July 13, 2014 Zimfest Association Meeting Minutes Synopsis
Members in attendance: Jacqueline Fallon, Tsitsi Hantuba, Paul Mataruse, Dana Moffett, Amy Robinson, David Simon, Alex Weeks
Nonvoting member in attendance: Claire Jones
Members absent: Jennifer Kyker
1) Review of June Meeting minutes and synopsis—approved.
2) Festival planning update—Claire–fewer people have signed up for accommodations this year than last year. Workshop registrations are lower as well.
Claire posed the question, would attendance be better if it was held in Oregon?
Concert numbers so far are a little low —Jeff Brahe and Claire are working on a number of publicity actions.
Festival updates have been going out from time to time.
Bongo Love agreed to take the Saturday evening concert slot. Guy Tauscher facilitated their travel.
Various arrangements with UPS continue. The festival guide is almost ready. Alex and Claire are addressing the details of registration.
Paul will be working on the certificates of appreciation.
People will not be able to drop workshops after July 18.
The board is confident that the organizing committee has been making good decisions to date and will continue to do so as issues arise. We are very appreciative of the hard work of the committee.
3) Budget—Tsitisi will continue to work with Claire on this. Some actual costs will be higher than budgeted with respect to concert production.
4) Cash management—David—there was a meeting to address this after the last board meeting. This is a complex job that requires entrusting individuals with large amounts of money.
This was loaded into the Financials section of the Organizing Committee folder in Google Drive.
5) Zimfest agenda—Meeting times have been established for the discussion of items for the Village Meeting. David reviewed the proposed agenda topics and will send it to the board.
Zimfest 2015 and beyond—David finds it concerning that enrollment seems to be dropping. Should we raise this with membership at the Village Meeting? We will discuss this as a board after the meeting. Alex suggests that there may not be the same excitement now as in the past by local communities to host the festival. David suggests we need to pose the question, “Do we need to contract in order to sustain the festival?” We had aspired to grow and become more professional as of the board retreat.
6) 2015 site and semi-permanent home—Marian G. had researched PSU. Willamette University in Salem has been researched. Seattle University might also be an option.
Alex would like to see whether OSU has any availability for next year and notes that, so far, it does not seem like UPS is significantly invested in our success. Claire feels that we will do better in a community where Zimbabwean music is already popular.
7) Next board meeting, August 8, 6 pm PST; thereafter, we will resume the meetings on the second Sunday of the month.
