barbara Stewart, John Morrison, Noreen LaValle, Joan Behrens, Ray Beth Egan, Penny Perles and Ann Jensen.
OLD BUSINESS:
We will send out press releases for our summer events:
◦ Auditions on June 17th, July 15th and August 19th.
◦ Meet & Greet on August 26th.
◦ First rehearsal on September 2nd.
Several chorus members have asked if we could have business cards for our group. Anyone interested is welcome to work on this project. Vistaprint could do this at a reasonable price.
With the new website and our upcoming 50th anniversary, this would be an ideal time to also change the name of our group. How best to do this? One suggestion is to do this as a c
ontest and ask audience members for names. We could start with this December’s concert and continue until December 2015. Then we could announce the name at our anniversary concert in the spring of 2016. Alan suggested that we do not use any geographic terms in our name. This has a limiting impression of the group.
We will sing at Grace Episcopal Church, Oak Park, on June 22nd.
NEW BUSINESS:
We would like a volunteer to work on scholarships for our group. This was one of our goals from last summer.
The budget, handbook revisions/updates and new goals will be worked on this summer.
Alan outlined possible plans for our anniversary concert season. The December concert would have the traditional holiday music. For our spring concert he would like to do Carmina Burana. Then for the June concert we could do our favorite music from previous concerts. We could even do a survey and ask audience members for their suggestions.
NEXT MEETING:
Our next Board Meeting will be a retreat on Saturday, August 16th, 9:00 AM, possibly at Greykell’s home.
ADJOURNMENT:
The Board Meeting was adjourned at 6:57 PM by a motion from Noreen and a second from Alan. The motion passed.
Ruta Veitmanis
Recording Secretary
Northwest Choral Society