Present: Peggy, Jackie, Rick, David, Kevin G, Warren, and John! (Carlo) and Orlene in Spirit!

Votes taken in this meeting:

KG – Motion to separate out the festival Videography from the fundraising video piece, to close the festival books. DH – Seconds. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
JD – I move that we pay 50% gas toward CC trip to Redlands to return Korean pole. DH – Second. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
PF - I make a motion that we have ed. conference in Chicago the weekend of Nov 3-5 2006. KG – Seconds. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
DH – Motions for at least $2000 for social circus educators conference. JD seconds. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
DH – I move that we vote that we exchange affiliate membership with CFA as cited above. PF- Second. MOTION CARRIED UNANIMOUSLY.
JD – Motion to pay Orlene the discussed $25K, for the reasons cited, pending the festival budget books closing. DH – Amends motion that we vote on this right now, regardless of books. PF- I second David’s motion. MOTION CARRIED. RD ABSTAINS citing potential conflict of interest.
KG – I would like to make a motion that – are we posting our minutes on website – that compensation notes be withheld from the website. JD – Do we have to indicate where we pull something out of the minutes? KG – Yes, it should be mentioned that we took something out. JD- Proposed procedure: Secretary emails minutes to board; edits minutes as per board request; re-issues edited minutes for board approval at next meeting. Alumni board members do not receive minutes; they can access them online. [THIS WAS APPROVED THOUGH IT APPEARS THE FORMALITY OF A VOTE WAS NOT RECORDED.]
JD moves, with help and revisions from DH and others, that the Board recommend, for Orlene’s and Warren’s consideration, the following revision of Rick’s proposal, which the Board (less Orlene and Warren) have already approved: That the Board hire RD, as an independent contractor, to be its Office Manager, to look after communications, membership, website, and office administration, and registration for upcoming social circus conference. He will be paid $100.00 per week, starting in January and continuing through May (possibly June), at which time the position will be formally revisited and reviewed, though either party may revisit at any time during the trial period. MOTION FOR REVISED PROPOSAL is passed unanimously. Rick’s revision forthcoming.
RD moves that Kevin George be a signatory on the checks. Second: PF. MOTION CARRIED.

8:00 Hi & Check-in (Personal highlights from the month)

Conference Call Assignments: Facilitator (David), Secretary (Jackie), Timekeeper (Kevin)

8:10 AYCO Board Guidelines

Listen with Heart and Eyes

Take Risks

Don’t Blame

Don’t tell someone how THEY are feeling

Reflect/Confirm what’s said without having to agree or disagree

Stay on point

Respect each other, even if we do not agree on statement/issue

Take turns, Give turns

Have Accountability (Follow through)

Communicate outcomes: How? Why? Amplify

Don’t interrupt

Don’t negate; Don't block

Be part of the Solution

Delegate

Gather ALL opinions before deciding

Don’t Pounce. Reflect!

Give benefit of the doubt: Ask Questions / Not Attacking

Engage in Non-violent Communication

Email correspondence should be limited as much as possible to information/facts

The only dumb question is the one you don’t ask

8:15 Reports-Highlights – not listed in task list for discussions
(2 min or less)

DH – Thanks for getting reports out, yay!

· AYCO STORE – JW: Thanks Rick for new code… I will try to implement on my side. Added direct support to alleviate bank charges, merchant fees. Peggy, water bottles and shirts?

· PF – Someone needs to pick up the Korean plank at Redlands. If someone’s going, can you meet them? I’ll Call you tomorrow.

· FESTIVAL VIDEO REPORT – JW: I do have a picture CD in my hands. Looking for jewel cases for CDs, pushing to get them out to the people who ordered them, 7 orders? Leery about waiting… for new discs. We can go a better way in the future.

· WEBSITE – RD – my report is complete, unless there are questions.

· HUNT’s “SAY THANK-YOU, AYCO” DH – Peggy helped me assemble a care package to my folks for hosting – they appreciated it, loved having us there.

· AYCO ACCOUNT REPORT – KG – In our BOA account, including the Ringling 26,2109.00 We have $220.00 in our Paypal account; we have an undeposited $700.00 check for the Ringling ad. Don’t have the grant that KOK got for $1,000.00. We’re looking at a balance of about $28K. Outstanding bills less that $100.00.

· OTHER? KG needs to send email address to group.

· DH – Did Everyone receive Carlo’s email? We want to acknowledge his resignation form the board; his work was invaluable, we will miss him. Warren’s email speaks for all of us. Sounded realistic, good judgment. We’re going to miss him.

8:25 Acknowledgments-Successes

· $5K from Ringling – YAY Kevin O’Keefe! And $1,000 from Slifka, yay Kevin O’Keefe!!

· WB – Explains history of Slifka as related to Big Apple .

· CFA Relationship!

· Dialogue with Boulder! DH – Great to expand our options.

· Continued planning for Educator’s Conference – DH – Moving along well.

· Smirkus? RD – Yes, they’re going to have a season this summer. Another hurdle 6 months from now. Rob is confident. They’ve definitely lost their academy in Burlington. It lives on as formed by the parents but is not a Smirkus company. Touring show is Smirkus; the academy has ceased to be owned and operated by the parents. Summer camp and residencies are rolling. YAY!

· OTHERS?

8:35 Task Reviews and Discussions (see time allotment for each item)

· Discuss topics and tasks as we move through the list below: Complete table with due dates & assignments

Task Timeline + Topic Table

x = done		Task	Timeline (deadline)			By Whom?
		REVIEW TIMELINE REGULARLY. Follow through!	posted			ALL
BUDGET / FINANCES (5 – 7 MIN)
		Invoice all outstanding festival moneys	Before China DONE			Orlene
		Festival finance wrap up. Kevin: few things left to do (videographer, invoice people who didn’t pay for ads yet); Sara Hylas Peggy: videographer (Ashley Beam not charging us for services) Let’s say $500. Pre-festival accounts were ±17K. KG – We had some balances in 3 areas; ads for handbook. Closing off Kezar. Third was Videography expense. Orlene has sent off invoices. Bindlestiff and Clean, Well-lit Space have paid but we can’t track where they are. PF – Will ask in Circus Center office. KG – re: Kezar, we show that we owe $4,100.00. Orlene sent letter to clarify if they had received our deposit of $2,000. Re: Videography , we had put in a line item for $1,000.00. PF- Ashley is out of the country. Are we square with Puja Donak, performance videographer. KG – I’ll email Orlene for an update. PF – You want to close out the festival, right/ The one that’s going on now is a fundraiser tool. Can we close the books out on the festival and have the other come out of a fundraising budget? KG – Motion to separate out the festival Videography from the fundraising video piece, in terms. DH – Seconds. RD – We should do this, because our fiscal year ended in November and should have been closed then. MOTION PASSED. PF – Has Sara Hylas been paid yet? KG – I’ll follow-up with Orlene, I think we did pay her in full. … If we don’t have to pay the $4000 for Kezar, we will have made $2000 . RD – I just checked, we did not pay Sara, at least by check, or any cash that came through me. DH – Short conversation: part of festival wrap up, to see if we can get a number of what AYCO cost the Circus Center, to go into future festival planning we should have that. I can send an email requesting that. PF – Send that, and I’ll ask him at CC tomorrow.	Ongoing. Update at January meeting.			Kevin, Orlene
Membership / Communications
		Research affiliate membership that IJA has as model For AYCO membership RD – I’ve done that, will make a verbal report. IJA has 2 organizational memberships: affiliate, and chapter. Af. Is very informal, if you’re a group with 5 members, you can be an Af. Nominal fee, I think $25.00, one time nominal. You can retain that simply be reporting the members every year. Benefit is you get to use their logo and have a listing on IJA’s website, that’s it. The CHAPTER relationship is very interesting, just developed. Something we might look at. TO become a chapter, must be a non-profit, or a regular organization. You have to fill out some forms involving the government. Under IRS “Group Exception Letter” -- you can assume non-profit status under the umbrella of IJA. You can use bulk-rate mailing permit… 3^rd benefit of Chapter is you can come under their general liability insurance policy. I am most curious – I phoned and email the affiliate program manager, Rick Pertee, he hasn’t responded. I pointedly asked him about the general liability insurance policy. AYCO might want to do this, have 2 levels of organizational membership; affiliation and chapter, which would offer great benefits. DH – If there’s any easy cut and paste stuff, please forward to board. RD – IJA’s website doesn’t have anything on there, I gleaned it from their form letters. I’ll phone and get more info.	Update Next meeting March 5			Rick
Education Committee
		Present draft of Education Committee mission statement to Board + Vision Statement DH _ Thanks for your report, John, flesh that out? JW – It’s difficult to understand Rick and Jackie… Appreciate… [mostly unintelligible] Vision statement and Mission statement are needed before committee becomes active. [Mentions 3 groups, local to John]… Jackie is busy with her circus, will contact her after that. Have yet to talk with Kevin Okeefe. Doyle Ott, Carlo Pellegrini… have to talk with them. Will compile and print and get it to the board. Talked about the differences between AYCO and the Education Committee. Will help the membership understand what the committee is working on. … Went to CAPHERD Conference last year, will go again this year. Want to borrow banner. All fees have been paid. Where is the banner, SF? PF – I don’t know where the banner is, Orlene probably does. DH – I think it’s at the school, I’ll email Orlene. RD – I will be going to the Eastern District of AAHPERD in Hartford, next month. I can use some AYCO materials. JW – We need a packet of materials, info re: AYCO, membership brochure. RD – I should work on this and bring them with me. PF _ This might be expensive to ship, but we have tons of boxes of programs in the basement. JW - I’ll take whatever I can get, programs, Tshirts, bottles. To give an idea to folks about what we’re doing. DH – We should ship one box of those to the AYCO office. Or two! JW – I’m setting up to do regional shows this summer, this stuff would be handy to give to libraries. PF – We’re hoping to send up a van, can AYCO kick in to support that trip? WB – Yes, AYCO should contribute gas money. JD – I move that we pay 50% gas toward CC trip to Redlands to return Korean pole. DH – Second. PF – This is good insurance, if CC is not going up, someone else will. MOTION PASSED. JD – Let’s talk about the national AAHPERD conference in Baltimore MD in March, 2007. DH – Great, send stuff to the board. JW _ This looks like it might be an important part of our connection to the outer world. Last year AYCO generously covered a third of the costs for this thing. Moral support from Carlo and Orlene was great, esp. the proximity of the festival to the event. There is an expense. Can we come up with some guidelines for things like this, to help cover costs for people who are attending these things. It’s good that we have people in the area. How to fund outreach and education? KG – This should be part of an outreach program, we can agree as a board to attend a few of them and decide which ones. Dh – Make it part of our annual budget, booth fees. The person who sits there, pay their expenses. Can someone compile the list of conferences that are coming up? JW – I’d be willing to help do that for sure. We need to create materials for these DH – Let’s move on. The action is development of promotional materials, compile conferences for next 12 months, and cost of them JW – And list of goals, what constitutes AYCO involvement.	Jan 22 New date? DH – Find banner, Materials together. Ship boxes			John
AYCO STORE
		AYCO store web page – design & function agreement implementation DH – We saw the report. Comments? RD – I came up with revised draft of store page, did I email the address? It’s not yet linked up to the site. I emailed the code, John will upload it to his server (AYCO store website.) The page has an integrated look with regular website, has photos next to description. Not done yet. Next step. I found a free way to have a shopping cart, review shopping card, submit credit card, pay online, verified, etc, all through Paypal. I’ve researched that, just need time to do it. Getting close, really close! DH – Thank you Rick!	Jan 22			Rick* & John
Standards Project
	Standards report with update WB – Project still on hold. Feels he needs help when he has time to regroup. After February 9 when heading home.			On Hold	Warren
AYCO Events Planning (15 min)
		Criteria for Regional Festivals (to qualify as an AYCO event) + Regional Planning JD – I haven’t done a thing. DH – John spoke about Imagination Celebration. JW – I was thinking that we could make this year’s IC festival a regional AYCO festival. Could be a preview for future official regional festivals. The way it looks now, we’ll have local circuses participating. Redlands has been here; if Fern Street and Jumbo Shrimp come on board, we’ll have the 3 major circuses. We can lay down some of the criteria that we can approve as a board to make it an official AYCO festival. At this point it would not be a regional AYCO festival. There’s work being done. JD _ And Dic Wheeler is standing by to help. DH – We are taking on a tremendous amount as it is, working in a lot of different directions. Regionals can almost happen organically… Festival coming up in April could be a model. I want to caution us not to push too much right now. JW – Agreed.	Jan 22			Jackie + John
		Send out call in AYCO Gram looking for people to serve on the Regional Festivals Committee – pending Dic’s agreement to head this DH-	pending			Rick
		Follow up with Al Light, need specific answers to questions about costs DH – Al Light has not responded with more info. PF – Orlene asked me to call Al, I did. Facilities manager at Illinois State has changed; he was supposed to get that info. He’s still excited and interested, things are shifting. I’ll give him a poke. JD – Boulder’s application is literally in the mail.	Unspecified (must be soon) Jan 23 – Nudge Al Light			Kevin + Orlene Peggy
		2007 FESTIVAL SITE DECISION DH- Until we have more information, we need to wait.	Feb 1

Don’t Blame

Respect each other, even if we do not agree on statement/issue

Membership / Communications

Education Committee

AYCO Events Planning (15 min)

Kevin + Orlene