Minutes of Valley Art Association March 8, 2012 Board Meeting
The VAA board meeting was held at 10 am on March 8, 2012 at the Chippewa Falls public library with Ruth Lundblad presiding. Others present were Sharon Bell, Jenny Licht, Ray Peterson, Kathy Prentice, and Joel Wiltrout.
Minutes from the February board meeting were approved as submitted by Ray Peterson.
Treasurer’s Report – Acting for Alice Anderson, Ray Peterson gave the Treasurer's Report. We currently have 41 VAA members.
Program Committee – April program will be Eldbjorg Tobin on archival preservation. The program for May may be Jenny Licht on how to present our art for display and sale rather than the previously scheduled fabric art program by Ann Neidhold. This change needs to be confirmed yet.
Education – The Kris Parins workshop is set for June 18-20 and the application deadline is May 18th. Eighteen participants are needed (5 signed up so far).
Exhibits – Lucy’s, Economy, and the library exhibits are set for March and April. The library has not been filled for May/June, but the other venues are filled.
Solstice – Ray announced there are 15 registrations so far (all prior exhibitors); two potters and lots of variety. The poster design competition is finished and the winner is Des Sikowski-Nelson. Posters are being printed. Des has also given leads on potential mailing lists and opportunities for postage savings. The committee is contacting potential food vendors for the Solstice event. Vendors must be self-contained. We will manage the food vending ourselves. 2012 Solstice visitor brochure sales packets have been distributed. We will start our sales with last year’s ad sponsors and go from there. The committee developed an action plan for more participation based on creating a specific task list. We likely will back away from a Solstice booth at the Eau Claire Open Aire Festival the week prior to our event. We will rely on VAA members who have booths to display our Solstice materials. We’re looking at alternatives to Paint-a-Van. Face painting, mural drawing, and clowns can be considered. Ray will contact Rusty Volk (North. WI State Fair) for his advice. The Solstice team continues to discuss our relationship with the CR Mansion based on recent developments about cost sharing between us. Jenny Licht has joined our tem. The next meeting is set for March 20th.
Old Business – Ray will rewrite the job description for the exhibit committee chair. Sandi Churness has written up a policy for the June picnic prep and Ruth wrote a policy for the holiday party. These will be sent to members shortly.
Re articles for upcoming newsletters: Jenny will write an article for the April newsletter with ideas for members on artwork suitable for Volume One covers. She has ideas to share and knowledge of criteria for selection for various submissions we may want to make. Joel will write an article for the May newsletter on Spring photo opportunities.
New Business - We discussed the idea of sending reminders via e-mail to members a few days ahead of each general meeting. Everyone thought it was a good idea but the logistics of who will send and when still need to be worked out.
Sharon Bell will meet with Ruth re the membership chair duties.
Jenny suggested that we have an ongoing list for each exhibit venue re what each artist should bring and what each artist is responsible for. This will vary depending on venue and the member in charge of the exhibit site will be the one to contact. We would like Sharon to publish this list in the newsletter. This could be a regular newsletter item.
The meeting was adjourned at 11 am. The next general meeting is April 5th at 6:30 pm and the next board meeting will be April 12th at 10 am – both at the public library in Chippewa Falls.
Submitted by Kathy Prentice, Secretary
Minutes of Valley Art Association February 9, 2012 Board Meeting
The VAA board meeting was held at 10 am on February 9, 2012, in the Chippewa Falls public library with Ruth Lundblad presiding. Others present were Jane Whiting, Joel Wiltrout, Jenny Licht and Sharon Weeks.
Minute’s approval – the January 2012 board minutes were approved but need to reflect that the board approved wording such that the Vice-President will be chairman of the Membership
Treasurer’s report – Alice gave the Treasurer's Report.
Program Committee—Upcoming programs are as follows: March VAA photographers, April Archival preservation, May fabric art.
Education Committee— Plans underway for the Parin Workshop on June 18-20, 2012. Need to put our application on the website if possible.
Exhibit Committee
Lucy’s/Economy Exhibiting – Carol Way is the coordinator for Lucy’s. March & April exhibitor is Jenny Licht. Ruth Lundblad is the coordinator for Economy. March & April exhibitors are Pat Hamm, Ruth Lundblad, Sandi Churness & Jane Whiting.
Sharon Weeks and Jane then introduced a possible new exhibiting site at the Chippewa Falls Public Library. Sharon Weeks presented a draft of an agreement with the library which has been presented to the library director. Jane Whiting presented a draft of an exhibiting artist agreement that could be used at all of our exhibit sites. These will be discussed more at upcoming board meetings.
Heyde Exhibiting – show set for November 2012. Ann Neidhold is the coordinator.
Solstice – Poster competition is up and running with a submission deadline of March 1st. 9 artists registered for Solstice so far. 60 additional invitations were sent out with return postcards. We hope the postcards will help us refine our solicitation lists. We are actively exploring additional food vending options. The artist application form is now on our website The CR Mansion board should be back to us next week with their position on additional food vending. Ray met with Rusty Volk (No. Wisc. State Fair). He provided excellent advice to us about food vending issues – contracts, public health, vending candidates, etc.
Old Business—Review of drafts for exhibiting committee/chair, exhibiting policy and holiday planning policy were tabled to the next meeting.
New Business – More discussion on mailing versus emailing our monthly newsletter. No consensus but will continue to discuss.
Will continue to work on the idea of allowing members to share something about themselves as a newsletter feature.
More discussion on allowing different levels of membership – family plan, college rate, non-artist memberships, etc. No action taken at this time.
Submitted by Ray Peterson
Minutes of Valley Art Association January 2012 Board Meeting
The VAA board meeting was held at 10 am on January 12, 2012 in the Chippewa Falls public library with Ruth Lundblad presiding. Others present were Sandi Churness, John Lauson, Ray Peterson, Kathy Prentice, and Jane Whiting.
Minutes – The December 2011 board meeting minutes were approved as published with the following corrections: Jane will be working on policies for preparing for the member art exhibit at Heyde and the annual holiday party – not the June picnic. Ray is working on the duties for the chair of the exhibit committee.
Program Committee – Sandi announced that Jean Guertin, who works in glass and metal, will present the Feb. program. March will be John Lauson and other photographers, April will be Eldbjorg Tobin re archival preservation, and May will be Ann Niedhold with fabric art.
Education – no report. Kris Parins watercolor workshop scheduled for June.
Solstice – Ray said letters have been sent out to 2011 participants. The poster design contest deadline is March 1st. Main St. group is not planning to have a shuttle bus this year, nor will there be any special downtown activities going on except for the annual Leinies Family Reunion. The Renaissance Festival will possibly also be going on. The Rutledge Mansion board has new management, Leslie Szulgit chairperson.
Exhibits – Carol Way is coordinating the exhibits at Lucy’s and artists scheduled so far are Jenny Licht in March/April, Ann Neidhold and Karen Bejin in May/June. and Ruth Lundblad and Jane Whiting in July/August. Ruth Lundblad is coordinating the exhibits at Economy Furniture and artists scheduled so far are Jenny Licht, Mary Smith, Nancy McCarthy, and Bonnie Fetzek in Jan/Feb, Pat Hamm, Ruth Lundblad, Sandi Churness, and Jane Whiting in March/April, and Candace Hennekins in May/June. We also discussed possibly putting a banner at Lucy’s and maybe a sign in the front window to call attention to the local art work. We are on the Heyde calendar for our member art show for next November. Sharon Weeks will be contacting the CF library re exhibiting member art work at that location.
Old business – John Lauson confirmed that the duties of the Vice-President will be to stand in for the President, attend general and board meetings, and be the chair of the membership committee. Ray is working on the description of duties for the exhibit committee chair. He has already done the membership committee chair job description.
We discussed contact departing members to solicit their reasons for leaving VAA. Sharon Bell, as VP, should be involved in this discussion so we’ll take it up later. Jane made policies for the holiday party and the annual Heyde member art show. We discussed several points in both policies and Jane will re-write and/or tweak some of the points and we’ll discuss that later also. We decided to solicit ideas from members during the fall as to what type of activity, if any, they would like to have at the holiday party.
Ruth presented a policy regarding advertising of members’ art work as well as the policy regarding presenters at meetings. The board approved the policy as presented.
New Business – Ray presented the format for the VAA ad scheduled to begin in Volume One. He also handed out copies of the publication schedule and dates by which changes need to be made, who needs to be notified, etc.
Jane reported on her recent meeting with the CF Main St. people. They are thinking of having a monthly community event (e.g. first Thursday type event). This is still in the planning stage, but they seem to be interested in having artist participation in the monthly events. We will mention this at meetings and in our newsletter and solicit members whether or not they would be interested in participating on a regular basis in this type of event in the community.
The meeting was adjourned at 11:20 am. The next general meeting is February 2nd at 6:30 pm and the next board meeting is February 9th at 10 am – both at the public library in Chippewa Falls.
Submitted by Kathy Prentice, Secretary
