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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2015-09-14-ARTS-minexington Council for the Arts Meeting Minutes 1. Pre - Meeting a. Choosing volunteer opportunities - members put their names onto cards and placed them into little bags that were labeled with events and planning work that the Council will be involved in in the coming year. This was designed to match Council members' interest with volunteer opportunities. b. Photo for the Town annual report - David Tabeling from the Town came to take a photo for submission to the Town annual report. c. Attendance: • Present: Cristina Burwell, Lynne Klemmer, Diana South, Leslie Masson, Jean Hart, Seetha Ramnath, Zoe Perry-Wood • Absent (Rosh Hashana): Emily Passman, Cheryl Meadow, Regie Gibson - O'Hare, Jessie Steigerwald • Guests: Susan Hammond (applicant) • Recording Secretary: Seetha Ramnath Meeting start time: 7:05pm 2. REPORTS a. Secretary's Report All were in favor of approving minutes from last meetings (May /June 2015). Motion from Lynne and Jean seconded. b. Treasurer's Report Treasurer's update: Grant year 2014 is closed. The Council had $4,425 approved for grantees, has paid $3900, which leaves $525 remaining. $4800 was allocated by the state for the 2015/16 budget. Preliminary estimate 2015/16 is $5,325 to be granted this year pending banking account reconciliation. We are reporting $2,238 in encumbered funds. Finance files are all organized on the Google drive. c. Chairwoman's update: • Reed Room is booked for the year for these meetings. The group requested investigating other locations for grant meetings where we need more space. October meeting changed to 19th at 7pm. November 9th at 7pm. • Handbooks have been created for each of our major roles, and they will be passed out at the next meeting. • Annual report - Cristina passed out a draft of information for the Town annual report and has asked for feedback. d. Website & Social Media Report Per discussion at the June meeting, Cristina and Diana explored ways over the summer to: 1) provide a website that current and future Councils can easily update, given the dynamic nature of the group, and 2) is inexpensive, given our modest budget. Results of that exploration: • The LCA currently pays for the Lexington open studios website, which also hosts the LCA 1 of 4 website as a sub - domain • Over 50% of our administrative funds is used for the existing website at $120 /year, plus $15 /year each for domain hosting for w w.lexirlgtono enstudios.ors and www.artslexington.org • They created a field test of a website on ,fm„ [;: / /blo .artslexin ton.or that recreated the existing website (artslexington.org), and brought in more information to build the site as a town reference for all things arts (resources, event listings, arts organizations). • They could not recreate the Artists Directory as it currently appears. It is currently hosted on artslexington.org. Discussion: Suggestion to consider separating the Arts Council website (field- tested on the Wordpress blog site) from Artists Directory (with its own domain under Dreamweaver) • While the information on the existing website at artslexington.org can be easily captured in the Wordpress pages ( http: / /blog.artslexington.org), it is felt that the attractiveness of the Directory cannot be duplicated there. • A secondary issue is who is meant to be responsible for the Directory site - is it under the umbrella of the Arts Council, or of Open Studios. Diana explained that the LCA domain and website were created and maintained as a subset of the Lexington Open Studios website. Initially, the LCA worked to foster Open Studios, and it has been successful. Over the years, Open Studios has grown and is able to live on its own. Zoe mentioned that the cost of the existing website might be borne by LOS and LCA intermittently or that the cost could be separated. • Diana suggested that the Artists Directory would be better maintained by Open Studios, as they have better access to the data. She proposed that we separate the LCA website and the Artists Directory. She then proposed that the Artists Directory should be moved to the Open Studios website. • A big problem with separating the two is that they are on the same domain and the LCA website is programmed as a part of the Open Studios website. The wordpress blog can replace almost everything currently in the LCA website, except the Artists Directory, which is more complex than Wordpress can accommodate. In order to separate the Artists Directory from the LCA website and remove the LCA website from the Open Studios website's code, Zoe stated that it is necessary to edit every page in the Artists Directory to replace the LCA header. • Diana explained that all of this means that the LCA website could be maintained for the price of the Wordpress account ($13 /year for WordPress + $15 /year for the domain name), but with the following restrictions: o The Artists Directory cannot be migrated. To remain on the [JustHost.com] account with DreamWeaver is an additional $120 /year. o Documents cannot be uploaded to the Wordpress site except as photos. It was noted that they could be uploaded as a JPEG however. This was discussed with respect to adding a form to join the Artists Directory, or maps used in the Hidden Treasures arts walk. Further discussion was halted so that members could gather more information to be able to figure out the best path forward. Follow -up: • Zoe said she is committed to personally maintaining the Artist Directory pages. She will discuss with her assistant, and intern if it is possible to remove headers (say, 160 pages worth). Leslie and Diana thought there might be a template to only change once as each page is the same. • Someone needs to find out what the financial system has been in the past for better future financial tracking and planning - LCA or LOS? 2 of 4 • Zoe to locate form used for joining Artists Directory. Diana mentioned putting a link to that on the Directory page. • Diana will explore other cheaper options for the Artists Directory (e.g. the justhost.com).. • All LCA members should explore the current and new websites to make the following decisions later: o Do we prefer the format of the current artslexington.org website, or the proposed blog.artslexington.org website? o Should we logically separate the Artists Directory from the LCA website? This simply means that we want different people to maintain each. 3. OLD BUSINESS a. There are two seats on the Council (Regie's term is expiring and he did not respond to query about continuing; Matt moved and resigned in July), with one application made to the Board of Selectmen for appointment. Cristina made note that it would be ideal to balance the group by adding a male, as well as culturally to add a Chinese perspective, and an interest in music. Cristina and Jean agreed to another term's reappointment. b. Community Center meeting • The Library is making plans to fold in the Community Center gallery into their gallery exhibit rotations, and look forward to working with the Council to streamline this. • Zoe, Lynne, and Cristina attended the last planning meeting. The Library director is hoping to make the Council's October meeting to discuss this further. c. Filipowski Sculpture may well have a home in the Community Center (watch this space!) d. Gallery Night Update - 2 women from the Center Alliance are working to locate banks and real estate agencies in town to host a gallery show that would culminate in food and drinks and meet - the- artist night, Jean has a notebook that archives the 2008 arts walk in town that was very similar (this has been made available on the LCA Google Drive for members). November 13th 2015 is the target date, in the likelihood of coinciding with special holiday retail nights planned for that weekend. The next meeting to discuss this is Thursday 17th at LACS. e. Grain Mill Alley Pocket Park Update - HDC meeting resulted in the park committee taking down the solar globe lights (as part of field test), and shortening the time the temporary furniture is up. Due to complaints from building office tenants re: noise, the furniture will be removal by September 15th. At the group's next meeting on 9/24, new ideas by the hired design firm will be presented for the permanent installation. f. Community input Survey - URL for online survey now on business cards to hand out (distributed in meeting to all attendees). Paper forms are also at Cary Library. This information was posted in the town listserv, as well as sent to the Minuteman and Colonial Times newspapers. The survey will close the beginning of October. 4. NEW BUSINESS a. Artists Listsery - Groups.google.com - 40 artists are now on this list. b. Grants: PR & Local Priorities - PR flyers were distributed to each attendee to help post around town. Cristina reported that articles were sent to the Colonial Times, and Minuteman newspapers, as well as over 100 emails (including several town listservs), and fliers were put at Cary Library and LACS. c. Window painting project - Lexington Retailers Association is interested in working with the Council to host a window decorating event whereby artists paint some seasonal images on Town retail windows. It is anticipated that this would be in place by December 4th for the town holiday lights. Cristina is attending Lexington Retailer's Association meeting on 17th of September and will share further details. It is believed that the Council's input would be to find local artists to participate. d. "Hidden Treasures" arts walk is expected to happen again this year (on May 14th, 2016). There has been interest by the Lexington Symphony (also holding an event this w /e) and the Friends of the Bikeway (should there be a possibility to do something along the bike path). The group discussed centralizing art along the Bike Path with a few votes to expand to Parker meadow or Tower Park. 3 of 4 e. Calendar - Cristina passed out a calendar begun by Diana to record what the LCA Treasurer does when. This was expanded to include all of what the Council does when during the year, and is available on the Council Google Drive. Zoe suggested reviewing the MCC website for completeness. f. Cristina presented her draft of 2015/16 goals which included Council priorities, administrative projects and possible events. This included "Affordable Art Fair" presented by Seetha. This concept was discussed as a way for visitors to Lexington area to better access local area artists for a weekend that is already bringing visitors in. Ideas could be October /Head of the Charles or Patriots Day in April. If there is a large open spaces that could be secured, it is a possibility. Cristina will follow up with new Chamber of Commerce head - Molyna Richards and will review in next meeting. g. Approval of new member: Motion to approve Susan Hammond was called by Leslie, Seconded by Jean. Cristina will contact Susan, and the Board of Selectman. 5. ANNOUNCEMENTS a. Upcoming Grantee Event: Charles River Sinfonietta - Chamber Music, September TBA - Hancock Church b. Current LACS show: Instructors' Exhibit c. Board & Committee Training: 9/17 (6 -8pm) & 9/25 (8:30- 10:30pm) d. Next Meeting: October 19, 2015 - Reed Room, Town Office Building unless LCC has a room available and Cristina will confirm via email. Meeting Adjourned at: 8:50pm Motioned by: Cristina Burwell Seconded by: Leslie Masson 4 of 4