10.23.04
Roboto Monthly Meeting - Minutes for the 10/23/04 Meeting

Roboto Monthly Meeting October 2004

Note: due to the brief and informal nature of the September meeting, there are no minutes for that meeting.

New Business

Facilities (Jim Robinson/Jen Briselli)
- The recycling will be picked up soon.
- Jim will be cleaning the space every Sunday in addition to the board members cleaning up the space before/after each show.
- Items we might want to acquire: new clock for the space; chairs.
- Jim would like to have a clean up/work day before ADD fest. This will take place November 7th at 4:00pm, after the Steelers crush the Eagles, of course!

Booking (Joseph Wilk)
- Joseph wanted to check with the board members to make sure we receive money from Dave Earl before reserving several dates for him.

Finances (Q)
- Balance: $2,277.08
- Q has done some calculations regarding the number of shows in past years versus this year. The amount of show cancellations has been unusually high, and a general lack of full booking for months has created the least number of shows since the space began. On average there have been 181 shows per year. This year we will be lucky to break 130. That is a difference of $1500 in our budget. With rising costs, this presents a minor financial crisis.
- In order to remedy this shortage of shows, we will be attempting to organize more events sponsored by the Robot board. This will be elaborated further in the open discussion part of the meeting.

Secretary (Jeremy Hedges)
- The membership list has been rescued from the Roboto computer. We will be contacting folks soon about renewals, but beat us to the punch and renew today!
- Jim Robinson has become the Facilities board member for a second term by default. Congratulations Jim!

Open Forum
- ADD Fest. Joseph has 8 bands confirmed as of the meetinghe has sent out several additional rounds of e-mails in hopes of having the full line-up in the next day or two. Instead of artists volunteering to create art during the bands sets, each band will now find an artist themselves. The equipment will be worked out soon. Decorations: we need a fresh coat of paint on the walls; store front decoration Q has an idea for this, will work on it the day before the show to give people a surprise; a big stencil inside on the wall; we will try to get some more photography up on the walls for this year. T-shirts: Tom Chaible has offered to let us do shirts at his place, we should have a design by October 29th.
- New space. We are still waiting for the mayor to help get all of the parties together. Jeff Gentle and Mike Ovens have volunteered to find all of the information downtown on back taxes and liens. It was brought up that given our situation, would it still be a good idea to pursue a new space? The new space would not require too much divestment of our current budget, as we will be pursuing outside funding (fundraising, grants, etc).
- Radical reorganization of the Board of Directors. After discussing several ideas about how things are working at Roboto, the board has decided to turn these ideas over to the membership for discussion/criticism. This restructuring has two aspects. First, there are currently two Facilities board positions. One of these positions would be changed to Special Events and Outreach Coordinator. This position change would take place in January when Jen Brisellis term is up for election again. This position would focus more upon organizing special Roboto events, such as the Spaghetti Socials, non-music events, etc. It would also help in making sure that things like flyers for the upcoming Roboto events make their way to key locations around the city. The specifics of the position would be an amalgamation of the board members ideas and the way discussions shape the position in the coming months. Secondly, we would like to try a more serious attempt to get a set of committed volunteers assisting with a variety of tasks at Roboto. The proposed idea would be a committee formed in conjunction with each board member and their respective responsibilities. These areas include: Secretary/Public Relations (takes care of membership dues, records as well as announcements and PR duties); Facilities (makes sure that the physical space is kept in good shape); Finances (keeps track of our finances, pays the bills, etc); Booking (coordinates the calendar, keeps the website events page up-to-date); and the new Special Events and Outreach Coordinator described above. These committees would be formed in order to give each board member a group of reliable members to help in accomplishing their responsibilities, as well as spearheading new projects and ideas within each area. We discussed several aspects of this at the meeting that were uncertain. First, the board was uncertain how these committees should be selected and what the length of the position would be. We decided that asking for volunteers who then list the areas they are interested in would be the best format (instead of hand-picking people and asking them specifically) the board would then work out the committees based upon this pool of volunteers. A shorter term for these positions also seemed to make sense, and 6 months seemed a good balanced length. The members of committees will receive some benefits for their volunteer work, but specifics on this were undecided as of the meeting. If you are interested in volunteering for a committee, please email us with the area you would be willing to help with at info@therobotoproject.org. We will be attempting a 3-month trial period of these committees, and discussing the idea further at the next meeting.