Zoom Meeting
7:00 PM

ROLL CALL:

Robert Soderstrom, ToiLyn Flick, Derek Olson, Nathan Schreier, Kelsey Gronlund, Heather Pittman, 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:

I have been pushing hard for sponsorships over the last month. I have contacted over 50 local businesses. I have gotten 5 sponsors over the last month with several more I am hoping to hear back from. I will continue a push for sponsorship over the next month with more local businesses and have spoken to Al Schreier about helping me out with contacting some businesses. Right now between business sponsorships and donations we are sitting at $5,100 for the season. I will also be looking into more grants and such. Waiting to hear back from SD Arts Council, WalMart and Midco on grants I already applied for.

I have been talking with Nathan at the Rec and Adam, the school AD, about storage at the Rec Center. We are discussing some options but won’t know anything for a little while. After the school musical I will help them purge some stuff we don’t need to free up some storage space. I am also working on pricing out new flats for the school. Community Theater may help construct them.

I talked with Nathan and Jonathan about Membership issues. We are going to make an online push next week for members and then make a bigger push once we are doing shows in person. We talked about having a table at shows explaining Memberships. We also talked about adding some extra perks for Members to get people to join in that way.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES: 

• President
  • No updates at this time.
• Vice President
  • No updates at this time.
• Treasurer
  • Current balance is $3032.14. $2000.00 to be made. Names/addresses have been changed at the bank, credit card, IRS. Secretary of State still needs updated.
• Secretary
  • Applied for a grant through Powder River Energy Corporation
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Online engagement has been a struggle. Perhaps waiting until after the first show of the season will help for better engagement. Working with Derek on sponsorships.
• Membership Committee
  • Met with Derek and Nathan. Discussed ideas for recruitment through offering a discount off merchandise online, flexibility to use free tickets, having a sign up table with merchandise at shows.
• Public Relations Committee
  • Working on doing sponsor boosting on social media.
• Creative Committee
  • Monologue Competition
    • We had a disappointing turnout for the monologue competition unfortunately. We didn’t get any from the kid division but we did get some for adults. I am waiting on the last judge now to get the winners decided. We will be using the donation from tdg for the winner and I decided to give tickets to two runner-ups instead of one. I am hoping to do this again down the road and hopefully we will have more submissions. I think all in all it was worth doing, just maybe not the best timing.
  • Art Thou Virtual?
    • We are in the process of doing auditions for our virtual Shakespeare showcase, Art Thou Virtual? Jonny Rey is the director of the show and working with me on it. The show will be May 13 at 7 at Venu 519 in Belle. We won’t have an in-person audience but will sell online tickets like we did for the Christmas show for $5. The show will be several people doing monologues, duets, etc. of some famous Shakespeare shows. We are planning on it being around an hour to 90 minutes. At the show we will ask for donations and push our sponsors. Very excited for this show, I think it will turn out great and be something. Requesting $25 for Facebook marketing.
  • Stage Plays
    • I have dates locked in with the theater for our two stage shows this summer. The first show will be a night of one acts and will be June 18 – 20 and auditions will be May 3. The shows will be one Toi wrote, one of my one acts from a few years ago called Collections and I am working on the third show now. I have spoken with Nathan about this. The next show will be Arsenic and Old Lace and that will be August 27 – 29 and auditions will be July 12. I will be directing one of these shows and I am currently working on finding another director. I have applied for the rights to Arsenic and Old Lace and I am just waiting for a reply. Once I do, I will request the funds from the Board to pay it. I will be working on a more in-depth budget soon for both shows.
  • Workshops
    • I am still hoping to hold some workshops this Summer, just haven’t been able to spend enough time figuring them out yet with everything else going on. Hopefully I will have some more information next month.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. None

NEW BUSINESS: 

1. Within the Creative Committee report requests for funding were made.
2. Art Thou Virtual: $25 for online ads. Motion by Jonathan, seconded by ToiLyn. Motion passed.
3. Arsenic and Old Lace: Up to $400 for show rights. Motion by Jonathan, seconded by Nathan. Motion passed.

OTHER:

None

NEXT MEETING:

Wednesday, April 21st at 7pm via Zoom

ADJOURNMENT:

Motion to adjourn ToiLyn, seconded by Nathan

Zoom Meeting
7:00 PM

ROLL CALL:

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

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING:

Approved as presented motion by Jonathan, seconded by Kelsey.

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF BILLS:

See Treasurer report. Approved as presented motion by Heather, seconded by Nathan.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

With the screen built around the set pieces and props in the theater I have been talking to Nathan at the Rec Center about more permanent storage. We met several times to talk about what needs to happen for that and we have roped in Adam, the HS Athletics Director, to get the school’s perspective. We are meeting next week to start some discussions on what we can start doing now to help with storage, hopefully this would entail a storage unit being built behind the theater like was discussed over a year ago. Nothing is set in stone but we are talking about an agreement between the Rec, the school and Community Theater. I will report what we talk about at next month’s meeting.

I am still helping the school and other activities with their lighting and sound needs. I am starting to work on a list of all the things that need to be upgraded in the theater and working on directions on how to do basic sound and lighting tasks. I hope to have that done soon.

I have been working on other grants and sponsorships. I found out we were unfortunately turned down for the SD Foundation grant we applied for. Since then I have applied for grants through the SD Arts Council, Midco, Wal-Mart and Scott Peterson Motors. We will start hearing back on some of those over the next month or so. Now that the weather is nicer, I am going to start talking to local businesses about sponsorships in March and will hopefully start getting more of those soon.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES: 

• President
  • Not present
• Vice President
  • No updates at this time.
• Treasurer
  • Credit card and payroll paid. Amazon Smile donation: $24.34. Current bank balance: $3556.99.
  • Filed 990N with IRS
  • Need to change mailing address to ToiLyn Flick with IRS/Secretary of State/Bank.
• Secretary
  • No additions at this time
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Derek has been working on grants. Looking for outdoor fundraising opportunities for Spring.
• Membership Committee
  • Absent last month. Meeting with Nathan and Derek.
• Public Relations Committee
  • Meeting with Jonathan and Derek on March 13th @ 2pm via Zoom.
  • Requesting $30 for Facebook ads for monologue competition.
• Creative Committee
  • Monologue Competition
    • I finally got everything figured out for the monologue competition and we have started accepting submissions. This will run through March 7 at which point I will turn over all the submissions to our judges: Sarah Carlson, South Dakota Arts Council; David Scherer; Board Member Historic Homestake Opera House; Bryon Christian, Director of High School Theater for Hill City High School. We have two categories, Kids and Adults. Each category will have a Grand Prize and Runner-up. For the Grand Prize, the prize is $50 and two free tickets and the runner-ups will receive two tickets. Open Space Creative and tdg have donated the money for the prizes, so we as an organization will not be giving away money, they will. I have all the information online at https://www.bellefourcheact.com/item/88-2021-monologue-competition.html I have set it so that neither the board or myself can enter, as much fun as it will be, we don’t want to look like we have favoritism of any kind.
  • Season
    • I have scheduled our two main summer shows with the Rec Center. There can be some flexibility but I wanted to get this in so we can reserve dates. The first show will be June 24 – 27. Auditions will be May 10 and practices will start May 17. The stage will be locked on June 12 to build set. The second show will be August 27 – 29. Auditions will be July 12 and practices will start July 19. The stage will be locked in on August 14 to build set.
    • We are still figuring out who will direct what and which show will be which date. I will hopefully have that all sorted out in March and then we can start advertising. I am currently trying to figure out directors so if anyone knows someone who might be interested, let me know.
    • Besides the shows and monologue competition, I am still working on workshops so we can do those later this Spring. I am also working on a Virtual Show for May and will have information next month on that. Also, I am hoping to still do Mr. Beautiful Fork, but that might end up being a Fall thing so we don’t cram too much in at one time.
    • Per Nathan- The show for Butte County Auditor’s Office is no longer happening.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

1. Presidency: Robert will remain official president until we can have an open meeting with all members. ToiLyn will be acting president in his absence per bylaws.

NEW BUSINESS:

1. Reva Potter: Theatre flats. ToiLyn will talk to the school about budgeting for new flats. BFACT may contribute through labor.

OTHER:

NEXT MEETING:

March 24th @ 7pm via Zoom 

ADJOURNMENT:

Motion to adjourn by Nathan, seconded by Jonathan

Zoom Meeting
7:30 PM

ROLL CALL:

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

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING:

Approved as presented.

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF BILLS:

No outstanding bills at this time. Rec center and Derek’s wages were paid.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: 

I finished up the grant request for the South Dakota Foundation Grant. We are asking $5000 for that one. I haven’t heard anything back yet. I have also started working on cleaning up our Sponsors. Currently we have four sponsors, two of those are in-kind. We also received a donation from Morris Law Firm. My goal over the next couple of months is to get many more sponsors and will start reaching out to businesses again and will keep my eye out for other grant opportunities.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES: 

• President
  • Congratulations to Derek Olson on his original plays being published and purchased for performance.
• Vice President
  • No report
• Treasurer
  • Current balance is $4502.62
• Secretary
  • No additions at this time
• Grant & Fundraising Committee
  • Derek has been doing some work on grants (see above). Looking toward new fundraiser in the future.
• Membership Committee
  • Not present
• Public Relations Committee
  • Will meet with Jonathan on plans to increase membership activity.
• Creative Committee
  • The Christmas Show
    • The Christmas show went great and went off without a hitch. The stream worked well and we made $80 in donations and sold 24 tickets between the actual live performance or after. The plan is to keep the show hidden on YouTube and will continue to sell tickets to the show if people want. We were able to send the show off to many different senior centers around the area and Sundance and heard some great feedback from them about how excited they were.
  • 2021 Season
    • As the Creative Committee we began to talk on what the 2021 season will be and have some preliminary ideas.
    • Monologue Competition
      • We are hoping to have our monologue competition in February. It will be entirely online and will have some kind of prize for the winners.
    • Workshops
      • We are hoping to do a few workshops starting in March. Probably with a costume/prop one and a scriptwriting one. Will have more information on how this will work next month.
    • Virtual Show
      • We are hoping to do a Virtual Show around April. We would do something very similar to the Christmas show, a live streamed event that we sell tickets to. We are still figuring out what this show will be. We may treat it a little more like a variety show with different vignettes.
    • Dinner Theater
      • The local government reached out to us to do a dinner theater show for an event they have coming up in May. Nathan will be leading the charge on this. It won’t be a public event, it will only be done for this one specific event.
    • First Show
      • We are talking about doing a stage show, hopefully completely open to the public at the end of June. Right now we are looking at Arsenic and Old Lace being directed by myself. This isn’t set in stone, but we are hoping to have a show at the end of June.
    • Second Show
      • We are looking at having a second show at the end of August. We don’t have much here yet. It could be a show we license or an original, or a night of one acts. We will make this decision coming up. There is a chance we flip Arsenic and Old Lace into this time slot, depending on availability.
    • Third Show
      • We were originally going to be doing a night of one acts with other area community theaters this past September. I am going to be reaching out to see if they are still interested in doing this for the fall of 2021.
    • Mr. Beautiful Fork
      • We are still hoping to have Mr. Beautiful Fork this year, probably in July. We are going to wait and see how the pandemic and vaccine rollout goes before we make a determination on date. We want to pick a time that will be safe for everyone.
    • Christmas Show
      • We are going to be doing a Christmas show of some kind, just no idea what. That decision will come after some others are made.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

NEW BUSINESS:

1. Anna – SD Arts Council feedback. BOD was able to give ideas for resource allocation to smaller community theatre groups, increasing communication between local community theatre groups, and helping to facilitate the organization of regional community theatre interactions and support.

OTHER:

NEXT MEETING:

Wednesday, February 24th at 7pm via Zoom

ADJOURNMENT:

Motion to adjourn by Nathan, seconded by Heather