PHG Board Meeting 11-29-18

Agenda
PHG Board Meeting
7 PM, November 29, 2018
Room 4, Multnomah Art Center

1. Call to Order: The meeting commenced at Multnomah Arts Center at 7:02 PM
   1. Roll Call: Dan Steves, President; Amy Belgan, Director of Communications; Ladella Williams, Exhibits and Rental Equipment Chair; Janis Johnson, Director of Sales; Sue Walsh, Past President and Acting Workshop Chair; Robin Korybski, Director of Member Services; Barbara McGaa, Director of Membership; Sylvia Emard, Newsletter Editor
   2. Determination of Quorum
   3. Any changes to the agenda
2. Minutes from previous board meeting: Megan Rothstein had previously sent out the minutes for August, September and October. Amy motioned to approve them and Robin seconded. The minutes were approved.
3. Correspondence: None
4. Old Business
   1. Fall Sale Update: Janis reported that she did not get all the numbers yet for the fall sale, but most participants agreed that while attendance was down from last year, sales were good. Weftovers brought in about $150. Sue thought there were not enough demonstrators this year; we should be better organized next year and use the demos as an outreach opportunity, but in a better location than the stage. The Bead Society is moving their annual sale to a new location and expressed interest in possibly joining up with PHG at the fall sale, perhaps in the MAC gym, but they have not yet approached PHG with a proposal.
5. New Business
   1. Website: Robin requested use of the website as a backup storage space for library data. She and Amy will coordinate.
   2. Workshop Policy Update: There was a discussion of proposed policy updates for workshops, as written up and presented by Sue, and which would take effect in the 2019-2020 year. There is still a question of how to open workshops up to non-members and when to collect workshop fees: upfront or close to the workshop date. Costs are not always determinable far in advance. Sue suggested collecting a full workshop fee upfront, then issue rebates if costs turn out to be lower than expected. She will make changes to the policy updates and have them incorporated into these minutes. Janis moved to approve the amendments, Robin seconded and the motion was approved.
      Please see the workshop policy updates with corrections in red, beginning on page 3 of this document.
   3. Grants/Special Projects: Reworking of the grant into a special projects award was discussed. Maggie and Sue came up with a proposal to grant smaller amounts of money to more participants. The application would be less formal and less intensive: no pictures, no review panel. Some form of payback to the guild by the recipient would still be an element of the new grant, but less intensive than a program, workshop or notebook. Small grants might be paid back with a mini-workshop. Ladella requested clarification for the jurors of their expectations for recipients. A new guild member, Linda Edquist, has grant-writing experience, and has volunteered to write up the grant application. Maggie and Sue will flesh out the new policy in December, to put forth to the members in January or February.
6. Director Reports (Time Permitting)
   1. Margaret Zeps is no longer the rep for Handweavers Guild of America, as HGA has terminated that role. Robin will take over renewing with HGA.
   2. Janis reported that preparations for the spring sale are under way. There should be a letter and an application available online within a few weeks. Most volunteer roles are covered, but there is no volunteer coordinator and demonstration recruiter on board yet. The Gathering of the Guilds steering committee meeting is coming up soon. The five smaller guilds want to create a separate GotG entity; the potters do not. Professional advice on how to proceed is needed.
   3. Janis asked if the 2019 ANWG Conference would have guild booths. Ladella said it is not clear yet, but doubted there would be guild booths. She will follow up with ANWG shortly to clarify.
   4. Sue presented the Education report. The Mill End Store workshop space doubled in price, comparable to MAC rates. Barbara Walker’s workshop has only 2 people signed up and is at risk of being canceled. A side note: Maureen McNulty found that the Garden Home library has a room available for free to non-profits, which could be a meeting or workshop space. Other libraries have similar meeting rooms, although scheduling may be limited. Maggie would like to establish study groups and announce them soon, so members can take advantage of this member benefit.
   5. The programs for the remainder of the year are lined up. Next year is mostly lined up, but there are four openings. Francisco Bautista is a possibility, as well as a program on learning from mistakes. Linda Edquist is interested in being Program chair, but as she is new, she might benefit from job-shadowing before fully committing. She has ideas for doing the program chair job differently than we currently do it.
   6. Barbara wants to know more about the scope of the Membership position. Her duties differ from what they were previously, and there is overlap with others updating the online member database, etc. Clarification on who handles what member data is needed. Dan, Amy and Barbara will meet in the near future to straighten out the actual number of paid-up members.
   7. Sue suggested changing the newsletter banner to match the new website design. Amy described how to search through the member directory.
   8. Ladella suggested that passwords for Facebook and other websites should be stored with the guild President, in case access is lost due to death of the administrator.
7. Next Meeting: There will be no meeting in December. The next meeting will be January 24, 2019.
8. Adjourn: The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 pm.

Respectively submitted,
Sylvia Emard, Acting for Megan Rothstein, Secretary