Alchemy BOD Minutes: March 2012

Alchemy LLC Board of Directors MeetingMarch 18, 2012 Meeting Begins at about 3:20pmPresent:  Troy Cobb, Rebecca Rea, Age Ginsburg, Sarah Griffith, Trevor Register, Jonathan LaLiberty, Jessica Seales, Tareq Fayyad, Jim Taflinger, Scott Whitfield & Mel Roberts Alchemy Event Report and FinancialsTroy sent breakdown via email yesterday.  He’s categorized Alchemy by team or project.  Working on a PDF, but didn’t happen in time.  He has handout for us today.  We’re near break even for the year, mostly due to CORE costs.  Must be wrapped up in the next 2 weeks, by the end of the fiscal year.  Preliminary Financials can be found here.Current Bank Account:  $5000 check for Euphoria account that still hasn’t been cashed.  $7400 in the bank, including current outlays for Summit.  Tunna’s hasn’t been purchased yet.  Chw’s is still pending, but should clear tonight.Troy believes we must have a bookkeeper by April 1st.  Rebecca and Troy both commit to spending lots of effort to get this resolved.  Rebecca has a contact she plans to feel out for recommendations.Troy wants to clear up any concerns about whether or not official funds were used for Schizofrenzy.  The cube and all other expenses were on Troy’s account.  He brought some paperwork relating to some of those items.  He did pull $500 out of the Alchemy account to replace the broken trailer, planned to pay that back and forgot about it.  He apologized profusely and will now pay back the full amount.Bookkeeper/monitoring cash flow, QuickbooksTroy thinks we need one by 4/1 and he and Rebecca are prepared to devote some time to finding one.Troy resigns from the BoD and Alchemy ELTHe announces his decision and reads his prepared statement. He plans to still be involved and be a resource whenever needed and hand things off.  He thinks this is a good time to do a reset.  Here’s Troy’s statement.At this point, Troy excuses himself from the meeting.  Sarah makes a phone call to Dawn Flurry, who is the alternate, based on votes in the 2011 elections. According to our ByLaws, the seat goes to Dawn.  She accepts the seat and will attend next month’s meeting, catching up on the list in the meantime.Interviews for Event Lead Team MembersApplicants:  Jessica Seales, Trevor Register, Scott Whitfield, Cory Glenn, Justin Majors, Miranda Covington, Kaylie-Jade “Bug” & Tracy Finnemore.Jessica Seales “Bama”She’s been Alchemy LLC’s Volunteer Lead for 2011.  She currently works in marketing & special events at the Atlanta Community Food Bank, where she serves as a Project Manager.  She also executed events during her time at Planned Parenthood.  Most recently, she was responsible for organizing all route entertainment at the Hunger Walk/Run, an event with over 15,000 people in attendance.  She originally applied for the Art Fundraiser, but is most interested in serving on Alchemy’s ELT.  Rebecca has every confidence in Jessica on Alchemy’s ELT.Trevor Register “BullTits”In 2011, Trevor led Euphormance at Euphoria and Fire Conclave for Euphoria and Alchemy.  He also led a significant portion of the onsite Effigy construction and was essentially the construction Co-Lead for the Temple, both for Alchemy.  He was also elected to the BoD.He’s learned quite a bit about his strengths and weaknesses.  Trevor says he’s charismatic, motivated and excels at delegation.  We feel confident that he’d do a great job running either Art or Decomp.   He feels he won’t be able to do Alchemy, as he’ll be starting a demanding program in July.  We’ll use him where he’s most needed and he’s fine with that.Scott WhitfieldScott is currently a virgin, looking forward to attending his first burn in 2012.  He doesn’t have a ticket for Euphoria, at this point.  He plans to attend Alchemy.  He’s been to camping festivals and loves what he hears about burns and wants to volunteer, in a big way, right from the start.His professional background is in live event production and he owns a company in Atlanta called Imagination & Technology.  He’s been in this industry since 1981. Much of what he does is production design for large events like arena shows and festivals.  His role typically includes project management and production supervision.  These could be for anything from a single performance stage to a multi-tier experience event.  His company just wrapped up the Bassmaster Classic in Shreveport - The Super Bowl of bass fishing.  He runs the company with a partner who’s more the big-idea guy.  It’s Scott’s job to figure out the real-world logistics of actually creating the big ideas.  He calls himself the reality police.We talk about how burns are different than many other events and how we’d prefer him to have attended one before he leads.  We do love his experience running events.   Rebecca suggests he lead a team first, possibly Connexus.  Age thinks he’d be a good fit on the Effigy team, both with the build (if that’s in his skill set) and with the Pageant, which is very much in line with his experience.  He will get back to Rebecca if he manages to score a Euphoria ticket.Cory GlennCory leads one of the bigger theme camps, Conglomerate.  He’s also responsible for the awesome Square Grouper.  He’s got some land called Fatality Farm up in Athens and a good amount of experience throwing events within the community.  He was unable to make the meeting because he was running an event but is very interested in leading Decomp.  Everyone seems to feel positively about Cory and that idea and agree we know him well and don’t need to interview him further.Justin MajorsJustin is a Director of the FLAME Festival.  He also runs his own events through iOpener and helps organize many other music events.  He led Decomp several years ago.  In addition, he has a management position professionally.Justin is very interested in leading Decomp.  He’d be happy to help with the Art Fundraiser, but isn’t as available to lead in June.  He was unable to make the meeting, but we already know him quite well and feel very comfortable with him in a lead position.Miranda CovingtonNo show.Kaylie-Jade “Bug”No show.Tracy FinnemoreNo show.ELT DiscussionShould RCs be on an ELT?  Is there a conflict?  Age thinks time is a concern.  Regionals are becoming more important – will their jobs get bigger?  RCs by design represent BM, not our region.  You’re BM’s rep to us, not the other way around.   What if an issue comes up and the ELT’s consensus isn’t how BM feels it should be done?  While we agree that this may become cause for concern, we don’t like the idea of removing anyone after they’re already chosen.  We’ll see how it goes this year and might make a change in future years.Vote:Do we want Rebecca on Alchemy’s ELT?Yes.Do we want Jessica on Alchemy’s ELT?Yes.Do we want Age on Alchemy’s ELT?Yes.Do we want Trevor on the Art Fundraiser’s ELT?Yes.Do we want Justin on Decomp’s ELT?Yes.Do we want Cory on Decomp’s ELT?Yes.We’d like Trevor to seek out a Co-Lead for the Art Fundraiser.  Do we agree to Trevor choosing his own Co-Lead?Yes.Trevor later notifies us that he’s chosen Shannon Joiner aka Chw.  Chw has been involved in the Atlanta burn community for years.  He’s organized many events and fundraisers for art.  Trevor is very excited to have him on board!Event Lead TeamsThe Art FundraiserTrevor Register “BullTits”Shannon Joiner “Chw”AlchemyTunna KeroseneBecky KatzRebecca ReaAge GinsburgJessica SealesDecompressionJustin MajorsCory GlennELT expenditure processEuphoria plans to have a google doc where every purchase will be listed, so they have very close to live financials available.  Any participant should be able to check and see where we are financially.They’ll also meet 3 to 4 days before each BoD meeting and be ready to update the BoD monthly.  They’ll present what they expect to spend + 10%.   They should have a budget by the first week of April for Euphoria, once TLs turn in their budgets.Process for moving money from income account to separate Euphoria/Alchemy expenditure accountsRebecca hasn’t started CU accounts and still has $5K check.  She’s not pleased with how her CU has handled things.  They’re not designed for small business accounts.She’s talking to Steve with Chase.  It would possibly ease things to have a personal contact, especially when changing signatories.  She’d like one more week to hammer things out with Chase and see if it can work.Either way, the plans are to have a revenue account and an account for each event.  That will make it much easier to be aware of how much each event is spending.  Euphoria plans to have a google doc where every purchase will be listed, so they have nearly live financials available.Rebecca will sit down and think about what she plans to do in what order and hopefully send an email this week.  The whole process should be complete by 4/1.Euphoria 2011 FinancialsEuphoria was closer to break even than expected for two reasons:1) Scanners were only used for Euphoria, so were put on Euphoria’s financials.  The original plan was to use them for both events and have Alchemy cover that expense.  That didn’t happen.2) The Euphoria financials also didn’t account for taxes, so those had to be added.PR/Communications teamThings have been working well.  This year’s Board has been communicating well.  Also, Jessica Seales is no longer available to lead and she’s the one who submitted the proposal.  Sarah offers to draft a quick public statement for the FB pages, post to list for approval this week.-TABLE with expectations.Year-round team proposalsWe’d like to have a sit down with them soon to discuss the year-round team.  Euphoria met and came up with a solution for the PW team.  The leads are going to manage certain very specific contracts with each burn.  Then there’s the year-round team, which handles broader things and could have a different lead.  The Leads are going to manage certain very specific contracts with each burn.  We also need a schedule of specific dates with regards to when things are going "