Cultural Council

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 11:36 am, 1/25/22 Tuesday June 15, 2021 6:30-8:30pm Usually Meets 1st Tuesday of Every Month Remote Meeting via GoToMeeting WELCOME 6:39pm Shannon welcomes us to our third in person meeting at Senior Center. RW does the ROLL CALL: Members Present: Shannon Carroll(SC)-co chair, Laura Kozlowski(LK)-secretary Rachel Wood (RW), Stephanie Martin(SM), Brooke Lambert,(BL) Caitlin Thayer (CT), Margaret Leahy (ML) , Delia Rinaldi (DR), Jessalyn Hudgins (JH), Susan Wagner(SW)-treasury Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve: SW, Second: ML, Unanimous 6:41 Treasure Report: One grant came in. No balance from City hall yet to see the balance difference. A couple grants came in less. CT: anything that isn’t used, we put it back into the general fund. We have an overage in the operating account. City is aware of the discrepancy. SW explains that we usually get about 9500 in grant money a year from the state for grants. Studio tour is self funding. RE: why we are discussing how to expand our fundraising SW: we haven’t gotten to establishing a fundraising team yet. Reception: will be announced, and it will be a good time to advertise the ACC. Table reception until August meeting. 6:50pm Poet Laureate Report: no report since they are meeting tonight. 6:45 Art at City Hall:DR: Show ends august 27. Wondering if we can extend the show to end of September. Shows used to be 3 months. So the next show would be Oct. Nov. Dec. SC thinks it is better to leave it till Oct. Think of something great for the studio tour. Still no labels on the artwork. We will have Jared and Courtney reach out to the artists to extend the show with an end date. RE: should we set up a new email address for Art at City hall? SC: We have addressed this before but maybe we should revisit this again. •need date for next show •need labels made for artwork BL: wants to know if she should re-post about the show, or how often should we post about the show? SC: up to you, need filler for something, maybe put up city hall hours. RE: maybe put up reception date when we have one Motion to approve leaving show up until Oct : RE, seconds ML, Unanimous. 7pm CROSSWALK : its done! We haven’t had a chance to shoot them all. Photos are in dropbox, and BL needs names and locations. SC will add a map to city and dropbox so it can be shared on social media. 7:15 Marketing Report(SM): 431.00 from the porchfest raffle. SC:would we want to pay for the photographer? Gift card? She wants to be part of the projects moving forward. Motion for 100 gift card from Amesbury Chamber for photographer Kate Donovan and 50.00 basket at 18 friends (RE) SM seconds, unanimous. 7:15 Newsletter:(ML) ; a mosaic artist has submitted her work for a featured artist, Ellie o’leary could be there about extending her Poet Laureate, crosswalk artists could be discussing their work, or part of the newsletter could be thanking Bryony and Birch about their Porchfest, two different paintings from the artists who were there at the event could be featured… Grant recipients : will put in there if there is enough space. For now: •Thank you to Bryony and Burch •Ellie’s extension •Promoting art at city hall 7:20pm Social Media (BL): Instagram engagement has been really good since the crosswalk posts started. We went from 12 or 17 to 100+ now. Visuals really help. SC: a great job picking out the right amount of information to go into the post. Maybe take something off the Bryony page. BL: likes having this as a test for her social media skills. She posted the survey for artists, did we get responses for this? Yes: 20 replies( RE) 7:25pm Studio Tour:(RE) November 13- November 14 Survey 19 out of 20 wants an in person tour, 16 said changes they want to see: all masks, cdc recommendations, beer cooler, wait to see how the fall turns out with the covid cases, basically, masks or no masks. We will have to go with the guidelines the CDC puts out. Will have an offering online to businesses and in person/directory. We can start directory before and run it after the tour up until Dec. Most want to keep artist directory, it shouldn’t be too hard to keep that. Just a virtual brochure. City hall construction: 12 people said would be fine moving to new space on their own, 2 want new spot to be provided by us...so the outcome if we give artists enough notice it should be ok. We will have to match them with a space or a business. SC: says we don’t need too much extra space. Once registration closes, we look at the list and decide where to put these artists. CT: has update, 95% sure we will be ok to use city hall. Thinks that the Senior Center is a great addition to the space. Snacks and art can be in this space and it is on the trolley route. SC: the ramp is important not only for handicap access but for artists to move stuff in. JH: the building just next to Bryony and Burch will be renovated into a new space for woodworking and there could be a new space to consider. Maybe he can house an artist. Trolley: It will not be going to Sparhawk this year. We need to decide if we want the trolley. One Trolley should be fine. All in favor of Trolley! Contest for the Brochure Cover: Every year we put a call for art out for the cover, we need to get this out in the next couple of weeks. Some years we do Amesbury themed, and then we hang it in the Art at City Hall Gallery. Do we still want to do this? This is our 25th studio tour! We can use this for a theme, or use past ones for a collage. DR: Do we have the first one ? SC: no. Don’t think we have done this for 25 years. RE: should we just make a new email for Call to Art? Have another person in charge of this? Voted to choose Laura Kozlowski’s image :”Change of Seasons” for brochure. Social event for Artists: Do we still want to do this? 60% of the artists at Cedar st don’t register but they just jump into the Art Tour. Barabara says the property can be used. But they do their own thing and we need to get content from them, they have their own food trucks etc. Barbara is always a sponsor. Are we doing a mixer in August? CT: maybe do a mixer at a restaurant that is closed on a Monday. Maybe Blue Moon? If they RSVP in advance they get something? SC: registration is live august 13-Sept 13 so the mixer won’t happen until end of Sept. There should be a budget somewhere for the past mixers. Not sure how this will go because in the past, not too many people have come in the past. Not sure if we can compare to the past because we have social media now. It is a wild card. Let’s see how many register and then revisit this. BL: ask the question maybe in the registration and describe the event. Social Media: Video, QR codes, to generate business…..if we get a ton of surrounding communities that is more space we will have to find in town. Make posts maybe more amesbury specific? Send to Haverhill Art Association. Usually 3 from Haverhill set up in City Hall each Tour. There are the usual people we reach out to but we want some new artists. BL: It is good to accept people who don’t live in Amesbury, but maybe phrase it if you are an artist in the Amesbury area….Facilitate arts in Amesbury or the surrounding community? Want to participate in the studio Tour? Language can curate the audience. SC: we aren’t in a shortage of artisans here in Amesbury. Things need to do: •Update sponsor package/business offering •Artist registration •Event paperwork with city hall •confirming registration packages •Look into deposit on the trolley •update the google form/registration Sub Committees We only have 4 more meetings until this happens! These committees will have to meet on a as needed basis: •Artist registration •Website directory/sponsorship •reserve trolley/vendor email/payment •raffle solicitation/businesses SC and RE will set up another meeting between them. Will send out emails to all of us. In the August meeting we will talk about our overall budget. Miscellaneous: BL: is there anything planned for the crosswalk celebration? CT: can if you want to. It will get be hard to get all the artists there (9) together. SC: will send an email to the Mayor ______________ MCC is changing the grant cycle process. We will know more before September so in August we will be talking about this. It will be all online . We need a member to join a zoom meeting : BL volunteers. We should all know about the grant cycle works. July 29 at 6pm for a zoom meeting. Encourages all of us to learn and sign on to this meeting. LCC’s can apply for grants too. We should try to learn more about this. Chalk the Walk: September. Do we want to do this again? We will talk about this in August meeting. SW: will reach out to Flatbreads for our fundraiser. 8:39pm Our new Initiatives: Is there a new sub committee that wants to take some of this on? SM volunteers to help out with this. SC: the city wants us to focus more on some cultural events. The mayor had a recommendation for a native american drumming circle which could be a good addition to the studio tour. Maybe we can incorporate more diversity in the Studio Tour. Grow the events we already have with some new ideas. Instead of chalk the walk or do the drumming circle at the same time? 8:40pm Adjourn Motion to end the meeting(BL) Seconds( LK )/unanimous