October 11, 2015 ZA Board Meeting Minutes

October 11, 2015 Zimfest Association Board Meeting Synopsis

Members in Attendance: David Simon, Paul Mataruse, Alex Weeks, Tsitsi Hantuba, Jacqueline Fallon, Dana Moffett, Janis Weeks
Members Absent: Daniel Lockley
Non-voting member in Attendance: Claire Jones

Approval of September 20th Minutes/Synopsis

Approval

Review Modify/Agenda

Add annual review of policies.

Interview and Decision re: Janis Weeks

There are no concerns about having Janis participate in the meeting tonight. Janis is rotating off of the Kutsinhira board and wants to join the ZFA board. She has a draw to this music and has been to Zimbabwe a number of times. Contributions – communicating with college campuses, has some experience with budgeting and tracking financials, loves spreadsheets, and has grant writing experience but it’s not her favorite thing because she does it for her day job. Janis likes the lectures at Zimfest, but how do we get more people attending? No one has concerns and votes to invite her to join. Calling Janis back to invite her to the board. She is delighted and accepts.

Review/Discuss Survey Data

Try a different set up for chairs at the evening concert so dancers aren’t blocking people who are sitting. There would be extra costs if we use the auditorium. Are there any ways that we can give advice for better food choices? Making sure there is rice and meat at each meal for Zimbabweans then they are fine. Army building for a possible ZimDinner for 2016. Membership drive happening twice a year to have a reminder more than once. Claire thinks just once a year but do a better job. What about a band membership category? Bands send in donation for giving to other Zimbabwean organizations. For recruiting board members, have expectations, job description and the time that it would take. A place to jam in the evening that is separate from the mbira party. The article about the late night parties in the Festival Guide written by Petra is the opinion of one person and was not intended to be interpreted as the committee’s rules. Paul states that some of the Zimbabweans felt like it was closing off instruments besides mbira, but Claire’s reaction was that it was the intent of the OC to NOT publish rules for the mbira parties, but instead to ask one person who frequents the parties to write about her vision. Does the location have to be that far away? What about have a loud section in the dorms? Some bands are willing to be the closing band but they shouldn’t have to start late due to others needing a longer sound check. Maybe they need to schedule a sound check ahead of the concert to make for an easier set up during the concert. More communication with concert coordinator could help. Bands need to be courteous to other bands who are also playing. Dry campus-WOU is looking at changing the alcohol policy for 2016. Classes performing on the night stage, teachers know ahead of time to also inform students. Support this to find a way to make it work. What about an mbira party for who can’t stay up past 11p? Lunch performances – good idea, but more advertising and take out lunches. What Zimbabweans should be included on the Zimbabwean panel? Campus was a great campus, but locals didn’t know about it. We did have more participants this year than the past 2 years. Easy driving distance from Portland and Eugene. Expense for a family is high. What can we do to help family attendance costs?

Review WOU Bill (Claire)

Housing – facility charges – dorm lounges for mbira workshops, mbira party, marimba workshop space, $15 a day, $304 was for vendor storage. Was able to get money back from a few people for some of the lost keys, others have not responded. What if we saved those names from year to year? We had 19 nights for those registered for rooms, there is a discrepancy here. WOU number of rooms is off from what we have. Meal number is pretty clear. Unused meal tickets we got a refund from. We got a generous discount for parking, only $200 instead of $800. We did get a 48% discount on the use of the Pacific Room. Don also didn’t list all of the rooms that we used. The housing is the big thing that Claire will follow up on with the WOU housing person.

Financial Report (Tsitsi)

We are still waiting for some numbers to be able to put into expenses. Breaking even this year. If we had not gotten the $2000 grant then we would not have done as well this year. Tsitsi is putting a lot of detail into her spread sheets trying to reconcile numbers. Using this to figure out how to better track our numbers in the future.

Zimfest 2016 Final Location Decision

When are we announcing location and date? August 11-14th. Let’s do it! We want to try to set a location for a year in advance.

Annual Review of Zimfest Association Policies

Defer until next time, Membership drive letter needs to try and go out before Thanksgiving. It was too late in December last year. Use last years and just tweek.

Policies to Make Available to the Public

Defer until next time

Fundraising Brainstorm

Defer until next time

Date of Strategic Planning

December 5th and 6th everyone was available but Jacqueline. It will be time well spent. Potentially Whidbey Island for meeting location.

Extra Items

Name and Contact information for board members up to date. Onboarding and offboarding members. Ask some if they wants to continue staying on for a year.

Next Meeting

November 8th, 6-8pm PST