Sister Singers Network
Planning Meeting

Festival Planning 

a.      Artemis Singers hopes to work with the Women’s Studies and LGBT groups at Loyola for additional local support.

b.      Julie of MUSE has recently taken a position at the Kentucky Convention Bureau as a conference planner, and she volunteered her skills to the festival planners.

c.      Hersong members present at the meeting all offered to help with festival planning. Artemis will follow-up with them to identify what role their chorus can take in the planning process.

d.      Teri suggested that we be sure to find out about any taxes that will be required to pay for venue, housing, food, etc., when the budget is being developed.

e.      Diana and Midge will create a list of volunteer roles/tasks that can be done off-site by other SSN members for the festival planning process.

f.   SSN provides seed money to the host chorus in advance of the festival to help with initial expenses and deposits. The goal is for this money to be returned to the Network post-festival, but it is not a requirement. We’ve been very fortunate with the past two festivals; both Grand Rapids/Sistrum and San Diego were able to return the seed money with additional funds. There is currently $8000 - $10,000 set aside by SSN that can be requested by the host festival. Artemis Singers will submit their finalized “Early Planning Document” within the next few months to the SSN Helm (steering committee) for approval, after which time the seed money can be released.

Membership

a.     It’s unfortunately not clear which choruses are current SSN members. There were difficulties this past year getting the membership checks deposited and using the member section of the website. Many apologies to all the choruses who sent in checks or tried to get their information updated. This situation is being corrected.

b.      Membership requirements are still $1.00 per person per chorus (with a minimum of $10.00) annually. Individual singers/composers/arrangers pay $10.00 annually for membership.

c.      January 1 is the new payment cycle that was decided upon at the last SSN planning meeting, but this hasn’t been effectively implemented yet. It used to be that choruses would pay annually on the date they joined the Network, so choruses are paying at different times. The goal has been to streamline this system.

d.      The SSN Treasurer will now remind choruses about dues in November with a statement sent in the mail and via the choruswomen elist. If dues haven’t been paid by February, the Membership Coordinator will contact the chorus to find out if they’re still interested in being a member of the Network. The deadline for payment is April 1.

e.      Diana noted that over the past few weeks she had searched the web for information on all the choruses listed on the SSN website. She updated the mailing address, general email, phone number, and/or director information for several choruses. This new data should be very helpful in re-establishing a SSN connection with them.

f.       It was suggested that the Network may want to periodically place advertisements in some choral publications to recruit new members. Newer choruses may not be aware of the Network, and even choruses who have previously been involved may have lost touch with SSN due to staff turnover. The women from Bread and Roses ( DC) indicated that this is what had happened with their chorus.

g.  The topic of PR/Marketing for SSN was added to the agenda for additional discussion.

 

Choruswomen Elist

a.      It was agreed that SSN should continue to communicate on the choruswomen elist. It is a list serve that was established by Eileen Stone several years ago to help women singers within GALA (Gay and Lesbian Alliance) and SSN to connect with each other. SSN has utilized the list to communicate SSN business to member choruses.

b.      We need to make sure more people know about the choruswomen elist. Each chorus is asked to have contact people subscribed to the list, but this is not always the case.

c.      One way to do this will be for the Treasurer to put information about how to subscribe to the elist on the dues statement sent to choruses in November. The Membership Coordinator can also follow-up with choruses.

PR/Marketing

a.      Julie expressed interest in helping with PR and marketing for SSN.

b.      The upcoming GALA Choruses Festival in July and National Women’s Music Festival in June were identified as two great opportunities for getting information out about SSN.

c.      A one-page flyer will be developed with “Save the Date for SSN Choral Festival in summer 2010 in Chicago; join SSN now” information on it. Brooke offered to create a flyer that can be distributed at any upcoming events. Teri will email her a good quality digital SSN logo. Diana will email her an updated version of the 3-page SSN information sheet. Once the flyer is completed, Brooke will email it to the Helm for final approval before it’s copied and distributed.

d.      Meredith suggested that Chorus America might be a worthwhile organization to advertise with. Bread and Roses has a member who works for them, so they’ll follow up on this idea.

e.      Exchanging links with reputable websites is good to help drive people to both sites. This would be something the SSN PR person could investigate.

f.       Hersong members will organize a Sister Singers Networking meeting at the National Women’s Music Festival in June. They’ll bring copies of the new one-page flyer.

g.      Midge noted that in the past, SSN had discussed hosting a festival in conjunction with National Women’s Music Festival, but the timing didn’t work out. NWMF is, however, continuing to expand choral participation in its concert programming.

h.      Angie and Julie will organize a Sister Singers Networking meeting in Miami at the GALA Choruses Festival this July. They’ll bring copies of the new one-page flyer.

i.         Midge investigated whether we could still get an ad in the GALA program and determined that we were too late. Kathie Michaels offered to schedule a meeting place and will get with the women from MUSE to arrange it around their busy GALA schedule.

Goldenrod Music

a.      Goldenrod continues to be supportive of the Network. They currently have a variety of SSN items for sale on their website (e.g., water bottles, t-shirts, decals, pencils, pins). Janice and Sheryl will email the choruswomen elist to let everyone know these items are available.

b.      Goldenrod will have a booth at National Women’s Music Festival and is looking for people to work in the booth. They will pay your ticket to the festival in exchange for work. Contact Susan Frazier directly at sales@goldenrod.com for more details. We’re welcome to have SSN items available at their booth and use it for outreach.

c.      Goldenrod is also looking for someone to work the Toshi Reagon and Bernice Johnson Reagon concert at GALA on July 16. They provide workers with training packets on the process for selling CD’s at the concert. 30% of the sales go to the worker, her individual chorus or SSN. Whatever you choose.

d.      At both events we can do networking through their booth. They will have space available for our merchandise and literature. It would be great to have SSN members at the booths to promote the network.

e.      Contact Susan Frazier at sales@goldenrod.com if you’re able to help out at their booth at either event.

f.       There’s a link on the SSN website to Goldenrod. If you enter Goldenrod via the SSN site, anything you purchase will generate 10% of the sales for SSN. Several choruses who sell their CDs through Goldenrod have the link on their websites, as well.

g.      Midge noted that Artemis Singers had wanted to sell their CD via Goldenrod a few years ago, but found their requirements to be prohibitive. Midge and Janice will follow up with Susan Frazier to find out what the current requirements are and to see if this process can be made more accessible to SSN member choruses.

Web Site and Online Directory

a.      Carol created the first SSN website several years ago and Midge did the current design. They have both been maintaining the site.

b.      We now have our own domain (through Register.com), and our web site is hosted by Readyhosting. The hosting arrangement initially worked fine, but since they’ve done some upgrades our online directory has problems.

c.      Do we want to invest in a software program that’s already designed for the type of data we have? That could be costly and people knowledgeable about the software would need to maintain the website on an ongoing basis.

d.      Carol wants to continue working on the SSN website front end (i.e., content), but we need to find someone interested in maintaining the back end and other technical aspects (e.g. database, RSS).

e.      Carol and Midge will create a job description of what’s needed and send it out on the choruswomen elist. We’ll start by putting the call out for a new Web Guru via the choruswomen elist and with any SSN communications (e.g., membership statements).

f.       It was suggested that SSN might want to take advantage of RSS feeds on chorus web sites. This is something that would be good for the new Web Guru to look into.

g.      The membership section of the Sister Singers Network website (sister’s private parts) has several layers: SSN liaison contact information, director contact information; the ability to update your own chorus information, etc. You need to have your chorus login information to get into this section.

h.      When the new Web Guru is on board, we’d like to expand the features found in the SSN private parts.

i.         There was discussion about having more of an archive of music for SSN. One of the goals of SSN is music sharing. It was noted that it’s not really practical to keep a library of actual music for the network, but we could create a listing on the SSN web site with links that connect to chorus music libraries, composers, and sheet music businesses. This would make it much easier to do music searches online. This resource could be kept in the SSN private parts, which would then create another benefit to being a member.

Archiving SSN Documents

a.      Echo, one of the Sister Singers Network founders, was the long-time herstorian for the network. We believe she still has much of the earlier documentation. During the past several years, however, a box of SSN archival materials has passed from host chorus to host chorus (e.g. Cincinnati to Portland to Grand Rapids to San Diego). There’s considerable information from the past two festivals. This box was most recently sent to Chicago.

b.      Discussion ensued about how we would best archive all these documents in the future. One recommendation was to house the materials at the Sallie Bingham Center at Duke University. They have an active research archive and working papers of several feminist and lesbian writers. SSN would need to complete a contract indicating what we are agreeing to send them and they pay to have it shipped to the library and will maintain it in archival quality storage. We can send additional items at any time to add to the collection. The archives would be accessible for research and many of the library’s materials are being posted on the web.

c.      If we decided to do something like this, we would need to first determine what materials we want to keep easily available for future host choruses and what should be sent to the institution for safekeeping. A significant amount of SSN documentation is now available digitally, so this should make it easier to pass information on.

d.      Diana will contact Echo to find out what she still has. We could also put a call out to all SSN members and ask them to bring to the next festival any documents they have that could potentially be added to the collection. More decisions about archiving can be made at the next SSN planning meeting.  [Note--following the meeting we received information from Echo that she has actually recently sent the majority of the SSN archives to the Sophia Smith Women's History Collection at Smith College, so we will continue adding to that collection.  Thank you Echo!]

Update Role and Membership of SSN Helm

a.      The SSN Helm, or Steering Committee, essentially addresses any SSN business between planning meetings of the membership, which are ideally held each year.

b.      It was noted that at a previous planning meeting we had discussed hosting festivals every 4 years and every two years having some other type of gathering (e.g. regional gathering or workshops). The alternate years SSN would just host a meeting. Planning meetings are also typically held at the choral festivals to increase accessibility for member participation.

c.      The group then reviewed the SSN mission statement:

Sister Singers Network is a cooperative web of feminist choruses and ensembles, composers, arrangers, and individual singers working together to support and enrich the women's choral movement.

Mission Statement: Sister Singers Network nurtures the spirit, energy, and diversity of the women's choral movement by serving as a resource for

   responsible music sharing

   communication among women's choral groups

   production of regional, national, and international choral festivals

   active support of women composers and arrangers

d.      Sheryl asked if we might want to define feminist. A brief discussion about this idea ensued. Currently choruses self-identify as “feminist” and “active supporters of the women’s choral movement” when they choose to join the network with an understanding of its mission. It hasn’t been a problem to date, so it was decided to leave it as is.

e.      SSN Helm current members as of the opening of the meeting were Diana Clegg, Midge Stocker, Janice Scalza, Chris Reed, Carol Wheeler, Teri Siciliani and June Huelskamp (ex-officio member as Treasurer). Chris and June are both transitioning off the helm. Many thanks to both of them for all their contributions to SSN over the years!!!

f.       Meredith expressed interest in music resources and director networking. She was enthusiastically welcomed to the Helm as the new Choral Director Liaison.

g.      Carol mentioned that there is a relatively inactive Yahoo group that was set up several years ago for directors to be able to network with each other. Meredith offered to recruit directors to join and enliven the group elist. It was noted that not all choruses have one primary Artistic Director. This list will be open to any self-identified director from member choruses.

h.      Meredith also agreed to coordinate the mass chorus music selection process for the 2010 festival. She’ll talk with Midge about next steps.

i.         Brooke expressed interest in membership recruitment and retention. This has been an ongoing struggle for the network and it was agreed that this should be one of the primary focuses of the SSN Helm. Brooke was then invited to join the Helm without delay and she graciously accepted.

j.        Teri agreed to take on the Treasurer position, which will now be an official role of the Helm!

k.      Each of the remaining members identified their areas of focus, as well. Post-meeting, the SSN Helm Membership includes Diana (Facilitator), Teri (Treasurer), Julie (PR/Marketing Coordinator), Meredith (Choral Director Liaison/ Music Resources Coordinator), Brooke (Membership Coordinator), Carol (Web Goddess), Janice (Goldenrod Liaison/Visionary Consultant) and Midge (2010 SSN Festival Liaison).

Commissioning Music

a.      SSN commissioned its first choral composition for the San Diego festival: “Ode to Women” by Josefina Benedetti.

b.      At an SSN planning meeting on 4/3/2005 it was decided that SSN would budget $1,500 (later increased to $2,000) to commission a piece of music to be sung by the mass chorus at the San Diego Festival. Cathy Roma of MUSE and Lori Tennenhouse of Grand Rapids Women’s Chorus were empowered by the network to identify a composer and negotiate the commission. This agreement included permission for SSN to have two years following the festival to share the music.

c.      Everyone agreed that we would definitely like for SSN to commission another piece for the 2010 festival. What should the process be this time? How many parameters should be set? We don’t want to constrict creativity, but be able to provide some input. Should a small committee be formed to make these types of decisions? Would we want to provide our own text?

d.      Midge noted that she hoped the process for commissioning music can be a little more transparent and provide opportunities for the Helm to participate in decision-making.

e.      Meredith suggested that Artemis Singers develop their theme for the festival and then determine what text should be used for the commissioned piece. This could be from a poem or words newly written for this music. Meredith can then research appropriate composers and make her recommendations to the Helm. Everyone liked this idea. Midge and Diana will bring it back to Artemis Singers to come up with next steps.

 

SUNDAY MEETING

Treasurer Report and Membership

a.      Diana reviewed with the group information that June (current Treasurer) emailed for the meeting. June apologized for being behind on the banking for SSN and indicated that she’d soon be taking a few days off work to get the recordkeeping up-to-date for transition to the new Treasurer.

b.      Based on the Income and Expense Report from 1/1/06 to Present, checks for membership dues haven’t been deposited for over a year. June still has the checks. Melanie offered to contact affected choruses about the problem and see if it’s ok to still deposit their check or find out if they’d rather mail a new one.

c.      June indicated in her email that San Diego had not yet returned the seed money from the festival. Teri responded that the seed money and additional funds had actually been wired to the SSN checking account many months ago. She will follow up with June to find out why it’s not showing in her report. [Note that this was resolved shortly after the meeting, and all funds are accounted for.]

d.      According to June’s Account Balances, SSN has $12.91 in its Checking Account (note this does not include the $6,000+ that was wired by Teri) and $11,314.53 in its Savings Account. She keeps most of the money in savings until needed, since this is an interest bearing account.

e.      There was discussion about changing banks to one that has more branches and is easy to utilize online; where would be the most appropriate place to keep the SSN bank accounts now. Suggestions included moving the accounts to San Diego, where our new Treasurer, Teri, is located; to Chicago with Artemis Singers as fiscal agent; or keep them in Cincinnati. Teri felt that as long as we are using a bank that has branches in all of the above cities, the bank accounts don’t necessarily have to be where the Treasurer is located.

f.       MUSE is the current 501c3 fiscal agent for the Sister Singers Network, which is why the bank accounts are in Cincinnati. Will MUSE want to continue in this role if one of their members is not the network Treasurer? Teri didn’t think the San Diego choir would want to take on this responsibility. Diana and Midge said they thought Artemis Singers would be willing to be the fiscal agent, if needed.

g.      Teri noted that SSN will need a corporate resolution from the 501c3 chorus that agrees to be fiscal agent.

h.      Angie and Julie will follow-up with June on the issue of fiscal agent and banks. Diana and Midge will do the same with Artemis Singers. They’ll then compare notes to determine next steps with Teri.

i.         SSN bank accounts are currently set up to require two signatures for all checks. Is this the same procedure we would want in the new bank account? SSN doesn’t do a lot of checkwriting, but it would make sense for the Treasurer to be able to do this for smaller amounts. Many nonprofits require two signatures for amounts over $250 or $500. It was agreed that if a check over $250 is needed, two signatures would be required.

j.        New signature cards will be needed for the bank account. It was agreed that there should be at least three people from the SSN Helm who have signing privileges, in the event someone is not available. Signers on the account will be the Treasurer, Teri, Julie from MUSE, and Diana from Artemis Singers.

k.      Where should the SSN PO Box be located? It is currently in Cincinnati, but it has not always been in the same town as the Treasurer (previously in Minneapolis). Who will check the mailbox? It used to be that the network communicated quite a bit via the postal service and the person responsible for the PO Box would have to forward mail to the appropriate recipients. Now the mail is primarily used to receive checks. With this in mind, it was agreed that it makes sense for the PO Box to be the responsibility of the Treasurer going forward.

l.         Angie agreed to get any mail from the current SSN PO Box. She will make copies of any checks in the mail and from June and then send a .pdf of the information to the Treasurer, Teri, and Membership Coordinator, Brooke. Any other pertinent mail will get forwarded or copied and emailed via .pdf to the helm for follow-up.

m.   Teri will open a new SSN PO Box in San Diego and Angie will put in a forwarding order at the post office and close the Cincinnati PO Box. Teri will then be responsible for regularly checking the SSN PO Box, opening the mail (unless it’s specifically for someone else), and then processing it appropriately.

n.      Teri will follow up with June and Angie to discuss next steps on transitioning the Treasurer duties.

o.      What type of recordkeeping do we want to see in the future? It is often the practice for organizations to have someone besides the check writer opening the bank statements for review. This would be logistically challenging for the network. Teri agreed to make a .pdf copy of the bank statements each month and email it to the SSN Helm for review. Brooke will take on the primary role for this review, since much of the bank activity is related to membership.

p.      Teri also agreed to email the Helm annual budgets and quarterly income/expense reports. These documents will also be posted in the members section of the web site.

q.      $2,000 will be set aside for commissioning a piece of music for the 2010 festival. If additional funds are needed, Meredith will follow up with the Helm.

r.       It was confirmed that $8,000 - $10,000 will be set aside for 2010 festival seed money that Artemis Singers can request, as needed.

s.      A question was raised about the transportation assistance referred to in the 3-page SSN informational sheet. Diana clarified that in the past, SSN has made some travel funds available to choruses that would like to send a representative to an SSN Planning Meeting but can’t afford it. Funds haven’t been requested for several years.

Miscellaneous 

a.      Midge added new Helm members to the SSN Helm elist.

b.      Janice will get SSN merchandise to MUSE and Hersong to have available for giveaways at GALA and the National Women’s Music Festival (e.g. decals, pencils).

c.      It was confirmed that the Gay Games are from 7/31/10 – 8/7/10 in Cologne, Germany. The dates won’t conflict with a 4^th of July weekend SSN choral festival.

d.      After the new Web Guru is recruited, our Web Goddess, Carol, will be responsible for overseeing her work and being her liaison to the Helm.

Visioning/Planning for Next 1-5 Years 

a.      The group spent time reflecting (and enjoying the beautiful weather J).

b.      Janice suggested that it would be useful for the Helm to review the exit interview that Teri completed after the San Diego festival. It should be in the SSN archives that were transferred to Chicago. Midge will follow up.

c.      Diana confessed that she hadn’t yet distributed the San Diego workshop presenter evaluation summaries or the festival evaluation summaries that Teri had forwarded to her. We’re hoping that some of the presenters will return for the 2010 festival, so they may still find this feedback useful. The festival evaluations should also contain very helpful information for the Artemis Singers festival planners. Janice offered to help Diana compile the information. They will complete this over the summer.

d.      There was discussion about other things the network could do between festivals. One idea that had been discussed previously was to perform Diane Benjamin’s “Where I Live” Breast Cancer Oratorio at National Women’s Music Festival.

e.      It was agreed that it’s important to continue having SSN meetings between festivals to keep up the energy of the network. The goal has been to have some type of meeting each year.

f.       Having a guest speaker or some other benefit to attending the meetings would be helpful. If SSN continues having festivals every four years, there would be three planning meetings in between. Different ideas were discussed about how to enhance the meetings without it becoming too complicated or involved.

g.      It was decided that we would start by having the 2^nd year be a little more expansive than just a planning meeting, such as including a guest speaker, special concert or a workshop. This would be an added benefit for the chorus representatives that come to the meetings and take on roles for the network. It is also an opportunity for a chorus to host something for the network that is on a much smaller scale than a festival.

h.      Janice offered to work with the host choruses on special features for these enhanced SSN meetings.

i.         This new system will work best if we schedule future planning meetings farther in advance. Even if exact dates aren’t chosen, the host choruses can be identified.

j.        Traditionally the meeting that’s scheduled a year prior to a festival is held in the host city, so members can see the venue site and provide suggestions and feedback for the festival planners. This has been effective in the past, so it was agreed that Artemis Singers should host the 2009 SSN meeting even though this year was also Chicago.

k.      Do we want to continue to have a planning meeting during festivals? Janice and Sheryl felt it was very helpful to have a meeting toward the end of the festival in Grand Rapids, to provide an opportunity for debriefing the events of the weekend. It was also noted that this is an opportunity for more members to be able to participate in a meeting. Though these meetings may not be as comprehensive as those in the off years (since they tend to be only an hour or two, rather than a day or two), it was agreed that we would like to continue this practice.

l.         Meredith offered for Sistrum to host the 2011 SSN meeting in Lansing.

m.   Angie and Julie from MUSE and Melanie from Bread and Roses both expressed interest in hosting the enhanced meeting that would be held in 2012. Both choruses, however, also indicated they may be interested in hosting the next choral festival in 2014. They each need to consult with their choruses before making any formal offers.

n.      Sue Coffee has also previously expressed some interest in having Sound Circle and Resonance host an SSN choral festival in Boulder, Colorado. It was speculated that they might alternatively be interested in hosting the Enhanced SSN Meeting in 2012.

o.      It tends to work well with most chorus schedules  to hold SSN meetings sometime between Memorial Day Weekend and Labor Day Weekend. However, it’s always up to the host chorus to determine their own dates.

p.      The SSN planning meeting schedule for the next few years would look like this:

2009    Artemis Singers (Chicago)      Regular SSN Meeting

2010    Artemis Singers (Chicago)      SSN Meeting during the choral festival

2011    Sistrum (Lansing)                 Regular SSN Meeting

2012    MUSE (Cincinnati) -or-
Bread and Roses (DC) -or-     Enhanced SSN Meeting
Sound Circle/Resonance
(Boulder)                           

2013    TBD (site of future festival)    Regular SSN Meeting

2014    TBD (site of SSN festival)      SSN Meeting during the choral festival

q.      It would be helpful for the Helm to have some real-time discussions (e.g. IM or phone conference), in addition to email communication. It was agreed that everyone on the Helm should get a free SKYPE account for conference calls. The calls need to be made from computers with voice capabilities (microphone); camera features are also a bonus. Go to www.skype.com to download the free software. When you get your Skype name, email it to the Helm.

r.       Artemis Singers will tentatively plan to host the next SSN meeting over the Memorial Day Weekend again next year.

Many thanks to Meta Hellman of Artemis Singers and her partner Susan Arnold who graciously invited us to use their new home for our meetings, and to everyone who traveled to Chicago to participate!!!

Minutes submitted by:

Diana Clegg, Artemis Singers