Meeting Minutes 2/3/10

Windhamarts Meeting
February 3, 2010, 6:00pm

Present: Kim Radda, Tom Salter, Amy Kalisher, Bette McDonald, Jean de Smet, Bill Dougal, Sara Bodlak, David Bodlak, Lynn Duvall, Shirlee Sheathelm, Carla Kelley, Susan Johnson, Nat Brown

The meeting was started by reading the article that appeared in the Chronicle regarding Windhamarts future, and the offer from the town of office space, phone, and a place to show work, on a temporary basis. There were mixed feelings about the article.

Kim expressed thanks for all of the members and friends who have come forward offering time and assistance.

Space:

• • Offer from the town of office space.
• • The Windhamarts, WAIM and Camp Horizons meeting about sharing the space has been postponed until after our next meeting.
• • Other possibilities discussed were the availability/suitability of other places such as the Nassiff Building, the Pulaski Building, Eastconn and Artspace
• • What we are, do, and how we are perceived by the community, may change as we make this transition. There were also mixed feelings about the changes this transition may bring.

Office coverage:

• • Amy, Jean, and Sarah have been busy answering phones and taking care of emails and communications.

Communications:

• Website –

• o Tom offered to enter information to the website, remotely from his home. Jean will contact Steve about a password so Tom can do this.

• Emails –

• • Member emails have been exported, these emails need to be checked against the membership list
• • There is concern that some people that we thought were getting emails are not getting Windhamarts emails.
• • Our email list is very large. We should somehow check to see if all still want to get out emails.

• Phone –

• Nat checked into Google phone a free service to have WindhamArts phone calls and voicemails forwarded to a person who would be willing to take on this job. Our phone service must include a call-forwarding feature to take advantage of this.

Other:
• Discussion about taking on the task of restructuring membership


Finances:

• • Account balance $885.00
• • 2 studio artist’s rents are due
• • We have received $300.00 in donations
• • It was suggested that we pay March’s rent. It was decided to table that decision until the next meeting.
• • Feb Rent has been paid.

Fundraising/Community Events:

• Bill Dougal

• o Offered to put on a concert as a fundraiser for WindhamArts, on February 28th at 1:00pm, featuring Children’s songs and Novelty songs. $5 admission
• o Could the Recreation department help to get the information out to the schools??
• o Susan Johnson will promote this concert on her show Let’s Talk About It

• Chocolate Festival –

• o Amy will try to get her Chocolate themed Posters printed for the festival
• o Tom will show his work, Sara will help
• o Windhamarts will offer vender space for $25
• o We need WindhamArts members to step forward to help staff this.
• o We will collaborate with the Temple B’Nai on a butterfly making project in memory of the holocaust

• Marketing/Publicity –

• o The chamber of commerce is sponsoring a home show on Feb 20th. in the Mall
• o Bill Dougal offered to man a membership table
• Other Topics;
• o We need to start to divide our efforts into two branches, one dealing with the day to day operations, and another to do visioning
• o We might entertain the idea to use A PAN advisor to facilitate discussions about transitional planning.
• o Invite John Cusano to a meeting
• o Interview on Homefront should not focus on the negative, (another non profit in trouble), but should talk about new possibilities.

Task List:

• o Shirlee and Tom will check out Artspace
• o Carla will look into getting interns
• o Amy and Lynn will talk to Kim Silcox from the Center for Community Engagement (ECSU). They have students learning about Non profits and Graphic arts.
• o Amy will work on a poll feature on the blog
• o Kim will continue discussions with Neal Beets concerning space
• o Tom has offered to work on updating the web
• o Nat will continue looking into Google Voice options
• o Sara and Tom will put up some art in the Gallery
• o Jean and Amy will prepare communications to be sent out about recent Windhamarts news and the Chocolate Festival
• o Amy will talk to Rabbi Jeremy about the butterflies
• o Bill will man the Home show and share member info.

The next meeting is scheduled for Wednesday February 10th, 2010