Cultural Council

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 10:55 am, 1/25/22 S​pecial Meeting/Remote meeting via GoToMeeting ​September 24 2020 Members Present: Laura Kozlowski, Caitlin Thayer, Stephanie, Delia Rinaldi, Susan Wagner, Shannon Carroll, Thomas Olsen, Louisa Wilson, Bonnie Brady, Rachel Eva, Cheryl Desjardins,Brooke Lambert, 6:30: SC reads open meeting law. 6:33 Call to meeting 6:34 Chalk The Walk Update from Sub-Committee (Stephanie) Scouted out a lot of locations. Lots of brick walkways so we are a bit limited, but she liked the amphitheater, & by the new blue moon cafe concrete sundial,(gristmill wheel) Talked to Margaret for being an artist, she asked for 100 for materials, Mayor’s contact for second artist, 150 for her time Thomas found another artist but she backed out. He would like to volunteer himself. Fall theme, no politics, and family friendly. Maybe put studio tour logo on art? Not necessary. Make it a flat fee for each one, at 150 per artist? SC: how many days? 4-6 hours she would like to start like 8am-3pm And try to get the artists to do this all about the same time. Steph says since we have all the electrical boxes maybe doing some chalk paths to these boxes. We want social media to help get people involved. Maybe hide a golden ticket in their bag so they can upload a photo on social media and whoever gets the most likes will get a gift card or something. We need to make a hashtag for this event. Bring some energy to our studio tour page? Leave chalk bags around yet do we have to use hand sanitizer ? Steph : have a trash receptacle near by and she would come back to pick it up later that night. CT: anything that has a permit will have to have a public health plan and the health director will have to approve. SC: is this a formal letter or a form to fill out? CT: no form, just write a detailed letter and reasons why it would be ok etc. SW: what if we left a box of chalk where the artist was? SC: like a 10 gallon white bucket with cool graphics? Steph: better to have smaller bags so less crowds SC: remind people about the map to boxes, grab chalk, good link to social media BB; any little packets of hand sanitizer, wipes? Steph: can’t sanitize chalk -100 packs of chalk 60$ for this? SC: Columbus day weekend, a nice way to look at electrical boxes and be creative with chalk. Thinking it would be Oct 10? One day? Steph: 11am-noon, people out around town. Oct 11 or Oct 12 rain date. She asked the artists to attend tonight but they couldn’t make the meeting. BL: always helps to have material costs for artists. Steph: 150 if we can give each artist that would be a fair stipend and a nice thing to help them during this time. CD: likes all of this, fee is reasonable. Fall theme. TO: wants to create a stencil, emoji jack o lantern BB: fall theme is nice to go with the scarecrow contest. Will add to the ambience downtown Steph: Margaret will give us a mock up of her art in a 1 week and a half so it's done by the Oct 6 meeting. SC: CT will the city need to see the mock ups with the letter? CT: no, not permanent art so don’t need mock up for approval. SC: between the areas: 1 at blue moon, two at amphitheater? BB is that grist mill stone, do we have to stay away from this ? It is antique so any rules around this? BB: it is probably fine. They found it under ground like 30 years ago. Not an issue, not an official historic stone. Budget: 450 + chalk, printing material, (200)=700-800 max budget. Some A frame signs for chalk the walk. CD will create a frames.Will need about 4 signs. Borrow a frames from DPW BB: should have some A frames in the back of city hall. The easels, wooden ones CT said she will check. CT not sure if we can have a current member be an artist but she will double check to see if conflict of interest. Tom says he will volunteer his time and talent if it is an issue. All agree 800 budget cap? SC says we have the money to do this. And promotion for open studio tour. Motion to approve: BB Second: CD Unanimous Steph will draft a letter up for city hall, theme, details, locations and short blurb about the idea of picking up chalk, date, and rain date. LW will put it into one of her written letters to ship out.Source materials on amazon Steph and CD logos, and tags, SC will print. SW has some chalk to donate Letter out tomorrow and early by next week at the latest so we can get the permit and hear from health inspector. Work on bags and design Have artist just put fun stuff out there , no logo needed in their art. Sc. do we still have a 10 day permit so do we have to file this tomorrow? CT says no probably not since we aren’t having an in person meetings now. But sooner the better. 7:12 (Bonnie) Studio Tour 14 people have registered already Form and flyers are out in different studios. Influx of registration should be happening soon How is community outreach(LW) LW asked musicians, did an email, culinary arts email, sparhawk, performance artists, amesbury community theater, haven’t heard from anyone. Only been a few days. Rachel:​(website update) Decided to use squarespace and not hire anyone. Figured out a simple directory, event space. Easier once we have something to look at. Rachel said she can do website. So should talk more about the scope of the site. Oct 16 registration is closing should be in the registration button In oct newsletter put a reminder out there. BB(​Registration)​: people have been uploading photos with registration. No questions, no problems have come in yet, So it is a good sign that the process is working. LW: by oct 6 meeting she will have the resource guide ready to send out Rachel: can we have people to use the hashtag to promote each other and have it in writing. LW will send out a draft to see what we are missing etc before the letter gets sent out. Grant Cycle LW sent out email to some people and we heard back from all but one Haven’t changed these three *Pentucket Acapella group Nov 21. Singing with someone else but same program. *Beatles and Beyond to Sept 30 will be outside *Jumping jumba moved outside to Oct 14 Music dance.edu/​hip hop around the world​ email unclear, waiting for more feedback Chamber not sure if they want to apply the 500 to next year or to something different this year *Amesbury. Rec dept- African Dance wants to move to 2021 Motion to approve: CD Second: BB Unanimous 2021 grant cycle schedule annual report Opens oct . 1 Next week we need to post about this. Thursday oct 1 it will open LW and SC will work on a letter that will be send to chamber PR to city hall BB will do mail chimp with the info. CD has provided graphic for this already and will use it in Mailchimp SC provides a quick history of how this grant process works​: Opens up Oct 1 to Nov 16 MCC puts forth guidelines Nov 16 when it closes and we provide 1-2 sections with annual report to MCC online SC and SW will work on that together with screen share Financial data from the city and part of the report section 2 from city that is going to tell us how much grant money we have over from the previous cycle. Nov 16 that is our obligation to MCC to get those two sections to them LW and SC will oversee MCC has to Dec 1 to provide book of new grant applications will be filtered by MCC And we all have pwd to log into 100 or more pages We read through January we vote on the applications February the final annual report is due. Feb 16 after we have awarded our grants This year it's a bit delayed due to Covid February we find out how much money we have from MCC to award. Once they release the panel books 7:38​Oct 6 next time we are meeting Brooke will be interviewed to be a new member by Oct 6 and maybe we can share a bit about all our members and new members on social media? 7:43 Adjourn