August 26, 2024 Minutes

7:00 PM
Grap’s Wine Room

Call To Order:

President Nathan S

Roll Call:

Nathan S, Nathan T, Kelsey, Heather, Sharon, Mike, Al, Derek

Approval of previous minutes:

Motion to approve: Kelsey, Second Mike, unanimous passage

Old Business:

Painting the Stage
1. The rec has purchased the paint but still determining a time to do it. The rec wants there to be at least 1 week of dry time. Tentative sept 7-8 but Derek will check on the rec.
Strategic Planning
1. Board members: Derek, Nathan T, Mike, Kelsey. Other potential members to be contacted with the hopes of having committee set by September meeting and hopefully hold first meeting in October
Merch for Christmas show – tabled

New Business:

Closed executive session.

Executive Director Report:

CRM

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.

Sponsorship

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.

Grants

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.

Auction Items

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.

Sherlock Holmes & The West End Horror

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

Friday – 58 $685
Saturday – 33 $370
Total – 91 – $1,055
Bake Sale
Friday – $60
Saturday – $28
Total – $88
Expenses – $823.09
Profit – $319.91

I will be working with Mike to train him on doing the newsletter and we will get August’s newsletter done this week.

AACT

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.

Rec Center

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.

Stage Painting

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.

Officer Reports:

President
- Nothing to report
Vice President
- Annual report for the state completed
Secretary
- Nothing to report
Treasurer
- Current bank balance $18,618.76
Creative Committee
- GOAT
  - We are currently gearing up for GOAT. Auditions will be held on September 13 and 14 with practices starting the following week. Allie Juso Verry is directing this with Emma Tinsley with a script from Stephanie Bussiere. The show will be in Belle on October 10, then at the various other theaters through the 13 with Sturgis joining us this year. We are looking at a budget of $915 for this show. This includes licensing, script printing, Rec Center Rental, marketing, Arts People costs, gift baskets for other theaters, costumes & props, etc. I am asking the BOD for approval of this budget. Last year we brought in close to $1,000 for this show.
  - Motion to approve proposed budget: Sharon, seconded by Mike, unanimous passage.
- Christmas Show
  - Auditions are set for this show for October 22 & 24 with the first readthrough on the 28. Sharon and Rachel are working on a full schedule and what they need for the budget for this show so we should have that for next month’s meeting.
- Next Season
  - We aren’t much further on figuring out next season because I am awaiting confirmation from the other theaters of when GOAT will be next year. Right now, it looks like it will stay in October. Once we have that 100% down, we will get the rest of the season picked and blocked out.
Public Relations
- Getting out advertising for GOAT
Volunteer Committee
- Nothing to report, haven’t met
Fundraising Committee
- Nothing to report, haven’t met
15 Year Committee
- Nothing to report, meeting postponed