March 20, 2017 - meeting notes

Chicks on Sticks

March 20^th, 2017

Attendance: Sarah, Laurel, Soozin, Angie, Sharon, Nicole, Tara, Gaea
Absent: Anne, Deb

Notes: Gaea & Laurel

Policies

Deb and Anne are coming back as voting members.  Woo hoo!

At the May meeting, we  will finalize dates for a follow up retreat with Laura as facilitator.  We will bring open issues to that meeting and decide on retreat times, but agenda will be set in September.

We approve up to $100 for a financial management program for CoS, and anything more goes through an email vote. 

Motion for Angie to applied on behalf of CoS for $500 for Greenway Glow to perform as glowing Stilters from 9-11 pm.

Promises

Soozin – Buy business cards

Sarah – Letter to all of membership

Soozin – Evaluation of retreat (please send her questions)

Sharon – Pay taxes

Sharon – Identify a financial management too.

Gaea – Finish google doc

Soozin: Shall we approve the Annual meeting notes?  And maybe look at the retreat notes, too?

Sarah: Copies of all notes.  I did a great job of bringing notes, let’s approve them.

Tara: Second that.

Passed Acceptance of Annual Meeting notes

Moving retreat notes to next meeting, so everyone can look them over.

Soozin: Next is to approve the agenda.  Anything need adding?

Sharon: Add Deb and Anne to voting members. 

Angie: Add time for Mayday Valkyries.  Maybe 5 minutes.

Soozin: This feels long, how and where can we put things to make this work?

Move Laura item up, move Deb and Anne as voting member to front, Add 5 minutes to Valkyries/Mayday.

Soozin: Next thing, start Deb and Anne as members for next meeting.

Sarah: We’d love to have them!

Angie: I move to bring them as members. 

Tara: Second.

PASS

Soozin: Next up is promises.

Gaea: updated info available on spreadsheet.

Soozin: We can order business cards tonight.  Any strong opinions about colors?

Tara: I like the blue over the yellow.

General discussion of color.

Sarah: Can we pull this up at break so we can all see?

Soozin: How many are we ordering?  200?

Angie: Is that going to be enough?

Sarah: That’s about 20 per stilter. 

Angie: That seems low. 

Sarah: We can share.  Or order more.

Angie: Sounds good.

Sarah: Another question, I thought we were going to not use Mayday costumes.

Angie: Those were CoS designed costumes, not section designed costumes.

Tara: And they are being used elsewhere as CoS costumes. 

Pause for fingers

Sarah: Note about Payment Schedule Development, do we remember what this is?

Tara: Possibly a pre-retreat conversation, that got rolled into the retreat stuff.

General agreement to let it go.

Sarah: Next up is insurance.

Gaea: I’m getting no luck.  I’ll keep trying.

Angie: Make sure you contact that agent specifically.

Gaea: Will try again.

Soozin: Next: Note to Laura.

Tara: I sent a note, but it would be nice to do a card with some of the quotes from the notes.

Soozin: I have a card with a silt walker from Mayday.

All to Sign card.

Soozin: Next is letter to CoS membership. 

Gaea: I talked/emailed with Amy, Anne and Deb, very briefly.  I didn’t write a letter.  Anne would like more time to pick someone’s brain, offered to buy a beer.

Soozin: Maybe it makes sense to do this anyway and reach out to Kat, Shelley, Malia, Tonya.

Gaea: If there is going to be more than the conversations I had, I need to pass.  I can’t do that and grad school.

Soozin: Any takers?

Laurel: What would that entail?

Sarah: I will recap the annual meeting and retreat notes in a small digestible form and send it out to everyone.  If folks want to talk more, I’m happy to go out for beers.

Soozin: I’m supposed to evaluate the retreat.  I forgot I was supposed to do that.  Can people send me questions about this?

Tara: Maybe, most valuable, not valuable. 

Soozin: Will send out Monkey poll.

Soozin: Next, note management.

Gaea: I apologize for how late the notes were.  It was ten hours of work and I still missed things.  I wasn’t expecting that time commitment. 

Sharon: Good to note for future, if we have a retreat that’s a major piece.

Sarah: Also the google doc is basically the same thing.

Sarah: All the promises!

Soozin: Follow up session with Laura?

Tara: This is from the retreat session.  We talked about doing another retreat session with Laura as a follow up.

Soozin: Do we want to set a summer retreat?

Angie/Gaea/Sarah: Not summer.  Fall.

Sharon: Is there a meeting we want set for the deadline to decide about when to have her back and why?

Sarah: I already vote to have her back.  I think we should have a moderator to check in with what have we done, where are we stuck, etc?

Tara: And to check on any stumbling blocks.

Soozin: So, proposal:

At the May meeting, we will set dates to do a follow up time in November, with Laura as facilitator. 

Angie: Can it be later in the fall?

Sarah: Tara, can you ask Laura her times?

Conversation about dates:

Second, third or fourth weekend in November.

Tara: I will contact Laura about that time.

Modified proposal:

At the May meeting, we will finalize dates for a follow up retreat with Laura as facilitator.  In addition we will set times and agenda.

Laurel: I feel like we may want to wait to finalize the agenda, because things might come up over the summer.

Sharon: So maybe this brings up the issues we can see, but doesn’t set the agenda.

Soozin: We can set the agenda in September.

Modified proposal:

At the May meeting, we will finalize dates for a follow up retreat with Laura as facilitator.  We will bring open issues to that meeting and decide on retreat times, but agenda will be set in September.

PASSED

Soozin: Policy Updates

See agenda.

These things have been voted and approved.  This is mostly a reminder.

Soozin: Financial report.

Sharon: We have money.  Something like $3,758.  Taxes aren’t done.  They will probably be done next weekend.  There was a slight glitch because I didn’t see the renewal for the state nonprofit status.  I’m working on fixing that, but the website has not been cooperative.  I’ll keep working on it, but I might just have to call them.  It might cost $90, or it might be free. 

Also a thing about Mint.  It is not what I was hoping it was going to be.  I would like a different program, but we might have to buy it.

Soozin: Like Quickbooks?

Sharon: No, nothing that complex.  Something like MS Money.  I need certain reports, and Mint just imports the bank statement.  I need something to check the statement against.  And I’m doing all the taxes by hand.

Soozin: What do you mean?

Sharon: Before, I would go in a put in a name and see everything that person has made.  Mint does that, but not the way that it should.  And I still need to do adding and subtracting by hand.

Soozin; So are you saying can Mint?

Sharon: No, Mint creates transparency without being linked to the bank account.

Tara: So do we need to get a new program?

Sharon: I was just starting to look into programs, but don’t have any solutions.

Soozin: I would propose that we set a budget and let you find something that works.

Angie: Propsal

Propose that we spend up to $100 on a money management program for Chicks on Sticks.

Addendum:

We approve up to $100 for a financial management program for CoS, and anything more goes through an email vote. 

PASSED.

Soozin: Next, Greenway Glow.

Angie: I would like to submit the same thing I submitted last year.  The performance is July 29^th.  Which is probably the same weekend as Dumpster Duels.

I would submit the proposal for $500, though last year and the year before we got $250.  We would ask for 9-11pm, so we get the earliest two dark hours.

Sarah: I think it sounds perfect.  I move that we approve that submittal.

Motion for Angie to applied on behalf of CoS for $500 for Greenway Glow to perform as glowing Stilters from 9-11 pm.

PASSED

--- 10 MINUTE BREAK ---

Soozin: Subcommittee report. 

Sarah: Carrot and Stick.  Four copies of report.  Here’s a brief summation.

We reviewed what we thought good standing would be.  To do that, we took the roles and added up the hours and divided it among the number of people (give or take) and landed at 2 hours per month + 2 hours pro bono per year.  In addition, each person would take on a role within Chicks.

Then there are also possible sticks and possible carrots.  I think we should add the carrots immediately, but wait six months to add the sticks so people can start working on their new time commitments.

Any questions?

Angie: What is C?

Sarah: Oh, right.  That is that the roles have an initial time, like a set up time, vs the maintenance time. 

Soozin: So, does that count initial in that 2 hours?

Sharon: I added up the ongoing cost, not the initial set up.  The on going work is going to be about 2 hours per month, but to get to that point, we’re going to need to do some hard work straight up. 

Soozin: Here at the co-op, we have roles that do certain amounts of work.  Then all those hours get tracked, so we know how much time it takes to maintain the co-op.

Sarah: I feel like what makes sense in this case, we’re ambitious in the first year.  This first year is going to take a lot of work, and those set up hours count as part of the hours, but once that’s done, this could be used going forward.

Sharon: This is a set up year.  We’ll be doing 2 hours/month anyway.

Tara: How are we going to track this?  At each meeting do we report back?

Soozin: At the Co-op we do this on shore sheets.

Laurel: Could we do this on a google doc.

Tara: If this is part of the meeting, it just becomes part of the meeting.

Angie: Clarification, are choreo and costumer are different things?

Laurel: Yes.  They are different, and maybe a committee.

Sarah: This is supposed to be self-reporting.  Or maybe we don’t even need to have reporting, because we’re all adults and if there is an issue, we step in.

Sharon: We should maybe take in all this info and then meet again.

Tara: I would like to know how much it takes to run the organization. 

Soozin: I can bring the co-op chore sheet.

Laurel: The chores are going to be different, but the concept can be the same.  That would also be useful for people who want to take the role on later.

Sarah: What’s next?

Sharon: What happened with the gig coordinator?  Did something get taken out of context?

Soozin: I didn’t have time to type stuff up, so Deb did type stuff up which was based on how she has been doing things.  It is pretty much the same to how Anne and I are doing things.  Things that we were trying to clarify include how people are chosen for gigs.

Sharon: By May we’re going to be into the season, so we need to get everyone on the same page sooner than that.

Soozin: I think it needs to be a larger conversation, because this is a significant policy conversation. 

Gaea: I think this is at least partly because of a line in the retreat notes.  I tried to clarify in the email I sent out.

Angie: I think that was meant to be a question, but the notes made it sound like a statement.

Sharon: So, we think it was a point of discussion, not a policy and it has been poorly communicated.

LOTS OF DISCUSSION: Summary:

We want people to be involved at whatever level they want to be involved.  We are excited to have Anne and Deb come to meetings.  We need to have a larger conversation about what discretion and first come/first serve look like.  This is something we should be working on as a group, with guidance from the current coordinators.

Onwards to project proposals:

Tara: We raised more questions than answers.  We need to meet more.

Angie: Can we read through this in the notes?

Tara: We were talking about consultation with costumer/choreographers and inserting that into project proposals. 

Angie: We talked details of time.  How long does it take to do a ten minutes dance, and to teach a ten minutes dance?  Then how do we pay ourselves for that time.

Tara: This is more guidance to coordinators, not an effort to constrain what we are proposing.

Roles:

Sarah: We met and did things.  The notes are in email and running around on the table here. 

Angie: Can we split out the visual of choreo and costumer?  This is a bit confusing.

Gaea: Yes.  Also, the treasurer role needs to be fleshed out in conversation with Sharon.

Sarah: I’ll send out an email on this as well, but please everyone read the member in good standing and respond with comments.  I’m really excited about the carrots and I want to see how that goes.

Soozin: I started looking at the stick and what happens if you get hurt?

Gaea: We’re a group of 10 people.  We can be sympathetic and understanding with each other.

Sarah: I think we talked about this at the reatreat, but that’s also part of the feedback to do in the email.  Also, I’m excited about swag.

Sarah: Back in roles, I’m a big fan of having a chair person for three meetings in a row.  It allows someone to get more experience and build on things they learned the meeting before.

Sharon: It seems like there are some roles that take a lot of time and some that take only a little bit of time.  Maybe there can be a lead and an assistant.

Gaea: Or maybe people take on more than one role, because there are a lot here.

Soozin: At the co-op, there are heavy hitting committees that you have to be part of, then lighter stuff that you also do as needed or as you like.

Set everything for Moo cards. goooooo!

Carrot & stick
 Tara: Perhaps we could check in at each meeting...
coordinator subcommittee meeting - didn’t happen - people were too busy. - Will be a group discussion at the May meeting.

MAY DAY

Valkyries for Mayday: Anne?


Sarah: Anne thinks Valkyries in the parade would be cool.

Angie: Gustavo is working on the Sanctuary section. - see picture. Nest out of white fabric with windows and doors for birds to go in and out of.

Nicole: I work with the Phillips Project and you are welcome to join them. Renegade idea.

Angie: Jakob, Gracie, & Mary. Gracie said skirts are a sign of a connection between the sun and the earth. Not a sign of submission. - vortex look. bottom part - indigenous from all around the world. Challenge to us is not having it be only white women doing this. Challenge: are we able to find non white women to stilt with us in this? It would be great if some of the best Philips kids (maybe also Little Earth). 

Soozin: If young men want to stilt, where can they stilt?


Angie: they could be in the sanctuary section.

Soozin: backpack costumes are for advanced stilters not beginning stilters.
 

Nicole: Jacob made these beautiful wings last year. 


Angie: If anyone is personally interested in these,


Nicole: I’ll know after 4pm tomorrow what’s going on with Phillips and let you know. 

Sarah: Alex who learned to stilt last year is Hungarian and might really love the Valkyrie idea.

Angie: Looking for people who are interested in this may help us


--- NEXT MEETING ---

Next Meeting: May 15


• Agenda: Sharon

• Notes: Sarah

• 
Location: Soozin’s home (maybe backyard)

• Chair: Soozin

Meeting end! 9:00pm.