Now that the last show of the 2024 Season is done and was a huge success we want to celebrate all of our volunteers! If you have volunteered with BFACT in the past, come join us for our 2024 Volunteer Appreciation event this Saturday at Grap’s Backroom from 3 – 7pm. All of our volunteers and their families are invited for a night of great food, drinks, games, and fun! See you at Grap’s on Saturday!
Today is #GivingTuesday and we are excited to share some testimonials from our amazing volunteers as well as a few fun announcements for 2024 and beyond!
So what is #GivingTuesday anyway? It’s a day that Nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations unite to celebrate generosity, you will see several other nonprofits in the state as well as some of our fellow local community theaters celebrating today. It’s a chance for us to talk to our volunteers, patrons, and everyone else in the area and it is a chance for you, if you feel so inclined, to donate to the mission of Belle Fourche Area Community Theater.
All of the money raised today, and any other time, goes right back into BFACT. It costs a lot of money to keep an organization like ours going. To put on a show we have to pay for licensing for the show and for some larger musicals we are talking in the thousands, scripts have to be purchased, the facility has to be rented, costumes have to be rented or purchased, props have to be made, and sets have to be built. Beyond that we have administration costs, office supplies, marketing supplies, the salary of our Executive Director, and more. We are lucky enough to be doing good financially due to our awesome patrons and volunteers, but for us to continue our mission we are constantly keeping an eye on the bank account.
That’s where you come in. There are many ways you can get involved and help BFACT, but on #GivingTuesday we are talking specifically about donations. There are many ways to give, you can mail us cash or a check or give it to our Executive Director or Board Member. You can also donate online through PayPal or Venmo. You can find all of that information on our website.
Every little bit helps and if you are able to donate today, just know that we will use that money wisely and it will be used for more productions, workshops, and other important expenses. Keep checking back all day on our Facebook and Instagram accounts to learn more about us as an organization and some announcements!
Tickets are now on sale for the last show of BFACT’s 2024 Season, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: The Musical. You won’t want to miss out on this heartwarming and hilarious show about the rough around the edges Herdmans and why shouldn’t always judge a book by the cover.
Also enjoy our holiday themed free-will donation bake sale as well as a silent auction that will end during the Sunday matinee full of amazing local offerings!
We had such a good time back in March with our show Break a Leg: A Night of One-Acts we want to share with everyone who wasn’t able to make it. Two of the one-acts, Those Tasty Tulips and My Date with the Hitwoman are now available through our website and YouTube page right now! Enjoy these hilarious shows with such talented casts and share them with your friends!
Come audition for BFACT’s next show, the family musical The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: The Musical! Auditions will be held on October 22 and 24 at 7pm in the Rec Center Auditorium. We will be doing cold reads from the script and our musical director will teach two songs, “Hey Mrs. Bradley!” and “Baskets For the Needy,” that you will audition with. This show is open to all ages with parts for kids as well as adults. You can listen to the show songs by visiting the link below. If you have any questions, or are unable to make the audition date but still want to audition, feel free to message [email protected] or call 605.645.3255 to set up an alternative time.
There will be a practice on October 28 at 7pm in the Belle Fourche Rec Center Auditorium for everyone cast so they can receive scripts and schedules. Practices will be 3 days a week until closer to the show. The show itself will be on December 13 – 15.
We can’t wait for opening night of Getting Our Acts Together: A Night of Northern Hills One-Acts this coming Thursday at 7pm at the BF Rec Center Auditorium. You have only one chance to catch this unique show in Belle Fourche! Come enjoy a night of one-acts by four local community theaters, you won’t be disappointed! BFACT will be presenting the comedic one-act by local author Stephanie Bussiere, Charlie’s Masterpiece, the story of taking inspiration anywhere you can get it!
Tickets are available at the door or online through our website right now by clicking here!
If you aren’t able to make the performance in Belle Fourche, you will still have a chance to see it in Lead on Friday, Sturgis on Saturday or a Sunday Matinee in Spearfish!
Tickets are now on sale for BFACT’s performance of GOAT 2024! The show will be held in the Belle Fourche Rec Center on October 10 at 7pm. Tickets can be purchased online or at the door.
Getting Our Acts Together consists of four one-acts: one by the Historic Homestake Opera House from Lead; one by the Matthews Opera House in Spearfish; one by the Sturgis Community Theater; one by Belle Fourche Area Community Theater. Each night will be held in a different location, so each theater group gets a chance to perform in a new space and give that community a chance to see a show by other local theater groups.
For more information on the show itself, click here or purchase your tickets online today.
7:00 PM
Grap’s Wine Room
Come audition for BFACT’s next show, a night one-acts with other local theaters! Auditions will be held on September 13 at 6 – 8pm and September 14 at 4 – 6pm in the Rec Center Auditorium. You don’t need to bring anything for auditions, just yourself. If you have any questions, or are unable to make the audition date but still want to audition, feel free to message [email protected] or call 605.645.3255 to set up an alternative time.
7:00 PM
Grap’s Wine Room
President Nathan S
Nathan S, Nathan T, Kelsey, Heather, Sharon, Mike, Al, Derek
Motion to approve: Kelsey, Second Mike, unanimous passage
I have started doing some research on a CRM for use at BFACT. Kelsey had sent me a platform but it was more just directly related to fundraising, which could be useful but I think we want something broader that can handle fundraising and volunteer tracking. In doing some more research I found two different options. Neon CRM and Signup.com. Neon costs around $99 a month and Signup is free for most features. Neon is much more robust and would cover Volunteers and Fundraising, it is also an addon to Arts People, while Signup seems to be more just about contacting volunteers and volunteer lists. I will be doing some more research but I would like to talk with the BOD for a little bit to discuss which features we really want in a CRM. From there I will determine if either of these fit the bill or if I need to research some more. Then we will get a trial and test it out.
We finally received a check from BHFCU so we can officially close the book on 2024 Sponsors. I will begin my sponsorship push late November – early December. We also received $100 from Meta, probably from someone’s birthday fundraiser.
I have requested the first payment from SD Arts Council and that should be coming soon. It will cover a month of my salary plus Rec Center Rental for Murder on the Orient Express. We were turned down for the Walmart grant. We can apply again in a few months for 2025. I also looked into FIB Grant, and we don’t qualify for their grants based on the organization type we are. They do, however, do larger non-profit donations. I will be looking into this for 2025. For the most part my grant work for the 2024 Season is finished but I will be starting grants very soon for 2025. We did receive a $5,000 grant from Black Hills Area Community Foundation for the documentary. This will eventually be paid to Anna to create the BFACT documentary. Some of these funds will be used to pay for equipment and some will be used to pay for crew and travel expenses for some interviewees.
I was able to purchase some items from the Estate Sale I mentioned a few weeks ago. The total cost was $82 and we purchased a nice dolly, an electric hand sander, some unopened brushes, a unique end table, some saw horses, and a collection of historic magazines and newspapers. Toi also found some really nice, heavy-duty changing screens at a garage sale. I told her to purchase them for us. We will owe her $60 for that. They are currently in the theater and very nice.
The show went well last weekend. We did have some issues with the air in Venue 519 that made it pretty warm, but it was better the second night. We may want to think of that if we want to rent that facility in the dead of summer, we have had no issues with it during the Fall and Winter. We had pretty good turnout both nights and people seemed to enjoy the show. The cast seemed to be enjoying the show and we had several new volunteers work on this show. I spoke with most of the cast and they seemed to feel it was an enjoyable experience. I do think we learned a few things we should tweak the next time we do a live radio drama.
Ticket Sales
I will be working with Mike to train him on doing the newsletter and we will get August’s newsletter done this week.
Our registration for American Association of Community Theatre is due at the end of the month. It costs $210 for the year. We do get access to some webinars and a discount on some play licensing, not much we can use though. It can be good to have and say we are a member, but I don’t know if we got much out of it last year. Debating whether it is worth renewing or not.
I met with Jody, Haggertys, and the City Council IT Committee on July 30 to talk over Rec Center needs. Most of the conversation was about the quote for the new sound system and projector system. The Committee seemed responsive but no guarantee this will be approved or when, but it has been put to them. I will continue to do everything I can to push forward with upgrading the equipment. With that in mind, currently the Rec Center is using both of our speakers as well as our sound board until a new iPad can be purchased. In speaking with Jody, the hope is to fix the large speaker that is currently back of house, then move both of those to the front of the theater for sound and use our speakers for back sound.
I have spoken with Jody about painting the stage. The Rec Center has purchased the paint to do this. We also need to finish disassembling the last bits of the set from Murder on the Orient Express. This takes a weekend to do, but not that many hours at one time. I was curious if we could do all of this on the weekend of September 7 – 8. If that doesn’t work, we could try the 21 – 22, however I won’t be available on the 21. It will take about five to six people each day for a couple of hours to finish. I was curious who on the BOD is available to help? We can also reach out to our own volunteers or see if the HS can help.
9/23/24 7PM at Grap’s Wine Room
Motion to adjourn: Heather, Seconded, Mike. unanimous passage
Respectfully submitted by Secretary Heather Pittman
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