9.10.06 Meeting Minutes

[deroosisonfire]

Austin Improv Collective General Body Meeting
August 6, 2006 1 – 4pm

Members present: René P., Bob A., Kareem B., Valerie W., Orf, Michael M., Christina dR, Wesley B., Nadine L., Andy C., Jeremy L., Gene J., Kaci B. (last names left off for internet privacy)

I. AIC Store
Still pending.

II. Advertising Committee
T-shirts and free tickets were made since the last meeting.
Postcards for inidividual show slots will be made in the future.
Jeremy L. is the new advertising committee chair.
Jeremy will schedule an advertising committee meeting in the next 2 weeks. To be scheduled via these forums.
For posterity: 40% of our budget goes to advertising.

III. AIC Family Reunion
Will take place on Sunday, November 12 at Jen and Erin's house.
It is a pot luck that will involve activities, awards and surprises.
Val, Rachel, Kaci and Tami are planning this event.

IV. Old Year’s Eve Party
There will be a show and party at the Hideout on December 30, 2006 much like last year.
Andy C. is planning this event.

V. Reaching Out to Minorities
Wes will do research and report back at the next meeting.
Wes will start a thread on the boards about our goals with this initiative.

VI. AIC Summer Camp
Val has ownership of summer camp production.
Jessica A. and Kaci B. have expressed interest in helping to plan.

VII.AIC Definition
Membership and show production are separate issues.
Individual membership and group membership are separate issues.
The goals of the AIC are stated in its mission statement, which can be found here.
An AIC show is one that is produced by the AIC and gives the AIC a cut of the profit. AIC member shows are printed in the program.
All improv that we know of in central Texas will be posted on www.austinimprov.com.
All individual members of the AIC are permitted to vote at general body meetings.
To define our current individual membership Bob A. will contact people in the AIC Improviser Database to see if they would like to be members of the AIC.
For future individual members, we approved Erika's proposal: individuals must play with an AIC troupe/show for 3 months and have the signature of 3 AIC individual members.
Troupes apply for membership; there are responsibilities and benefits for membership. Troupe application form will be printed and placed in the Hideout. Will be downloadable from www.austinimprov.com.
Orf will make a troupe application form.
Christina will make it into a comprehensive list of individual and troupe membership responsibilities and benefits and post that list on these forums by 9/12.
Bob A. will post this list as well as protocol to join the AIC in the wiki.
Andy C. will post this list as well as protocol to join the AIC on www.austinimprov.com.


VIII. AIC President
We do want a leader - to be called the Executive Director (to make Andy C. happy).
The general job description is: hire and fire paid employees of AIC, maintain an open dialogue with committee chairs and evaluate committees, schedule and run a monthly meeting with commitee chairs, monthly status report, delegate or do tasks which must be completed for the AIC.
To begin with we will elect a volunteer for a 3 month probationary period so we can determine what sort of work the job entails and what appropriate compensation would be.
The committee chairs the executive director is expected to meet with are advertising, finance, social, scheduling, education and secretary. This group can also be called the executive board.
Christina will organize and run a meeting with the committee heads to clarify their jobs as committee heads and list what more specifically what the executive director should do. This meeting will take place within the next 2 weeks. The results of this meeting will be posted on these forums. Non-committee chairs may attend this meeting if they can make the scheduled time.
After the executive board has posted the results of their meeting, all interested parties must announce their candidacy on the forum before the next general body meeting.
At the meeting all candidates will speak for a pre-determined period of time and AIC members will vote. Voting will be permitted to continue for the following week so that everyone who wants to vote on this important matter is allowed to give their input.
Bob A. is in charge of voting.

IX.AIC Voting
To be discussed next month.
What are general AIC voting policies?
What constitutes a quorum? Is absentee voting allowed?

X. Season Passes
To be discussed next month.
The idea of a season pass or buy 20 seats for the price of 15 sort of pass for frequent audience members. We need proposals to figure out how the troupes playing the night a pass is used do not lose money from a normal ticket not being bought.

XI. Next meeting
Sunday, October 1 at 1pm at the Hideout.

[kbadr]

Something I just thought of...

There was some discussion of "Well, the public doesn't need to know or care what constitutes an AIC show." I happen to agree with this, except that now we're talking about maybe making year passes for a set price (if we can figure out how to split the cash so that the Hideout and the performing troupes don't get screwed.) But if the AIC is printing these year passes, then they should only apply to AIC shows. Which brings us back to having to clearly define what an AIC show is, in addition to having to explain this difference to an audience member who presents their card for a non-AIC show.

It'll get messy.

It seems like things are going to get confusing because we want the AIC to both be this over-arching organization that repsents all improv in Austin, as well as a theatre entity that produces its own shows.

[the_orf]

It seems like things are going to get confusing because we want the AIC to both be this over-arching organization that repsents all improv in Austin, as well as a theatre entity that produces its own shows.

That's exactly the issue. Either the collective is a producer of shows, which are clearly defined as "an AIC production," or it sticks to being a happy-go-lucky yay-team kind of nebulous group. It could do both, but if it does so, it's going to have to act as two separate entities within its own AIC umbrella organization.

As you said, it could get messy.

But that's not to say it can't be done.