April 17, 2025 Minutes

7:00 PM
Grap’s Backroom

Call To Order:

President Nathan S

Roll Call:

Nathan S, Nathan T, Heather, Katie, Mike

Approval of previous minutes:

Motion to approve: Nathan T, Seconded by Mike, unanimous passage

Special business:

Board election: Allan Schreier resigned his position on the Board of Directors as of 03/31/2025. The Board thanks him for his service and contributions to Belle Fourche Area Community Theater. Special election conducted by Executive Director Derek Olson per bylaws.

Candidates: Wesley Barnhouse – uncontested. The Board of Directors welcomes new member at large Wesley Barnhouse

Executive Director Report:

Sponsorships

Sponsorships this year has been a little slow going between being ill quite a bit to start the year as well as being busy between GOAT and the gala but I am hoping to finish up most of it by the end of the month. As of right now all of our sponsors from last season have been contacted and all are back except for five. Four have expressly stated that they will not be sponsoring this season, one because their business has sold since last season. Another one I am still trying to get a hold of, I have left several messages and I will continue to try and hopefully they will still sponsor this season. Two sponsors also decreased their sponsorship level from last season. Black Hills FCU is technically a sponsor, but I have to go through their grant process to receive that, which I will be doing this month. Hopefully they will return this season. We are also talking with the Farmhouse as well, as of right now we are counting them as an in-kind sponsor for their help with the gala, but they may still give some money as well for an up in their sponsorship level. Print Mark-et is also still an in-kind sponsor for printing our programs, but this season they will be charging us $100 per show for the programs, regardless of printing amount. This is still a bargain and the best way for us to get our programs. We have a new paid sponsor so far this season though, Bennet Main Gubbrud & Willert, P.C.

As of today our sponsorship total sits at $5,850. We are still waiting on a few checks. Hopefully though we still get $1,000 from BHFCU and I am hoping to get a few new sponsors yet this season. My hope is to get closer to $8,000 in total business sponsorships this year. That would be down from our high watermark of $9,750 from last year unfortunately but that is not surprising. In talking with many businesses there is an air of uncertainty out there and many are pulling back sponsorships in general this year. So anything we can get is going to be a plus. I will update the board as I wrap up sponsorships for the year.

Grants

I am continuing to work on grants for the season as well. We are waiting to hear back on a grant from the SD Arts Council we applied for. It would be for matching grants on funds for the documentary and for money to help with the 4th of July parade float and some more ancillary materials that would go in the Rec Center. We will know on that grant in June. I will be applying to Black Hills Energy this month and we have consistently gotten a $1,000 from them the last few years and I am hoping to receive that again as well. As of right now we have received $8,500 in grants for the season. I have at least two other grants I will be applying to in the next month or so and Bella has a list for me of places to talk to in May. I am hoping to have some luck as Summer comes. I am hoping to at least get to $10,000 this year in grants. That would be down from last year, but last year was a bit of an aberration in the amount we received in grants.

Gala

I have numbers from the 90s Prom Gala. Overall the event was really great and went over really well with all that attended even though the overall numbers weren’t quite where we wanted them to be. I want to thank all of the volunteers and organizers who put so much time and effort into the event and made it really special. I also want to thank our DJs, the Outlaw and the Farmhouse for donating their time and their businesses to the event, without those we would have lost money for the event.

There were many positives to take away, including the fact that we reached many new people with this event. The ticket buyers were mostly not our regular theater goers, so they were a new crowd we were able to tell all about BFACT too. One couple became Individual Sponsors and then went on to create and donate the awesome lobster claw for GOAT to us. They also want to get more involved in BFACT more which is great. Some of the negatives were the fact that attendance was low and we need to find a way to reach our more base audience as well. I do think a gala of some kind is worth it next year, we just need to tweak what we are doing and figure out a way to get more people to come.

Overall we spent $1,904.11 on decorations, food, facility rental, gift certificates, radio advertising, and Arts People costs. There is a breakdown in our Drive folder of all costs. The nice thing is that many of the decorations and props we were able to keep and we can use for shows and other events in the future. In total we made $2,015 between ticket sales, VIP packages and other donations. This includes that Individual Donation mentioned before. We are supposed to be getting a donation from the Outlaw but I haven’t been able to get a hold of Rhonda and find out the amount, but I am told it isn’t much. That leaves a profit of about $110.89. At this point, I am glad we made a profit and I think that is a huge plus even if it isn’t as much as we would have liked.

Proclamation

We are hoping to do a city proclamation for a Performing Arts Day in Belle Fourche to coincide with the Sat performance of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I wasn’t able to get a hold of the Mayor but I spoke with the City Administrator and he seemed to think this should be no problem. He told me to write up the proclamation and to send it to him and he will get it to the Mayor. I just need some help getting this created if anyone is interested in helping me. I think it would be good to include some other organizations in town with this, I have spoken with Jody and she would be more than happy to let us host something in the Rec that day before the show and we can have booths and different things with other organizations, make it a big event. This can be something I work with the Creative Committee on.

GOAT

GOAT went very well this year. The show itself was a big hit and Emma did very well as director and the cast was great! We had several new volunteers for this show, with a couple of new actors as well as tech crew so that is always a good thing. Bella was a huge help at our production to make everything run smoothly. There were no major hiccups which was great. I did speak with the other communities and it sounds like everyone experienced slightly less ticket sales than last year, possibly due to the show itself being done just last October but we sold almost the same amount of tickets as then, even with really crappy weather that night!

Overall we spent $362.61 on this show. I am still waiting on the Rec Center rental for this show. I have spoken with Jody about this and I am waiting on the invoice on this show and the Christmas show, not sure why we haven’t received them yet. Apparently the rates have increased and I am waiting on a total, I think it will be around $350 a night now, but I don’t have full confirmation yet. We sold 65 tickets for the show and made $730 in ticket sales and $162.86 in bake sale for the night for a total of $892.86. Total profit, not including Rec Center rental is $530.25 for the show which is pretty good.

15 Year

Jonathan Tinsley is going to help me create the standing display for the 15th Season. This will be a display that is left out in the Rec Center lobby for the whole season, this has been approved by Jody at the Rec Center. It will be a large 3D piece made of wood with printed signage on it with some props placed on it as well. It will be constructed and finished for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Sound

The Rec Center is still waiting on a local bid for the new sound system so there is now way that the system will be in place by our musical in June. The Rec Center has rented the same sound board we used for our Christmas show for the High School musical and it will be left in place for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I was able to go in and get the board working with all of the headset microphones this past Monday and we can just leave everything in place. Once the High School play is over we will be loaning a few microphones to Lead for their musical and will get them back in time for our show.

There is a Concert Series production on May 12 that I will need someone to cover for me. That is the closing date on our house and I will not be available that day, so if anyone is interested in that, please let me know.

Officer Reports:

President
- STILL planning to meet with Derek about contract. Secured musical director for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Vice President
- Sent contract for insurance to president for review and signature
Secretary
- Nothing to report
Treasurer
- Absent;
Creative Committee
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
  - Auditions are set for the musical for April 26 and May 1. Nathan has his musical director and things are progressing. He and I will be meeting soon to go over budget so that can be brought to the May BOD meeting. I have some big plans for promotion of this show that I will work with the Creative Committee on to accomplish as well as our Intern.
- Is He Dead?
  - I am starting to work with my Assistant Director, Jonathan Tinsley, to get started on preparations for this show. I am hoping to have auditions set very soon for this so it is on the books. I am also hoping to get a set figured out and budget as well soon.
- New Play Showcase
  - Bella will be running this production at some point in October. Once she graduates in early May we are going to sit down and start getting dates and specifics figured out so we can start getting the word out on this production.
Public Relations
- FB had over 34k views over the last 28 days. Bella will start a theater Thursday campaign to drive interest in between shows. Audition posters for the musical are going up and working on a master list of locations. Newsletter in the works.
Volunteer Committee
- Met with Derek and Anna to start working on goals and expectations. Main focus on recruiting and then working on retention and volunteer appreciation. New idea: organizing social volunteer meetups to connect
Fundraising Committee
- President Nathan S declares Wes Barnhouse as chair.
Strategic Planning Committee
- Met this month and continues to have productive meetings. Project completion of plan to present to the board by July Meeting.

Old Business:

Scholarship judging – No submissions 🙁
July 4th committee – President Nathan S declares Becky Tinsley chair of the committee for the July 4th parade and reunion BBQ. Committee members include Emma Tinsley, Nathan T, Katie,and Derek

New Business:

Bank account signers – Tabled – Treasurer absent
Amending special election bylaws – homework, read bylaws and make notes on things we want to work on and update to be discussed at May meeting.