2/16/26 ACGA Board Meeting

• Present: Mari Emori, April Zilber, Cheryl Costantini, Lee Middleman, Julie Taber, Susie Rubenstein, Sean Alcala, Ren Lee, Emil Yanos, Barbara Prodaniuk, Chris Johnson, Iver Hennig, Vicki Gunter, Britt Jensen, Pierre Bounaud, Piper Christine, Jan Schachter, Haley Tessler
• Absent: Tamara Danoyan
• Guest: Deb Sullivan, Kathy White

The meeting began at 5:15 PM and ended at 6:50 PM.

Welcome (Mari) 

• Mari welcomed everyone
• Our guest member, Kathy White, introduced herself. She’s a potter from Stockton and is quite involved in her local potter’s guild, the San Joaquin Potters Guild 

Administrative Review (Mari) 

2026 ACGA Board of Director’s Directory 

• Mari asks everyone to update their contact information in the 2026 ACGA Board of Directors Directory (Google Doc)

2026 ACGA Board Timeline

• Mari wants everyone to update the 2026 board timeline, which she plans to share in the next few days. It especially needs attention from committee leads. 

ACGA Email Accounts

• Mari shared the ACGA Email Communications List (Google Doc), showing that we have many email accounts maintained by different people
  • We confirmed that we are using all these accounts to either send emails or as logins for other accounts (e.g., MailChimp, Zoom, etc.) 
  • It was noted that we are missing the emails used for EntryThingy and JotForm 
• Mari mentioned that we will create a shared Google Drive to centralize file sharing 
  • Cheryl proposes that the secretary manage the Google Workspace and help keep track of our logins 
  • The idea of paying for Google Workspace was brought up 
    • Piper thinks it’s $7 per month and then $7 per user 
    • Julie wonders how many of these emails we need – she brought up that there’s concern about storage for her treasurer account and noted that a business account would be helpful 
    • A business workspace could replace Zoom if we use Google Meet instead
• Next Step: Britt, Piper, and Julie will meet separately and come up with a clear proposal for the next board meeting

Terminology

• Mari called out confusion of terminology – we use committee chair and committee lead somewhat interchangeably 
  • We all agree that we can call the committee heads “leads” so that it sounds more friendly than “chair”
  • April would like to stick to the title “Festival Liaison” because liaison feels like the right description for the position

Exhibitions Report

Jan introduced Vicki as the new exhibition lead. She will do it for this year, but we should be thinking about who may fill this role next. 

FIBER & FIRE in Sausalito (Deb)

• The Sausalito Center for the Arts opened the show last weekend, on February 14
  • 54 artists brought 64 works
  • Special thank you to Mari, Jan, April, and Heather Yates for being drop-off locations for all the work 
  • 400 people RSVPed before it was considered “sold out” 
  • Unfortunately two pieces broke – one during installation (but the artist brought a replacement piece and is requesting minimal compensation) and one during the opening (SCA is working on paying the artist for the piece) 
• Other notes on the show: 
  • Tons of foot traffic in Sausalito
  • There were no awards for this show because our collaborator, Fiber Dimensions, decided not to include awards for their artists
  • Vicki called out that the installation schedule was very complicated and should make sure this is better if we work there again 
• Mari thanked Deb and Jan for all their hard work on this show!
• Jan also noted that Kathy Paille, an ACGA member and Fiber Dimensions member, brought this exhibition opportunity to ACGA, and expressed thanks for her efforts. 
• Everyone is encouraged to go see this beautiful show
• Closing reception March 12, 2026 from 3-5pm and then there is a convenient artist pick up time from 5-7pm right after closing and on the next day

SILICA SiO2: Northern California Ceramics in Santa Cruz (Iver)

• The Santa Cruz Museum of Arts & History has been busy getting other shows together, so there are not a lot of updates, but Iver will be meeting with the museum team next Wednesday to do more coordination
• They will be using CaFE application to get entries 

FINELY CRAFTED in Sebastopol (Cheryl)

• The Sebastopol Center for the Arts will be doing the show, featuring clay, glass, wood, and metal, co-sponsored by ACGA 
• They’ve asked ACGA if we want to partner 
• Cost to ACGA will be $100 and Sebastopol Center for the Arts will take care of everything
• Dates: 
  • Call to entry will be in June 1-September 1
  • Show will take place in September (Note: Show will be up at the same time as Sebastopol Open Studio Tour) 
• They’re still looking for a jury
• They’ve asked us to give one clay and one glass award 
• Cheryl is meeting with them next week to plan further
• Robert Brent and Jamie Studley are organizing this  

Potential New Opportunity: Janet Wolf (ACGA member) who is on the board of NuMu Los Gatos is asking if the ACGA is interested in partnering for an exhibition in 2027. Vicki talked to Janet recently and Emil will follow up to get more details. 

Festival Report

General Festival Update (April)

• 134 registered for 2026 festival – not yet full
• We had a SNAFU with the application because so many people tried to apply in first 10 days that we ran into our monthly payment cap – April created a work around and Piper is now invoicing people individually
• Community organization participation 
  • Spiffy group will probably be there
  • BAGI can only do one day so we may not reserve space for them
• Last year 150 registered and 13 dropped (so 137 at the end) – wouldn’t be bad to have a waitlist this year
• April will reinstate paypal for festival registration

Festival Treasurer’s Report (Piper)

• ACGA revenue so far – $42,600 in registrations and $1,920 from table rentals
• Still have to pay City of Palo Alto $13,000 for facilities and then potentially an additional $2000 depending on how profitable the Festival is 
• All premium corner booths have been filled
• We don’t have any double booth registrations yet because we’ve been asking people if they can make do with 15ft booths, but will go back to these people and offer the full double booth if the festival is not oversubscribed
  • Cheryl is concerned that we are losing out on money by not offering this group double booths
    • Piper is planning on reaching out and re-offering double booth if we don’t have additional people 
    • Cheryl called out that we need to be careful how we communicate with artists about this so that we don’t make people feel underappreciated 
• April would like to send a reminder for eligible members reminding them to register 

Handwork 2026 Update (Barbara)

• Handwork 2026 is looking for more in-depth articles and would like one about an artist from Fiber and Fire show
• They want ACGA to keep tagging and using their hashtags, but they do not want individual artists doing this, just organizations like ACGA
• They are also looking for short videos showcasing artists (deeper content, not just promotion of events)
  • Jan brought up that a video of the throwdown may be good 
  • Video criteria: 
    • 1 minute or less
    • Should tell a story about object, process, technique, or tradition
    • Videos can be sent to Barbara so she can help with submission
• They will be looking for content all year 
• Mari suggests sending a call for all members to submit videos

Financial Report (Julie)

• Money in the bank: just over $202,000 
• Income for January: just under $50,000 ($42,000 was from festival)
• January expenses: $9,224 
• Julie has not completed 990 yet – waiting for 2025 forms to be available
• Cheryl asked about moving money to an account that gets interest – Julie will put something together for next meeting about moving to Capital One

Membership Report (Julie)

Membership Issues 

• We use plugins for membership on website, so we don’t have one central system – one coordinates payments, and one keeps track of members – they don’t talk well to each other
  • We’ve talked with Pam about different ideas and have previously tried using only one plug in and it didn’t work
• Julie feels we need to make a new website that incorporates membership system in the website (ex: Squarespace) – they have different membership systems that go through Squarespace 
• Julie proposes issuing an RFP for a new website build
  • Susie brought up the idea of letting Pam do this – Julie proposes inviting Pam submit to RFP 
• Next Steps: Emil and Julie will work on an RFP

Recruitment (Mari)

• Vicki and Iver will be stepping down from the board at the end of this year 
• We need to all start thinking about recruiting new board members and ideally find more volunteer members to team up and work on committees 
• We should invite members who are curious about the board to board meetings so they start to understand the process before we nominate them 

Date of next meeting is March 16th, 2026

Minutes prepared by Britt Jensen, ACGA Secretary.