BQPA/PIONEERS
Barbershop Quartet Preservation Association
BQPA/Pioneers
General Meeting - September 9, 2017
Minutes
Tom Noble - President
Lee Taylor - V. P.
Jim Gallagher – Treasurer
Rex Touslee - Secretary
Jim Milner - Chair - West Festival & Webmaster
Gerry Carroll – Chair - East Festival
June Noble - Chair - Registration
Jack Martin - IPP
10:00 am - Call to order
Recognition of departed friends
Respectful rendition of The Old Songs in their memory
Treasurer’s Report – Jim Gallagher
The Festival in Mesa – April -2017 broke even.
Financial condition is good – check book balance -$6,546.50
Report made a part of the BOD meeting minutes.
Actions taken since last meeting
Ownership of BQPA Google Group email has been transferred to Tom Noble, with Bernie Esberner and Jack Martin as co-manager.
West Festival – Jim Milner
Contract for April, 2018, with same hotel in Mesa has been signed – same arrangements as 2017.
Room rate $89.00/night
Transportation options to the hotel from the airport are now on the website
East Festival - Gerry Carroll
Thanks to Dave Brady for handling the golf for this weekend.
Discussion of the
arrangements with this hotel for this weekend. - room rate was raised to $89.25
/ night - no charge for singing room
- free beer.
Asked all to be generous to hotel staff – helps during negotiations with management.
Saturday night dinner will be at Stacy’s again
Registrar’s Report - June Noble
Average member attendance per festival is 61
The donations thermometer has been effective – donations have increased at last three festivals.
Please register – need the information for planning purposes
BQPA materials are for sale at the Registration Table.
Communications and Public Relations - Tom Noble
Flyers and cards have been placed at strategic locations at BHS functions and at the MAD district functions.
Has produced an instruction sheet to sign on to our Google Groups email.
BQPA has a FaceBook page.
We have a mutual working relationship with AHSOW, to announce each other’s events and activities, as exchanged via“press releases.”
There has been a response to the advertisement for someone to fill a Public Relations position – Jordan Busboom has accepted - he is a professional in graphics, is now the Public Relations & Marketing person for the CARD district of BHS. He will be appointed to the fill that role for BQPA.
Thanks to Frank Fliszar – now
have 359 members on the BQPA membership list – there were 41 members at the Friday
night contest.
Board Decisions
Raymond Schwarzkopf is having considerable difficulty in obtaining quartets for the Saturday night shows. Two quartets that have agreed to appear tonight are coming here from another performance just to perform for us, for no fee.
Raymond is now attempting to book quartets for next year’s Saturday night show.
To locate the old songs that Robbie Neal has placed on the internet go to his “channel”in YouTube: Spaguy62.
Jim Milner: Points out that he has put a link to Robbie’s site on the BQPA website under the Quartet Encouragement tab. And reminds everyone that he has also placed Paul Olguin’s presentation on Woodshedding there as well.
Tom Noble: The link to the supplier of our shirts and other clothing items has been removed from our website, at the request of the supplier. But members can still get BQPA shirts and other items from them at Righteous Clothing, via the internet. (Helpful instructions will be forthcoming…)
Jack Martin: requests that our Board of Directors ask the BHS to advertise their organization at our Festivals. Tom Noble states that he has had one on one conversations with several high level BHS people including more than one President, making that request.
Tom Noble:
* Informed all that we may have a date conflict with the AZ Division of FWD in April of 2019. The FWD was considering changing the date of the AZ Div. Contest to be the same as our Festival in order to accommodate the large numbers of ‘Snow Birds’ that want to leave AZ earlier. Bernie Esberner, Adam Kauffman , members of the Mesa, AZ chapter, along with Festival Chairman Jim Milner, will be working on our behalf to hopefully resolve the conflict. At the time of this meeting, it appeared that the conflict was resolved for 2018.
* Reminds all of the raffle tickets available at the registration table for a drawing for the CDs that have been donated by John Olson. $2.00 per ticket – funds go to our treasury.
* Our ‘donation bucket’ is now at 60% of the what is needed to cover the expense of this weekend.
* Urges all to email the hotel when you get
home, thanking them and complimenting the staff. This really helps us when we plan for next
year.
Lee Taylor: Heads the Nominations Committee. Some of the Board of Directors and our
committee chairs may need to be rotated in times to come, and his committee is
considering succession plans. Lee asks
for volunteers to come forward and express willingness and interest in
leadership positions.
Board Decisions cont’d.
Gerry Carroll: Recognizes Tom and June Noble for all that they do for the BQPA. Comments on the group from WI and IL that meets for dinner, once a month, to sing in quartets. Urges all to drop the term ‘woodshedding’ when telling someone about the BQPA, as it is his opinion that this term is misleading because that is really not all of what we do at a Festival and is sometimes a discouragement to creating an interest in a prospective member.
General discussion among the attendees of the evolution of the Barbershop style and comments that there is now less and less informal singing within the BHS.
11:06 Moved and seconded for adjournment.