Official Minutes St. Louis Park Friends of the Arts 6715 Minnetonka Blvd #104 St.

Louis Park, MN 55426 September 22, 2011 Susan Schneck called the meeting to order at 7:05 pm. Board Directors present: Mike Klement, Susan Schneck, Emily Carney, George Hagemann, Terry Bentley, Sandy Hicks, John Tieszen, Diane Pecoraro, Jim McDonough. Board Directors absent: Judy Hoglund-Alvarado, Rick Person, Christina Barberot, Ben Share, Jim Rhodes. Staff present: Sara Valesano, Michelle Blodgett

I. Review and approve agenda

Agenda was approved as submitted.

II. Update from the Park Theater Company

Jim M introduced some of the members of the production crew- Sara P (Stage Manager), Andy C (Production Manager), and John W (Costume Designer/props). The tryouts went well with nearly all of the casting spots filled. The first read through is next Monday and the opening date of the Our Town production is 11/11/11 at the Rec Center.

III. Review and approve August minutes Minutes were not present so we will approve next meeting. III. Review and approve Treasurers Report
Sandy presented the financial report as well as the 990 EZ report to the board and passed out copies to all. She explained some of the various charges as well as the breakdown of fundraising, management and program allotment for 2010. The board looked it over and was impressed with Sandys thorough work. They will look it over further and bring any questions/concerns to the next board meeting when the tax return will need to be approvd by the board.. John T moves to have Susan and Sandy sign the 990 and send it in, Terry seconds.Approved. Jim M moves to accept the financial report, John seconds. Approved. IV. Donor contacting campaign At the Sept 1 meeting the board discussed reaching out to our donors to see why they contribute and bringing their stories back to the board. Sandy was able to get a hold of Diane Steen-Hinderlie who has been a member since 1995. She is a retired music teacher and stated her reason for contributing to FoTA as wanting to keep her hat in the ring. She likes the calendar and Readers Theater and supports local businesses. Susan and Rick called donors multiple times but were never able to connect with anyone but left messages explaining why they were calling and left their numbers for return calls.. George ran into one of our donors at an event who said that they were contributing as a way to be involved because of lack of time to do anything else and they trust Georges involvement and role in the organization.. The board would like to continue this effot. Sara will track calls made and get names and phone numbers of donors to call emailed out to board members. V. Card for Jims mother

Susan passed around a condolences card for Jim R for people to sign. His mother recently passed away at age 101. Jim passed on the information for the Arts for Life scholarship to people wishing to donate to a cause in her honor.

VI. Action Items

a. Our Town 2012 Michelle Blodgett introduces herself to the board and gives a quick recap of her bio. Michelle then introduces the ideation sheet and goals for Our Town 2012 and asked for input. Some of the other goals that the board thought up were to highlight various populations of SLP through drumming, and to create a balance between art and community. During the ideation brainstorm, many board members had ideas for other items to include in the program, for example, contacting the artists from Bbuckets and Ttapshoes. All board members were excited and energized by Michelles presentation and brainstorm. b. form new board member search committee This will be discussed at the next meeting.

VII. Updates/Discussions
a. Communications Committee Terry went over the bounce back and click-through reports and explained them to the board. Mike recapped the final stages of finishing up the website. All of the forms are online for the various programs and he is going to merge the calendar of events with our Facebook page so when one is updated, they both are current. He again requested head shots from each board member and individual artist pages/Facebook pages to add to the bio section. The main page of the website will be the two top stories from our newsletter each month. b. Membership Committee John recapped the new memberships from the months of August and September. One of his neighbors joined as a FoTA member. John has also been checking out alternative software options for our membership database and has narrowed it down to one possibility. He will get together with Susan, Sara and Emily sometime in the next few weeks to further discuss it. f. Arts and Culture Grant The candidates are currently under review. More details about the upcoming grant deadlines as well as this years recipients to follow soon. g. Arts for Life Scholarship award We had 5 applicants for the Sept 5 Arts for Life deadline and 4 were granted money. The applicants were a high school student who wanted to take voice lessons, a woman taking a printmaking class, a woman taking a textile arts class, and a male artist wanting to buy a camera. There was a good pool of candidates with an interesting spread of ages and art interests. We would like to add a how did you find out about the AFL scholarship? field on our website for people to respond to. h. Whats going on at the office? Sara has been working with Mike to learn how to update the website and populate the calendar. She designed the newsletter for this month and has attended multiple meetings for OT 2012. Sara is also planning the upcoming poetry jam on October 6. 9 pm Meeting adjourned NEXT Meeting October 27 at 7:00 PM, City Hall.

Respectfully submitted by Sara Valesano