January 18, 2018 Local Clay Meeting Minutes

Local Clay Board Meeting
January 18, 2018
Board members present:
Ziggy Blum, Robin Sanchez, Cecil Haworth, Avi Harriman, Nicole Hummel, Merry
Newcomer, Karen Washburn, Debbie Christensen, Molly Buckles
The meeting was called to order and commenced at 7:30pm.
The first item of business was a budget report from Robin Sanchez, Treasurer. She
reported an income from memberships for 2017 of $1,465.00 and total expenses for 2017
of $1,013.38 for a balance of $451.62. The Local Clay carryover balance at the end of
2016 was $3,509.71 for a current balance less expenses of $3,961.33. A good place to be
financially for funding activities.
Clay in Education chair, Debbie Christensen, reported great success. She has picked up
many volunteers for Clay in Education activities with a few to spare. There is no need to
repeat the call for volunteers in the newsletters for now. She has not been able to recruit a
High School to participate so far but will keep working in that direction.
A vote to approve the current slate of officers as previously nominated was called and
unanimously approved. The slate is as follows:
Ziggy Blum, President
Molly Buckles, Secretary
Robin Sanchez, Treasurer
Avi Harriman, Program Chair
Cecile Haworth, Webmaster
Karen Washburn, Clay Fest Chair
Debbie Christensen, Clay in Education Chair
Nicole Hummel, Social Media Outreach
Cecile Haworth reported the current web hosting business, Network Solutions, annual fee
is due by February 22, 2018. The current goal is to finalize a new hosting option by that
time. The first goal will be a backup of current photos and content. Pictures and old
information will be evaluated for content and inclusion in new website. All content
included in new website will be backed up for future reference and needs. A discussion
about the possibility of asking Clay Fest applicants to submit photos with their
application for fresh content was rejected as impractical. Another suggestion was have
applicants submit photos for the website to Frank Gosar since he requests photo
submissions for the Clay Fest poster annually.
A discussion around the concept of outreach making more use of social media was taken
up. Nicole Hummel, Social Media Outreach Chair previously nominated and approved at
this meeting said she is excited at the prospect of incorporating more avenues of social
media connectivity. She made it clear she is not experienced or interested in organizing
events but very much interested in supporting those events by posting information to
various social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook. She is also interested in the
strength of social media to effectively disseminate information to members as well as the
public at large. She was pretty much reassured she is being given the full trust of the
board to structure her responsibilities in whatever way she thinks will work best. She
mentioned her first hurdle will be getting access to various social media through
established login/password information. She currently has the Instagram information
provided by Robin who set it up in the recent past. She, Nicole, will need the access
information for the Clay Fest Facebook page. Avi and/or Merry may be able to provide
that information. Frank Gosar may also be another resource for that information. She will
check with him. Social media logins need to be written down and recorded somewhere
accessible.
It was discussed and agreed the website pages for Local Clay and Clay Fest have been
primarily for the use of members to provide information as well as the Local Clay
membership application and the Clay Fest vendor participant application. In addition it is
used to provide specifics for Clay Fest booth holders prior to the event regarding the
multi-faceted specifics of what, where, when and how to proceed. By contrast the Clay
Fest Facebook page is primarily for the public to access information related to Clay Fest
and participating potters. It was suggested the Clay Fest Facebook page be renamed Clay
Fest Eugene to distinguish it from other "Clay Fest" pages in venues around the country.
This has lead to confusion in the past. It was also agreed a Facebook page should be
created for Local Clay to disseminate information about activities and programs specific
to Local Clay members. It would not be considered a closed group but would be
primarily for the purpose of posting member specific announcements.
One other outreach endeavour established within the past year by Cecile Haworth is a
presence in Meetups. Cecil reported 160 to 200 participants have joined and has been a
great year round tool for promoting Local Clay activities. Some of those who have joined
have expressed an interest in exploring clay/pottery for pleasure separate from the show
itself. Some have indicated an interest in working with the organization outside of
becoming themselves vendors at Clay Fest. The hope is that an outreach chair can
identify and reach out to those interested in being involved, encourage new members and
utilize their interests and strengths in creating a dynamic organization of potters and clay
art enthusiasts. Meetup is valuable as an outreach tool in many ways for the purposes of
disseminating information to the public about pottery and clay related topics. It provides
an avenue to allow people in the general public who share a common interest to come
together in person. It was suggested those people should take responsibility for
A discussion revolved around a topic related to the general questions included in the
Local Clay membership application regarding interest level in various tasks associated
with running the organization. As has been discussed before there are applicants who
indicate an interest but there is no organized effort to follow-up with those people. One
idea was the volunteers themselves take responsibility for getting involved and not wait
to be contacted. It was suggested interested volunteers could directly contact the chairs
(names and contact information listed on the websites) of the committees in which they
have an interest. It was further suggested maybe the list of interests is too broad and
nonspecific and should be related as much to organizational needs as to Clay Fest needs.
It was also suggested most if not all of the listed interests would be related to particular
chairperson's responsibilities. Names can be given to appropriate chairs who will then
contact that person to decide how to utilize that individual's skills and energy. Although
this strategy complicates the responsibilities of very busy chairs it is likely they can find a
place for a volunteer to be helpful. However all this still does not resolve the concern
there is no organized strategy to involve people who indicate an interest in being
involved.
One more topic related to outreach is to encourage people to post to social media as the
more people use and post to social media sites the more likely others will themselves use
and post. However pictures and stories of kids and pets and anything political must be
discouraged.
The next board meeting will be the budget meeting on Thursday March 1st at 7:30 at
Ziggy's home.
Meeting adjourned at 8:35pm.