July 22, 2020 Minutes

Zoom Meeting
6:30 PM

ROLL CALL:

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

READING AND APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES OF THE PRECEDING MEETING:

Motion for approval of minutes by Jonathan/seconded by Nathan.

REVIEW AND APPROVAL OF BILLS:

Credit card bill of $9.99 for online advertising to be paid in August. Motion to approve by Jonathan/seconded by Nathan.

REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR:

Jupiter & Mars

Jupiter & Mars is progressing really great. We just recorded Episode 3. Episode 1 is all edited, just needs sound and it is done. I have begun work on editing Episode 2. The writer’s group is working on the next three episodes and those will be recorded in August at some point. Right now Episode 1 will premiere on July 28, Episode 2 on August 11 and Episode 3 on August 25. If the next episodes are ready, we will continue releasing every other week, if not we will take a short break.

Advertising has been progressing. We will promote the Event on Facebook coming up. I did an interview with the Pioneer and Rapid City Journal already and have an interview set up with KOTA on the morning of the 28th. Press releases were sent out to all of the other main news sources in the area, I never received information that a story would run on those different sources. The actual premiere will be on Facebook. I have been working on a way to run shows through Facebook live, so I will host it. I will talk about the show a little bit, talk about the auction and thank people for that and push donations. Then I will play the episode. Once it is done, the Episode will go up on our YouTube page, which I created, and the website and will stay up there.

The auction has been going well so far. We have several bids on many items and things are looking up. This first batch of items will be done on Friday the 24 and the next batch will go up after that and run up to the premiere. A huge thank you to everyone who donated items and services and a huge thank you to Heather who organized all of it.

Website

I updated the website to include our new program, Storytime Reading and I am also working on updating the Jupiter & Mars page to be able to hold multiple episodes. These aren’t major updates but something that takes a little bit of time.

Merchandise

I have created more merchandise on our TeeSpring page. We will start pushing these more as we start pulling back on social media with Jupiter & Mars and the auction. We don’t want to overwhelm people. I am also about to put up 10 Year Anniversary shirt and will be doing more designs in coming months.

Pledge Drive

I have been talking with several board members and others about the idea of a pledge drive. We would set the goal at something attainable, like $1,000 to start with. This push would happen in late August once these other events wrap up. I would create some graphics for it and we would update Facebook and our website with our progress. We get the word out we need help. A part of this drive would be reaching out to our sponsors and thanking them for being sponsors and encouraging them to re-up their sponsorship for next season. I also think we should honor all of their free tickets next season, regardless if they become a sponsor again, since they didn’t really get to use them.

Grants

I am working with Kelsey and Heather on finding some other grants that will help with COVID relief. I am working on one for the SD Community Foundation now.

REPORTS OF OFFICERS AND COMMITTEES:

President
- Talking with Ryan Brewer, local film maker, regarding work on a campaign/videos to use for donations/pledge drive. This is in early stage talks, but he is interested in helping.
Vice President
- BFACT was successfully entered in the 4th of July parade and that seemed to go well.
- We have had several people record stories for our partnership with the library. Carrie Donovan read one story, Derek Olson did 2 stories and Reva Potter and I did a story together. The finished products are quite good, if I do say so myself, thanks in part to Derek’s presentation and music. We still have one volunteer, April Stuart, who is still working on her recording. I have left messages with several others and I will continue to speak with people and see if they may be interested in doing more readings.
- I looked into the annual report and it appears I need the names and addresses of the principal officers and the director. One piece mentioned the beneficial owners, which I don’t know who those would be. However, when I perused a little deeper it didn’t appear that is a piece we need. If anyone knows who the beneficial owners may be, clue me in please just to satisfy my curiosity!
Treasurer
- Current balance is $1415.13.
Secretary
- No additions at this time
Grant & Fundraising Committee
- Online auction is live. Donors will need to deliver items and collect money.
Membership Committee
- Database audit is done. Need to contact Arts People about annual renewal email.
Public Relations Committee
- Ads for Jupiter & Mars/online auction are running. We’ve spent $32 so far. We’re not getting high engagement, so will plan on spending time boosting closer to event dates.
Creative Committee
- Storytime Reading
  - The Storytime Reading program is going over well so far. The Library is very happy with it. We have four videos online at this moment, with one more I am working on and I have had several people tell me they want to do one. This program will continue as long as people want to make them. We will be doing a live event for this on Aug 16 at 1pm at the Hermann Park Bandshell. We will have people who read some stories online as well as a few others read the stories for families live. We are hoping to do a bake sell the day of and maybe some giveaways we are organizing with our sponsor Open Space Creative. We will begin an online push telling people about this once we get past the Jupiter & Mars premiere.
- Other Ideas
  - At our Creative Committee meeting we discussed some other possible activities we can do online until we are back more in-person. We are talking about doing a monologue competition, or showcase, online. People would record themselves doing a monologue and submit them. We would judge them and give out prizes. We could then promote these on our Facebook and website.
- Summer Play
  - We discussed the potential summer play and I think everyone is still on the fence about it. If we do it, the plan would be to do the play at Community Hall instead of the BFACC Theater. We could limit the number of tickets sold so we can separate people by tables or spread out chairs to keep up distancing and encourage mask wearing. The rental fee is also cheaper at Community Hall, only $150 a night. If we did a show there we would run it two or three times. The plan is to do original pieces since we won’t have to pay for licensing. We are thinking of doing two previous High School one-acts I wrote, Collections and Party at the End of the World. Nathan would still direct these shows. We would do everything we could to limit exposure of the actors. Discussion regarding mandatory masks at summer play was held at length. The BOD decided that we should wait on indoor events at this time as mandating masks may invite unwanted controversy.

OLD AND UNFINISHED BUSINESS:

4th of July Parade- this went well for a short planning time. We need to form a planning committee in March/April 2021 to be better prepared for the next parade.