Zoom Meeting
6:30 PM

ROLL CALL:

Toi Lyn Flick, Kelsey Gronlund,Heather Pittman, Nathan Schreier, Jonathan Tinsley, Becky Tinsley, Derek Olson, Robert Soderstrom (@ 7:45)

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING:

Motion to approve by Jonathan/seconded by Heather

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF BILLS:

No bills at this time

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: 

The Night of One Acts is still tentatively scheduled for September.

Website

I have created the Volunteer Spotlight and will be talking to other people to get stories from them. I am kind of avoiding BOD members right now but will get to them down the road. Don’t want the website to feel like BFACT is just these few people. Toi sent me her BOD bio, but I need bios and photos from everyone else. I would like to get this up in the next couple of weeks. We will begin pushing Jupiter & Mars more coming up, so hopefully we will be getting more eyes on the site and I would like that section filled out more.

I am also working on creating new sections of the website to hold Jupiter & Mars and the Storytime Readings. I have begun work on the design and once that is done I will begin the build on it.

Merch

We have our store online now. Right now it is just t-shirts and one bag all with our logo on it. My goal is to start creating other items with our logo and then create designs to go on the shirts just branded BFACT, which might increase the number of people who want to buy them. I am also going to be creating Jupiter & Mars merch, several cast members have expressed interest already in that. The goal will be to push the store via the BFACT Facebook page, but it would also be great if Board Members share it as well to their own accounts.

SD Arts Council Grant Application

With Kelsey and Heather’s help we have submitted to the SD Arts Council CARE grant. We were eligible for the smallest amount they give, $2,500. This would be to help pay staff, which would be me. Right now we don’t have enough money to finish my contract, especially if we start buying things for BFACT. This would help make sure we can still spend on events but be able to pay my contract. We should know by the end of July if we get it.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES: 

• President
  • No report at this time
• Vice President
  • Happily, I have something to report about this meeting!  To be precise, I have four items about which to speak.
  • First, Kelsey and I did the quarterly audit.  We handled this over messenger as there wasn’t a terrible lot of fiscal activity over which to look.  We are currently solvent, yea!  However, we will need to generate some revenue in order to keep the doors open(figuratively)and to pay our executive director(realistically).  Kelsey, I’m sure, will have more specifics in her treasurer’s report.
  • Second, I have been in contact with several people/families about creating videos for our library reading program project.  Taran Garman had agreed to do one of the videos, but messaged me this morning that she has to forego it.  I have contacted 5 other individuals/families and so far have one maybe and one yes.  Carrie Donovan has also agreed to help with this project.  I have not heard back from the other 3.
  • Third and fourth, I wrote my bio for the web page, as Derek had requested.  I will figure out how to do the annual report and get that completed.  I saw that an extension has been given and also something about the first anniversary of formation, so I will be looking more into that.
  • I will conclude this report by saying that I think our Jupiter and Mars radio play is a “stellar” idea and that so far I really enjoy the script!
• Treasurer
  • Current balance is $2623.00.  We have received $18.95 from Amazon Smiles donations this quarter.  Quarterly audit and statement reconciliations are done.
• Secretary
  • No additions to report at this time
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Considering holding an online auction. 
• Membership Committee
  • Need to schedule a meeting time with Kelsey to go over missing members in Arts People
• Public Relations Committee
  • Working on Facebook ads for Jupiter & Mars– will increase ads closer to release of show.
• Creative Committee
  • We haven’t met this month but I am hoping to get a meeting going in July to talk about some new ideas of projects to do online.
  • The Man Who Came to Dinner
    • Auditions are coming up for The Man Who Came to Dinner. I have spoken to the Rec Center about the theater. It is still closed. Nate said they will be meeting at the beginning of July to discuss when the theater will be reopened, but I don’t have a specific date yet on that. I have concerns about putting on this show. It sounds like when the theater reopens there will be precautions put in place to limit the amount of people who can be in the theater, which is great, but could hurt us. I have calculated the total cost of this show, licensing, rental and set, to be around $1,500. If we have to limit the amount of tickets sold we may struggle to make back that money which unfortunately we don’t have a lot of wiggle room with our bank account.
    • Beyond that I am still worried about COVID-19 and the theater. I have noticed most other theaters in the area have cancelled their summer season. Indoors seems to be the places with the best chance for transmission, so it would be hard to guarantee our actors don’t get sick. Beyond that, putting hopefully a couple of hundred people in the theater together at one time might really increase risk. I know Butte still doesn’t have any cases, but I fear us being the reason cases start in town. I have my thoughts on this, but I want to discuss with the BOD their thoughts on possibly cancelling this show.
    • I have been in contact with Nathan about this and we have talked about some alternatives. Possibly doing an original smaller scale show, and original that wouldn’t cost licensing or set, and really reduce the number of seats we sell or even doing it at Community Hall with enforced distance seating. Maybe even something outside. Practices could be held online for the first week or two as well to help keep spacing.
  • Jupiter & Mars
    • I held auditions for Jupiter & Mars a couple of weeks ago. It was done online only which took some scheduling but we had over 30 people try out which was awesome. We have found a place for everyone that auditioned, not all in the first episode but some others. We are planning to record the first two episodes this coming Friday, June 26. I know not everyone will be able to do that night so I will spend the week after getting audio from everyone who can’t do Friday. We are hoping to record the third episode in the next few weeks. Then I will begin editing, which will take quite a few hours to do. Once I have the first three episodes created we will start releasing, I am hoping in July. We will create a release schedule where we will Premiere an episode on Facebook with people and then it will be placed on our YouTube channel, which I have to create, where it will stay. We will probably release every other week. Everything will also be available on our website.
    • While this is going on, the next batch of episodes are being worked on, led by Robert and Isaac Otterman. The fourth episode has been started and other episodes will begin being written. On all videos once they are done we will have a list of our sponsors and we will encourage donations to BFACT since all of this is free to the community.
  • Storytime Reading
    • Toi has been a huge help in getting the Storytime Reading program, tentative name, going. She has been speaking with other people to record episodes. This will be something we do in conjunction with the library. We will have different people read stories in whatever way they want and record them. I will then edit them to make them web ready, with the library logo and our sponsors. The library will link to these videos as well. They will be on our YouTube channel and website.
    • Toi and I are also discussing doing a live show of this, closer to school starting at the bandshell. There would only be a few people involved to help with distancing and since it would be outside the worries of indoor groups are lessened. We could potentially partner with the Arts Council or Chamber of Commerce on it.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. Discussion was held on moving forward with The Man Who Came To Dinner. Concerns were voiced about the potential of the show having to be canceled at the last minute and the risk of lost revenue if that happens.  In light of the uncertainty of COVID it was decided that this show should be postponed until 2021.
2. 10th Anniversary of BFCT/First Show:  This year is the 10th anniversary of the first BFCT show.  Discussion was held on promoting this milestone.  Derek will work on a t-shirt design for supporters/members to buy.  

NEW BUSINESS:

1. July 4th Parade: Discussion was held on entering a float in the parade.  Jonathan offered to use his truck and make signs.  ToiLyn will contact the city to complete registration.

OTHER:

None

NEXT MEETING:

July 22, 2020 @ 6:30pm via Zoom

ADJOURNMENT:

Motion to adjourn by Jonathan/seconded by Heather

Zoom Meeting
6:30 PM

ROLL CALL:

Robert Soderstrom, ToiLyn Flick, Kelsey Gronlund, Heather Pittman, Nathan Schreier, Derek Olson, Jonathan Tinsley, Becky Tinsley

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING:

Approved as presented

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF BILLS:

Approved as presented

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: 

Website

I am still waiting for BOD bios, if possible please get those written so I can update the website. I also received back my questionnaire from Darin Newton and Geno Pesicka for the spotlight section of the website so I will get that up in the next week or so. To accommodate the very specific radio play project we are doing, I will need to be working on the website coming up once we have things more ironed out to make the website a place to put all that content.

Merchandise

After trying to make the system I was talking about before for merchandise I decided to go with a different option. After using the system I decided it would not be a good fit for us. We are now going to be using TeeSpring for our merchandise. https://teespring.com/stores/bfact-store I will be styling this and putting on our logo. I will then make some basic products with just our logo. My big question is what we want to charge for things. There is a base price for each product, different pricing for different types of shirts for example, and then we add in our mark-up to come up with the final price. We need to decide what we want for mark-up. Is our goal to make this a fundraiser, if so we should make sure we can make a little bit per item, or if this is just an opportunity for people to have our branded merchandise. For example, several of the shirts base cost is around $15 so should we charge around $20 and we make $5 or like $25 so we make $10. I would like some Board guidance on that. Once we have that I will start creating products.  (Discussion by BOD-plan for $5 over cost of shirts at this point.)

TeeSpring handles all of the shipping of products and unlike the other system I looked at, we don’t receive any payments directly from customers. TeeSpring is paid for everything, they take their base cost, shipping and taxes and send us our mark-up amount. I think this will be simpler, this way we don’t have monthly invoices to pay. The nice thing is this way TeeSpring will collect the taxes they need to pay for individual states and they pay them, that’s not on us to figure out. I would like to touch base with Kelsey, just to see if there is anything else we need to pay on this, taxes and what have you. TeeSpring is a very popular service and we will be listed alongside their other products on the main site. I don’t think many people not interested in BFACT would buy our merchandise, but you never know.

We will have to start paying tax on merchandise when sales are over $1000. This falls under the category of unrelated business income at that point.

South Dakota Arts Council

I did a preliminary sign-up for some South Dakota Arts Council CARES Act grants. I signed-up to say we are interested. There isn’t much information from them yet what they will have available right now. The actual sign-up period starts on June 1. I will check back then and should know if we qualify or not. If we do, I will work with Heather and Kelsey to get us signed-up and I guess we will see if we get anything. To sign-up I had to get BFACT a DUNS number. I got us signed-up and put the information in our Shared Drive if anyone needs it. It could be useful beyond applying for these grants.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES: 

• President
  • First episode of the radio play is written.  Discussed possibility of creating an Improv Troupe.
• Vice President
  • Talked with Derek about the Belle Fourche library summer reading program children’s theater production idea. (See Creative Committee report)
• Treasurer
  • All checks are in with current balance of $2604.05.  Robert purchased radio show software for $28/month-needs reimbursement for three months.
• Secretary
  • None
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Nothing new to report at this time.
• Membership Committee
  • Jonathan added an IRS document to the shared folder concerning raffles.  It gives examples and provides guidance on the tax implications of raffles.  It lays out guidelines on how to avoid taxes.
• Public Relations Committee
  • Facebook/social media engagement is currently the focus for marketing.  Nathan mentioned that he has a connection with a writer of children’s shows. 
• Creative Committee
  • We haven’t had a meeting in May but things are progressing on several projects.
  • We have a writer’s group for the radio play and we are plowing ahead. The plan as of right now is to produce nine episodes over several months, we would do them in three episode chunks. We will work to get three episodes ready then release them over the course of several weeks, have a mini-break then get the next three ready to go. This is because if we had to wait to get all nine episodes done to release them one after another would take months. This way we can sprint ahead and get some content out before all of it needs to be done.
  • We are aiming to release the first episode by the end of June if everything goes right. Then we would release the next two episodes either weekly or every other week. There will be a decent amount of post-production I will need to do to get everything done so releasing in this manner gives me time to get it all done. We should have a more finished pilot episode next week and after that point we will get audition information out there and figure out the best way to handle that. This will be an open casting just like any show, it just will be done online. We may need to do a second casting for the next third of the show, will know more soon on that.
  • This is a project that will last for several months which I don’t think is a bad thing. It also has us keeping up with content regardless of what other shows we are able to make happen this summer.
  • Auditions for this show will take place online which will be a new process.
  • Budget:  For the first three episodes of the Radio Play
    Marketing – $100
    SFX & Musc – $100
    Total – $200
  • Motion by Jonathan/seconded by Kelsey to approve radio play budget of up to $200.  Motion passed.
  • Toi had a great suggestion to talk to the library in Belle about their Summer reading program and seeing if we could help there so I reached out to them. The library has had to cancel their in-person Summer reading program and they were very excited about the idea of us helping them out. I don’t have final details of what this will look like at the moment, the library is working with the state on some kind of Summer program, once they have that information we will be able to plan with them what BFACT will be doing. As of right now what we are thinking is that we will do recordings of Community Theater members reading books or stories. I am ironing out details on this now and will be working directly with Toi on this program. It’s not something that should really cost us money so we will just move ahead with getting this done as more information comes in. Becky suggested asking the library if they still have their old puppet theater.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. None

NEW BUSINESS:

1. The Rec Center will reopen on Tuesday 26th.  Unsure of set strike of Jr. High show as they may try to hold performances yet.
2. 4th of July Parade Float- BFACT is “technically” 10 years old this year.  It might be fun to celebrate that with a big float.

OTHER:

None

NEXT MEETING:

Wednesday, June 24th @ 6:30pm via Zoom.

ADJOURNMENT:

Motion to adjourn by Jonathan/seconded by Kelsey.  Motion carried.

Zoom Meeting
7:30 PM

Roll Call:

Robert Soderstrom, Derek Olson, ToiLyn Flick, Nathan Schreier, Kelsey Gronlund, Heather Pittman, Jonathan Tinsley, Becky Tinsley

Reading and approval of the minutes of the preceding meeting:

Motion Jonathan/second Nathan to approve as presented

Review and approval of bills:

Motion Heather/second Nathan

Report of the Executive Director:

Website

The website is now launched. I will begin bringing in other content to it, such as information on previous shows. There is also a section for highlighting BFACT Volunteers that I am going to get up and running where I interview various people. I will also be working up a template for BOD bios that I will send out for people to fill out so we can expand that section.

I have created my bio and shared with the board. If possible, it would be great to get this page updated soon with everyone’s bios and better pictures so we can share this out to people now. I don’t want people to forget about this. The more content we can push now the better. Eventually I will take new photos of everyone, but in the meantime if everyone can provide me with a decent picture of them.

I also worked up questions for the Volunteer Spotlight section. I am going to start with Geno Pesicka and Darin Newton. I will get them the questions and then get that section on the website.

I also worked more with merch but have run into issues. The system I was going to use isn’t going to work, so I am trying to figure out the best replacement. I also did some research into taxes that will need to be paid on merch, there is a lot out there.

Merch

I haven’t gotten business cards yet, at this point I don’t see the point. Once things are more open I will get them made at Sand Creek Printing. I have also signed us up for Printful after doing a lot of research on various options. They are a print-on-demand company. We need a storefront so we will be going with Ecwid. This is free software I have used in my work. This will connect into our website. The free version allows us to only have 10 items in our store at one time which I don’t think will be a problem.

The way Printful works is that we set up different designs and then set the price point. We will be paid from the end-user and then we receive an invoice from Printful for the cost of making the product and shipping. So it will take a little figuring to get the pricing right, the nice thing is that Printful’s base costs are pretty good compared to some other companies. I will be working with Kelsey on figuring out sales tax and the like. My plan is to create a basic shirt to start with and then we can do cooler things later.

Taxes on merchandise are being worked out.  We potentially will need to add the tax into the price of the merchandise and pay it ourselves instead of having Printful pay the taxes on our behalf.

Marketing

I have been talking with Nathan on ways to get our sponsors to the forefront while things are slow. Nathan is now pushing sponsors through our Facebook page. I will also be in touch with our sponsors about events we will have coming up once we have dates.

Renaissance Faire

I have helped Anna get this committee going, Robert has made her the chairperson. We had an initial meeting with Toi and Robert and started getting ideas down. Anna will start creating reports for the board as things get farther along.

Reports of Officers and Committees:

• President
  • Working on the radio play.  Making a new crown for Mr. Beautiful Fork.  Wondering if it would be a good idea to roll Mr. Beautiful Fork into the Renaissance Faire?
• Vice President
  • Wondering about doing something for kids?  Kelsey suggested reading fairy tales-we’d need to look for public domain stories/material.
• Treasurer
  • Current balance is $3913.21.  Paid $131.37 to purchase 150 checks/deposit slips/binder/business stamp.
• Secretary
  • None
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Grant application did not get submitted this year, but we will have a better chance of approval in the future when we have more financial records.
• Membership Committee
  • It looks like people may still be missing in Arts People.  Jonathan and Kelsey need to do an audit to see who is missing.
• Public Relations Committee
  • Social media is being updated regularly.  The link for picture upload is active.
• Creative Committee
  • I was in the process of getting Mr. Beautiful Fork ready when we decided to postpone because of the pandemic. As of right now and after talking to the other contestants and Grap’s, we are just postponing this event. The goal is still to do this, just later in the Summer or even the Fall once things are more open. No other real info here right now.
  • After talking with the Creative Committee we think it makes sense to cancel the Summer One Acts. Auditions would need to happen in a few weeks and experts are saying our peak may not be until June so I don’t think it would be wise for use to be doing practices and have the show right in the middle of this. I will contact the Rec Center and let them know about this.
  • We are also going to move the dates for The Man Who Came to Dinner. This is set right now for July 24 – 26. We want to move this by a month to the end of August. I will contact the rights’ holder, DPS to see if they will allow us to do this. I don’t think it should be an issue with everything going on, besides we haven’t paid the invoice yet. I will also need to talk with the Rec Center about dates so once I have those I will let the Board know.
  • As of right now we are still on for the September show with the other Community Theaters in the area. This is set for the end of the month so we should still have enough time to get this together while also pushing back The Man Who Came to Dinner.
  • Since we won’t have anything until the end of August, the Creative Committee has decided on something else we can be doing in the meantime. We are going to put together an original radio play. I have already had a brainstorming meeting to start figuring out specifics. I am creating a writing room right now to get the creative sorted out. The end goal will be to put this on our YouTube channel, potentially other platforms as well, and do a premiere watch party through our Facebook account. This would be free but we should treat it like a show. Costs will be low, really only marketing. I will get writers and directors figured out and eventually hold some online auditions for actors. I think this is a unique thing that could get traction outside of Belle to the surrounding area. We will mention our sponsors just like a show, maybe even do little ads in the vein of old Radio plays. Plus we could tell people that if they want they can donate online to maybe get in some revenue from it. I would like this to happen later May or early June.
  • The Man Who Came to Dinner
    • I was able to move this show after contacting the right’s company and the Rec Center. We are now set for August 28 – 30 with auditions on July 20 and 21. I sent the invoice to Kelsey to be paid but we may want to wait to pay that until we have to, just in case we have to move the show again.
  • Radio Play
    • Working with the Creative Committee we worked up the idea of a radio play. From there I organized a brainstorming group and met and came up with some ideas. From there I created a writer’s group and we start solidifying our plan. We have met several times and the rough draft of the pilot is being written now by Robert and Isaac Otterman. This is based on their ideas, some of mine and some of the group. Once they have a rough draft we will discuss and refine as the group and then people will start writing more episodes.
    • Once we have enough episodes written we will hold online auditions and start getting some dates set up. The idea is that we will record episodes with the cast and I will edit them together and then we will put them up on our YouTube page and then we will hold a Facebook Watch Party to premiere each episode, if possible just a week apart. We will push donations that we can take on the website for people instead of any kind of charge. Once I have a date I will begin advertising it pretty heavily, will try and get as much Black Hills coverage as we can, maybe even statewide.
    • I will have to do some work to our website to work with this type of content. Will begin work once I have more things ready to go on this.

Old and unfinished business:

1. None

New business:

1. The middle school set needs struck from the rec center stage.  Derek will notify volunteers of date/time to meet and assist with this.
2. Jonathan motioned/Kelsey seconded to give Derek an advance on July wages for the amount of $1171.88.

Other:

None

Next BOD meeting:

Wednesday, May 20 @ 6:30pm via Zoom

Adjournment:

Jonathan motioned/Heather seconded

Respectfully submitted by Becky Tinsley, Secretary