June 12, 2019

Present: Jay, Denise, Doug H, Sara, Jennifer, Braden, Jordan, Barbara, Kim, Steve A, Kevin, Steve S, Jeffrey

Contents

Actions

  • Doug provide postcards for community outreach committee to hand out when they ask restaurants in Saratoga to support us
  • All Board is invited to attend Saratoga Chamber of Commerce event on Wednesday, June 19 at “Stilettos,” where SBMT will be introduced
  • Doug send message to membership pushing Tacos & Tunes tickets
  • Steve will follow up on survey suggestions and provide changed survey for 2019-20 season for review
  • Jay will launch election soon [Barbara will help set up candidate bio pages]
  • Steve A will follow up on liability waiver form, have Jay and Sara review
  • Mark calendars for August 24, 9am to 5pm, for the Board ‘retreat’
  • In July minutes, we need to include a statement that Molly is removed as a signatory and Jen Maggio is added to the accounts. Barbara will look for the minutes from last time so we can have the same statement

Community Outreach Committee

  • Discussed corporate sponsors – working up a document on how to ask
  • Restaurants – members of the committee will reach out to restaurants in the Saratoga area and ask for partnerships, we do something for them (like publishing something in our program or publishing something on the website, or when buying tickets you get a list of restaurants) in return for them making a donation such as providing gift cards for Tacos and Tunes
  • Doug will provide postcards for Steve A and Jordan to hand out when they talk to the restaurants
  • Were invited by Saratoga Chamber of Commerce to go to the wine bar “Stilettos” next Wednesday, Jun 19. So far, Sara, Steve A, Steve S, Jordan, and Kevin will attend

Tacos and Tunes

  • Need auction items – will do a second ask soon
  • Ticket sales – We already have 30 tickets sold
  • Jay, Dan, Barbara, and Dick Niblock will have tables for 8 at Tacos and Tunes due to their donation levels. We encourage all to invite people to your tables who will bid on auction items!
  • Request gift cards from restaurants for Tacos and Tunes
  • We still need to follow up with people on redeeming some of the prizes from last year (Walter says no one came to him for the ‘evening with Walter.’)
  • Doug will send a message to the membership pushing tickets

Big River Survey

  • 22 cast out of 30 responded; 5 orchestra responded. Largest category was newbies
  • See Steve’s report  at
    https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1I81LwcFZw2M60_RuCJGqVDtU94Gi4DiGggs77K7Jld8/edit#slide=id.p1
  • Suggestions for next season’s surveys:
  • Provide a question about each individual staff member? Possibly something like “Did you have a Positive / Neutral / Negative experience with the Director,” one question per staff role. Steve will come up with some suggestions to bring to the Board
  • Sara can provide feedback as needed to staff members, in a filtered or edited manner
  • Encourage people to go to the ombudsperson, talk with Sara if there are issues

Workshops

  • 29 people signed up for workshops (a couple of courses have only 1 sign-up right now)
  • Advertisements have gone out to membership emails, Theater Bums, Facebook
  • Next series will be in October/November; may have one earlier for just tap
  • Lee Ann and Chris Reber both said they might do it, will meet with Sara
  • How about a set-building class, you build at the set shop? ?

Election Update

  • 6 candidates (3 returning Board members, plus Jen Maggio, Michael Hirsch, Dallas Carter). Jennifer Seguin also volunteered and Sara will talk with her and see if Jennifer is willing to wait this time, and help with something else.
  • Doug will step aside and just be Marketing Director
  • Jay updated all the records for voter lists
  • Election will also ask for votes on:
  • Bylaws change, to only one general meeting per year
  • Election procedure change, voting eligibility if you served 20 hours over the past two seasons

Executive Director

  • Gentlemen’s Guide is cast; Heather & Walter meeting, design coming soon, final by the end of July; Sara will talk to Stephen W about being painter on the production
  • Patty Reed (?) from SCP will be an associate production manager; Steve S (?) volunteered to be the assistant producer
  • Millie exceeded our revenue target; probably under budget
  • Sara will meet with Lee Ann to discuss anywhere we can make improvements
  • At Millie load-out, the rental truck hit one of the orchestra members’ cars in the parking lot; then the truck had a flat tire. Some cast members were uncomfortable about the incident. WVLO truck was available – but Dallas & stage manager had to drive to Aptos to get the key to the truck, so it took an hour and a half before a working truck was there.
  • We got some feedback about racism in the Millie show from one patron, to Sara. But Jennifer did not see any comments about that in the feedback that she receives. We did publish a blog post about racial stereotypes in older shows, and we partnered with an anti-human trafficking agency to place an ad in the program.

Liability Waiver

  • Suggest we provide a liability waiver form, making it clear what our liability is, that it is limited liability, that we take all precautions that we can, but we can’t cover everything
  • Steve A suggests that we could use Lyrics’ form. PAP and SCP provide a liability waiver form also (PAP provides it when you audition)
  • Steve will draft one, discuss with Jay and Sara, including when and how to provide it to SBMT participants

Other Business

  • Mark calendars for August 24, 9am to 5pm, for the Board ‘retreat’
  • In July minutes, we need to include a statement that Molly is removed as a signatory and Jen Maggio is added to the accounts. Barbara will look for the minutes from last time so we can have the same statement
  • The Board officially thanks and recognizes Braden for bringing the financial management of SBMT to a professional level over the past 10 years. We appreciate all your work!