Cultural Council

By City Clerk at 10:51 am, Sep 17, 2024 March 5th, 2024 6:30pm-8:30pm Usually Meets 1st Tuesday of Every Month WELCOME 6:33 pm Margaret welcomes everyone at 14 Cedar Street.Call to order. AJ does the ROLL CALL: Members Present: Margaret Leahy(ML), Ann Johnson(AJ), Brian Riley(BR) Amy Vander Els(AV), Randy Herman(RH), Sally Nutt(SN), Aimie Westphal, Library Director (Liaison)Laura Kozlowski (LK), Absent:, Madison Barnes(MB)John Moynihan(JM) Approval of February minutes after changing the date: ML motions, BR seconds, unanimous Public Comment: two visitors: Peter Bryant has been in the community for over 24 years. Involved in poetry and wants to spread the word. Rachel Wallace, lived in Amesbury most of her life and wants to work on some community projects ie. bike path and open studios. Lisa, the PL is here to say hi and to see more collaboration with the ACC. 6:34pm Treasurer report (AV): 28541.35 our account, 670.27 grant account. Nothing really has changed since last month. Reimbursement requests can take a while with the city. AV calls for a motion to pay 28.35 for the mixer supplies to pay ML, BR seconds, Unanimous. 6:38 Grant Report: ML: Signatures needed for festival grant, there is some confusion on what the next steps are. Festival grants open in March (MCC) last year we received 2500. ML offered to re-apply for this year. Meeting with Sheila on Friday morning at the Chamber, looking to find out about the piano project, she needs to submit a reimbursement, pay as vendor, or extend. Piano has not been installed. Need to submit 670 and then pay as a vendor for 130 since we don’t have enough in our grant account. •We all want to attend events this year for the grants we supported. Will make a signup sheet and send it out to us for the year ahead. •Need to meet with the Mayor by the end of April to discuss grant payments-about direct grants vs reimbursement model. CFO (Marissa) is leaving in 2 weeks so there will be an interim so this may be delayed. 6:51 Marketing Report: ML: Poetry month is coming up, so ACC heads up the marketing for this. Build a webpage which puts all the events up online. ML wants to make a new banner. The current one is 3x5ft and says 2018 on it. ML sent a copy of it to Lisa to ok it. She is requesting 200.00 to print a new banner. AJ makes a Motion to approve a new banner, BR seconds, Unanimous. •Newsletter: March 27 6:30 on zoom, poet Enzo Silon will be reading. Lisa will be hosting it. She will give ML the QR code for registration. 15 March, will be when ML sends it out. •Should we make new rack cards? Yes. Update the images. ML will design them and then get a quote to print them. 7:02pm Art at City Hall Report:(AJ) Beauty around us in Essex county is up, needs to change the end date, will push it out to May 9-10, opening the 14th. Theme is Mixed Media for the next show. 10lbs is the max weight the system can hold. 26 paintings in the gallery. Opening went well. 7:08pm Poet Laureate Report:(BR) wants to make his position as liaison more defined and will meet with Lisa. Looking for other spaces to hold meetings/readings which is an ongoing process. Stipends for visiting poets: Motion to reimburse PL up to 800 for a visiting poet for the calendar 2024 LK, AJ seconds, Unanimous. PL looking for a diverse background for poets. 7:26 pm Open Studios AJ: We have two new volunteers sign up this month. Need some more door to door sales. Approaching people directly to ask for volunteers. JM: says maybe get artists directly engaged and have them help as volunteers. Non Profits…a robust volunteer list with them. Use other lists from the LCC list to use their networks as well. Need to share the lists. Ask Grant Recipients to help as well. Need a chair to start a group for this, and will need to identify a person. 7:37pm Public Art: ML talked to Whitney Dellea artist and she seems pretty positive to start in May. Need to take a walk to see it, unclear if she wants to do one or both sides.Cathy Crowley talked with Jenn Houle about the mural at lake Gardner. MCC festival grant will pay for this job (2500) Rachel, wants to make a pollinator garden along the bike path. Amesbury Native Plants group is interested in potentially helping. RH: Sparhawk school was purchased by Coastal Connections so not sure if they want to keep the murals. ML: The Mosaic artist who applied for a grant is now looking at the side of the Comm Sat building so doesn’t want to do public art now that it was sold. Reaching out to J. Gould to see if there is another space. 7:46 New Business: AV: a new visitors draft form was designed for our meetings for visitors who attend. Maybe also add this to the website? 7:50pm Matters not reasonably anticipated in advance of the meeting: Mixer went well, low lift, great turnout. ML: announcing the grant recipients should be a formal mixer. We published them in the newsletter. Maybe put them in the next merchant, April 15. RH wants to start lists of committees again. Next meeting date: April 2, at 14 Cedar Street. PL will send more dates to ML : Alchemy & Art are having a ekphrastic challenge event, 2 part 7 April in their new space in the millyard, 21 April will have a reading. Poets write pieces to go along with the art. They have a workshop space opening soon in the millyard. Chris Bryant is coordinating “gathering of voices”, April 12 is the due date, a student poetry contest. Winners will be invited to share poems in August Tapestry of Voices at the Whittier home. Range of local schools enter this contest. 24 April a younger poet, from Amesbury has been asked to be the monthly poet for April. 8pm Motion to Adjourn, LK, seconds AV, Unanimous. Laura b. Kozlowski