Cultural Council

RECEIVED By City Clerk at 11:37 am, 1/25/22 Tuesday Sept 14, 2021 6:30-8:30pm Usually Meets 1st Tuesday of Every Month Remote Meeting via GoToMeeting WELCOME 6:35pm Shannon welcomes us to our Fifth in person meeting at Cultural Center at the Senior Center RW does the ROLL CALL: Members Present: Shannon Carroll(SC)-co chair, Laura Kozlowski(LK)-secretary , Stephanie Martin(SM), Caitlin Thayer (CT), Margaret Leahy (ML) Susan Wagner (SW)Jessalyn Hutchins (JH), Brooke Lambert (BL) Guests: David Leblanc, Dave Steingesser Missing:Rachel Wood (RW) Approval of Minutes: Motion to approve: SW Second:SM, Unanimous 6:39pm Treasure Report: Sept. two payments went out to SC and RW for reimbursements, 1800 for Trolley is going out soon, balance due for the trolley which will make the trolley total: 2000. Lots of payments in unipay but it may have more that isn’t reflected on the report. SC thinks it is closer to 1700. No grants that came in this month. 6:40pm Poet Laureate Report: still looking for a poet laureate liaison, attending a meeting once a month, the first Monday a month. Balance 876.00 a lot of the report is them asking for additional funds, they want more than 250 a year to increase it so it is in line with other poet laureates. Will give them extra money to print things. 1000 a year would be the new stipend that they are looking for. SC wants to table it until Oct so that we can have Rachel present so we can discuss further. Happenings: literally workshop in ADK, planning for April 2022 poetry month, daily blog posts, workshop on poetic forms, events at carriage museums, no official dates yet. After October her monthly poetry meetings will be back to zoom. Nov, Dec. Jan Feb and March will be zoom meetings. 6:42 Art at City Hall: Delia isn't here for a report, “Inner thoughts” is the next theme, deadline is Sept 17 install date is Oct 1. Courtney and Jared are taking over the organizing of all of this. So they are talking to artists which helps a lot. ML will reach out to Courtney to see how many submissions she has gotten and then will decide if we need to put it in our newsletter. 6:47pm Marketing Re/port: MLand B: studio tour and call for artists have been posted on social media. Applications for studio tours have been closed now. Anyone who wants to post something please contact Brooke. Studio tour had 4 unique newsletters and one resend. A lot of people didn’t open these. Fewer open than our usual newsletters. SC had a few emails saying why are we getting so many emails about this tour. Dismal last week but people finally came through. We will continue twice a month for newsletters. A regular update and then some about the studio tour. Beginning of Oct will be the nxt newsletter to hype up the studio tour. Will also need a reminder that Oct 15 is when the closing for grant applications. Discussed how to schedule social media posts and BL can do that if she can’t do it. 6:54 Studio Tour!: We are looking good, but we are still waiting for the middle of Oct to deposit checks in case of Covid issues. After our next meeting. We have enough in our account now for printing and to cover the trolley. SW was going to send the check out after our next meeting. A few thousand lower than our 2019 which is reflected with artist registration mainly at Cedar st. Trolley stops, 11 at Cedar 2019 we had 28 in the past- Barbara was saying that the artists might not want the general public in the building . kitchen local will have pop up food venues in multiple locations in the building. City hall, friend/pond: have enough to fill CH. Main and Currier: so many new participants on Main street Muse on water /mkt square stop/Sparhawk will take over the Cultural Center with activities. CT said they are getting HAVC specialist to test air quality. Tradesmill has a few more participants there this year. Zach Fields will be there. Chocolate artist will be participating, Oakland: Beowulf did register. Main and Friend: 18 didn’t register, but an artist did register to be in 18 Friend st. We need to set it up with better language so that they both sign up. Sparhawk moving to Cultural Center. This now makes the trolley route much shorter. And with Cedar st with a ⅓ of participants, is the trolley really warranted? But with the food and Barbara has sponsored, we should proceed as normal. Maybe get rid of the narrator since the loop now is too short. Or do we add a stop on High Street past Amesbury Industrial. Potlatch: 2 people participating. They want it to be a stop Thursday morning is the permit meeting which is where SC will present the stops Discussed the logistics of stops. All in favor of “no narration” on the Trolley: Motion to Approve: SM Seconds:ML Unanimous Sponsors on the Trolley. Conflict on sharing a side of trolley Mel’s and Sunny’s share a shop so it is a unique case. Fundraiser committee will try to find one more sponsor. Goal is to have brochure done at end of Sept SC collects checks and registrations from businesses.  The studio tour is a go Trolly is a go/revising the route/no narration Sw doing payment for trolley Sponsorship follow up by SM and collecting raffle items ML and SC will be discussing details at another 11x14 crop and a brochure crop will be done for the photo provided by LK We need to wait to see about the Covid restrictions moving forward in October. CT will look to see about rules for renters and participants in their private space vs public spaces. As a city appointed group, if we need to mandate mask restrictions.In Ma transit you need to wear a mask (BL) We will post it and say it in our media. ⅓ of donors said they would be happy to have us use their payments for next year if it gets cancelled. A bulk of the work will come from our October meeting. Stuff to print, distribution of brochures to locations, annual report is due, will need people to help at the tour. November 2 will be our last mtg before the tour. Here we will discuss how things are going to work out for that weekend. Fri. Nov 12 night, (set up panels for art, move stuff, setup, signage) Saturday Nov.13: all get to ride the trolley Sunday: Nov.14: Breakdown. Need people at CH for raffle, and artists. Vibrant year now that we have Sparkhawk downtown - brings more people downtown. SC will send out follow up emails out to all registrants 7:56pm: Chalk the Walk: Lily crossing artist (Kara)will be the chalk artist. Theme is about the scarecrow contest the Chamber holds. 250 plus chalk . Same as what ML did last year near the Amphitheatre. One artist with the chalk. Won’t cost us any money. Exposure is good. There are still a lot of people who don’t know who we are and what we do which was found out when asking for fundraising. Cheap, fun, community engagement. SC wants a 3d chalk artist but for the 250 we probably can’t get that. This year we won’t be leaving chalk behind. Just some big buckets around. It will start on November 9, with rain date the 10th. Budget is 400. 300 for Kara 100 for Printing and chalk motion to approve 400 for chalk the walk(ML): SW seconds, unanimous. Looking for students to earn community hours for the weekend of Studio Tour. Could use 6 + students on Friday night would be great to set up. Can offer Pizza. Not sure if NBPT is set up this way for community service. SW and Jess will be on this committee. Friday set up: 4-6pm The set up of panels will take the longest. Artists arrive 6-9pm Saturday would only need volunteers at raffle, sit at desk at city hall, selling some acc merch, runners and floaters, 10-5pm Sunday: breakdown and same as above. (same on Friday night) Tour 11-4pm. 1 hour window to pick up raffle prize at 4pm. Monday: need to find someone who has a Truck/SUV, because Saturday morning we have to put A frames out for trolley stops so these need to be picked up at 4pm. ACC signs go to SC house. Flatbread Fundraiser Nov 2 (Voting day): rescheduling our Nov. 2 meeting to Nov. 9 can be at the Cultural Center. Banner maybe at Flatbreads. SW will look into this. Next meeting will be Oct 4 instead of Oct 5 we will meet again at the senior center. DPW can’t help with the painting of the Cultural center. BL, SW, BL, and JH, will help with paint. Mayor will invest in the space once the legal agreements are done. 8:22: Thank you for attending our meeting and we would like to hear from you to see if there are any questions? David Leblanc offers to help paint the center. Wants to know if he is a member, how much do you get to participate in the event as an artist? In the past we have had most of our members participate in the tour. Our ACC main function is to give out MCC grants. Just did two big city initiatives and supported the Poet Laureate. Have a rotating gallery at city hall, hope to have a gallery, mixed use space at the old Cultural Center. This is a city board. You can be a member without being a voting member. We always need volunteers. If there is a paid opportunity provided by the council, being a member we can’t be paid. Great networking, meeting new people and we have a lot of new members. Elections every year for positions in December. 8:31pm motion to adjourn sm, Seconds: sw Unanimous