Minutes

ESTACADA AREA ARTS COMMISSION

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

www.estacadaarts.org

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EstacadaAreaArtsCommission/

 

Commissioners Present: 

Gloria Polzin, Jami Berry, Am Griswold, Janette Kirchhofer, Angel Austin, & Kathleen Wyatt.

 

Guests Present:  Kary Gaskill

 

The meeting was called to order at 7:02 pm.

 

Approval of Minutes

The September minutes were read via email prior to the meeting and approved.

 

Financial Statement

Kathleen brought in the Income and Expenses report from Traci at City Hall.  The estimated balance for the Arts Commission at present is $1502.00.  However, Kathleen will meet with Traci to come up with a slightly different way of reporting.

 

Mail

No mail at this time.  

 

EAAC Fall Retreat: 

The commission held a Fall Retreat facilitated by Bill Flood who is an Oregon Arts Commission – Arts Builds Communities grant “guru” and has many years of experience.  Jami brought a card for everyone to sign as a thank you and included a gift certificate to the Spiral Gallery for Bill.   Nancy Nye and the Clackamas County Arts Action Alliance provided Bill’s services this year and Gloria will write a thank you letter to the Arts Action Alliance.

 

This retreat truly helped the commission take a good look at its goals and see what it needs to accomplish to make sure that the Summer Celebration continues to be a success each and every year and the EAAC will be working on implementing them, along with Estacada Together, beginning with the 2008 ESC.


Our group came up with goals and how to implement them and also a Mission Statement…

 

Goals of the Retreat:

¨        To evaluate the structure of the Estacada Summer Celebration and what the role of the EAAC and ET will look like for this event.

¨        To create an ESC mission statement.

¨        To set up policies for the ESC and a vision of the ESC for “10 years down the road”.

¨        To create strategies for implementing set goals.

 

 

Mission Statement: (rough draft)

The mission of the Estacada Area Arts Commission’s “Estacada Summer Celebration” is to present an annual community-building event in downtown Estacada, celebrating the arts through diverse visual artists, musical performances, and cultural and heritage experiences.

 

Through the process of the retreat, the EAAC came up with a new structure for running the Summer Celebration.  The commission wants to thank Kate Bast for stepping up to help by heading up when the ESC this last year.  This was the first year the ESC was run by someone other than an Arts Commissioner.  However, it was made clear to us through the retreat process that the EAAC is the responsible organization and therefore, has to be the governing body that heads up the ESC along with Estacada Together.  Some of the main reasons for this are:

¨        funding (the EAAC and ET are the fiscal agents),

¨        liability (the EAAC is a city entity and therefore liable for insurance and grant management), and

¨        policy (maintaining the standards and qualities the celebration was founded on, i.e., keeping the focus of an Arts & Music Celebration through the years to come, etc.).

 

Another very important focus for the ESC was to keep our volunteers and to add to that group.  One way was to make sure the volunteers are having fun and to keep the lines of communication open.  One of these ways was to require less attendance in meetings that did not apply to their coordination areas.  So the EAAC divided the ESC into three committee groups– Logistics, Event Activities, and Presentations.  There will be a “Point Person” responsible for each group that will also be responsible for reporting to each other as well as the main group.  The three point people will consist of two members of the Arts Commission and one member of Estacada Together (as ESC co-presenters).   This structure will help keep meetings to a minimum and happiness level to a maximum.

 

The committee groups will meet separately throughout the year.  All three groups will get together for brainstorming meetings approximately four or five times per year; tentatively – Oct., Feb., April, June, and perhaps July, and then, of course, the wrap-up meeting in August.  This will be discussed and decided on at the first ESC meeting.  Also it should be pointed out that any coordinator could attend any other meeting at any time.

 

By creating a more formalized structure for the Estacada Summer Celebration, the EAAC and ET are assuring a sustainable process and organization that will evolve within this structure over the coming years. 

 

The commission will be discussing this new ESC structure and mission statement with the Summer Celebration group at their first meeting of the year on Monday, Oct 22nd in Flora’s Room at the Library.

 

Storage Containers

Gloria reported that there might be some storage containers available for the Arts Commission to use – for free – from the City to store all the Summer Celebration gear.  She will be working on this and report back at the next meeting.

 

Expansion of Commission

The retreat also brought up the idea of expanding the commission to 9 people and to include men and younger people.  It was discussed briefly at this meeting but for now it was decided to keep it at 7 members.  The commission will, however, try to recruit men to the group.

 

School Relations

Angel Austin said she is planning on working on updating and expanding her Mural Artwalk project and will report back to the commission when it is finished.

 

Public Art Opportunities

No report at this time.

 

Additional Projects/Ongoing Business:

Steven Amick wrote an email to the commission telling us that he will no longer be able to run the Art For All Christmas project.  It was discussed whether the commission should continue this project on its own; however, it was decided there was not enough time, money, or bodies to continue this project for now.  

 

Arts & Culture Series

Jami received a tentative schedule from Estacada Together of all their upcoming events.  They will be having almost monthly events so it was decided that for this year, the commission would help ET with their events and add our Writers’ Night in to make the Arts and Culture Series complete.  Jami will contact Stevan Allred about having Writers’ Night again in April. 

 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:20 p.m.

 

The next meeting will be held Wed., November 7, 2007 at 7:00 pm in the City Council chambers.

 

Respectfully submitted,

 

 

Jami Berry, Secretary