Present: Jay, Steve S, Doug, Sara, Braden, Kim, Denise, Kevin, Steve A., Barbara

SUMMARY of Motions and Actions

  • Board approved the Budget presented by CFO for 2019-20 season.
  • Board approved a performance bonus plan for Sara Dean (as described)
  • Sara will send a message to Board members to confirm interest in participating in a strategic planning committee
  • Sara will either complete paperwork with City of Saratoga by May 17, or plan for holding our dance and acting classes at the studio next season
  • Doug will put together an ad to be released on Millie opening night about the classes; information will also be published on the website
  • Jay will follow up with our insurer about release from liability form for set shop manager(s) 
  • Sara and Steve Allhoff will review some sample release from liability forms
  • Jay will send out announcement to membership about elections and invite people to run  
  • Board members should help finding “star” items like vacation time shares, show tickets, hotel nights for Tacos and Tunes

DISCUSSION

Budget

We discussed increasing the stipends to cast and crew for 2019-20 budget year. Suggested increase to $125 per show (that is, $125 total for the run of one show). We are interested in being competitive with other theaters that pay in this range or above, including City Lights, Palo Alto Players, Los Altos Stage, The Pear, and Tabard. The Board approved the suggested budget, including the increased stipend.

Braden noted that to balance the budget, we opted for the most number of seats to sell in the theater, which means placing the orchestra on stage or backstage. If one of the three shows in 2019-20 places the orchestra in the house, we may have to adjust sales or other budget items to offset the seat loss. 

Strategic Plan

Sara Dean proposed creating a strategic plan “brain trust” to discuss long-term organizational planning for items such as

– Staffing (show creative staffing; tech staffing; build staffing)

– Build management

– Corporate sponsorships

– Location (rehearsal halls; classes; theater)

Sara will send a message asking for Board members to confirm their interest.

Corporate sponsorships

Sara suggests that such sponsorships are most likely to arise out of local (Saratoga / Campbell / San Jose) businesses that associate themselves with the city of Saratoga. She will follow up with the strategic planners on how to approach these groups.

(End of portion by Barbara Heninger – amended on May 16)

CFO report

-Jen Maggio is willing to serve as CFO if elected (and board can nominate her as a candidate if she’s not elected in general election, assuming we do a two-part election)

-Tammy and Braden are working on cleaning up books for a transfer to new CFO; they’re navigating through a system-wide QuickBooks software issue right now

-James Jones (who’s playing Jimmy in Millie) is a professional financial accountant, and may be interested in being a part of a team with Braden and Jen Maggio so that there would be a rotating support team to keep the CFO position covered going forward

SBMT Classes

-Sara met with the Saratoga-Los Gatos Recreation Dept. (which now oversees all classes in Saratoga)

-There deadline is Friday May 10 for the fall catalog, and Sara is trying to get paperwork done for us to participate

-They need various paperwork on liability, TB screening, background checks, electronic fund transfers, etc.

-If we do our classes under their auspices, they can be held at the Saratoga Civic Center and the Rec. Dept. will handle the registration and fees, and put all classes in their published catalogs that reach 31,000 area families

-Under this plan, the Rec. Dept. gets 40% of gross receipts and SBMT gets 60%; we would split that 50% to the instructor, 10% to Sara for administrating, and balance to SBMT

-Sara is trying to meet the deadline, but if she can’t, she plans to do our initial summer classes on our own at the SBMT Studio

-Doug needs dates and prices to put onto the website by May 17, since an ad for the classes will be in the Millie program , which will be released that night

Executive Director Report

-Millie is in great shape; strong cast, beautiful design, high-caliber show; Sara feels it’s the strongest SBMT production she’s seen yet

-SBMT needs to be prepared for possible backlash about content, since a recent high school production was shut down with some bad press

-Concern about portrayal of Asian stereotypes, but the Chinese characters are actually portrayed realistically, and are pretty much the heroes of the story

-Character of Muzzie is not being portrayed by an African-American, but SBMT has cast multi-ethnic roles diversely (the Chinese characters are being played by Chinese-Americans; Miss Dorothy is also Asian American, and Jimmy Smith is Latino. We feel we have reflected our community and been sensitive to the issues)

-Statements and materials have been prepared in advance in case of any complaints or backlash

-SBMT also has an ad from anti-human trafficking organization in program (an issue portrayed in the show)

-Looking at live curtain speech for Millie to announce new season and inspire patrons to join the SBMT community; Sara will create script, and will keep it short and to-the-point

-Gentleman’s Guide auditions May 11-12; lots of strong performers signed up

-First Gentleman’s Guide production meeting held May 5; very strong team

-She Loves Me is staffed and announced on website

-South Pacific will feature Lee Ann Payne as Director/Choreographer and Cathy Snider as Music Director/Vocal Director

-Will start 2020-2021 season planning discussions in June

Liability Question

-Richard Cartwright previously raised the question about whether he could be held personally liable if a volunteer were injured under his watch at the set shop

-Jay will continue to pursue the issue with our insurer, and will also forward sample Release from Liability forms from other theater companies to Sara and Steve Allhoff for reviews; SBMT may want to start getting these signed by all company members

Board election

-Jay will send out announcement to membership about elections and invite people to run

-We have six open slots; Kevin, Kim, and Steve Sammonds will run for re-election; Doug will run if needed, but will step aside and just be marketing director if we have a other strong candidates

-Jen Maggio will run

-Jay emailed Michael Hirsch to confirm whether he will run

-Along with election, need membership vote on bylaws change that SBMT must hold at least one (rather than two) general membership meetings per year

-Need membership vote on procedural change to grant voting privileges to anyone with 20 or more hours of service in past two seasons (rather than just the past season)

Tacos and Tunes

-Kim Kay asked board for help finding “star” items like vacation time shares, show tickets, hotel nights, etc. to be donated as prizes

Bonus plan for Sara

-Board approved a performance bonus plan, whereby a share of any net gain at the end of our 2019-2020 season would be paid out to Sara Dean as a performance bonus. Exact amount and share will be determined at the end of the season, but the board agreed unanimously that better compensation for Exec Director is a high priority for allocation of any overage.

Meeting adjourned at 9:15

(Portion recorded by Jay Steele)