Board Meeting

ACGA Board Meeting Minutes

April 10, 2023 via Zoom

Present: Mari Emori (president), April Zilber (treasurer), Sally Jackson (secretary), Joe Battiato, Chris Johnson, Lee Middleman, Cheryl Costantini, Emil Yanos, Iver Hennig, Trudy Chiddix, Vicki Gunter, Sonja Hinrichsen, Jan Schachter, Susie Rubenstein, Ren Lee, Barbara Prodaniuk

The meeting commenced at 5:30 p.m.

Welcome (Mari)

The new newsletter goes out to our general mailing list of 5000+ names. If members don’t renew, we’ll switch them to this mailing list so that they still receive the newsletter.

Treasurer’s Report (April)

Total assets as of March 30 were $116,911. We’ve received 34% of our budgeted income for the year. We discussed whether to modify how we handle some of our investment money in order maximize returns. April will look into current options, including CDs.

Festival Report (April)

The volunteer sign-up form for festival artists will go out soon. Postcard design is underway. We currently have 105 artists signed up for the show. Ren would like everyone to submit photos of last year’s festival, especially photos that show happy customers, sales in progress, booths, and so on (no milling crowds). The website will begin to highlight and update festival information with help from our publicist Kathy Maug.

Communications (Susie)

Please continue to submit material to the newsletter and the calendar. A link to the calendar will be added to the newsletter. Interviews with artists like the one in the April 2023 newsletter will continue to give ACGA a more public face. Emphasis will alternate between ceramics and glass. Posts on Instagram will do more as far as spreading news, information, and announcements. Tag the ACGA (#theacga, @theacga) in your posts and Ren will repost them. We now have 14,000 followers on Instagram.

Zoom Access (April)

We are in the process of working out a way for some board members to have access to the Zoom account for board meetings and committee meetings. Meetings would have to be scheduled so that they don’t overlap.

Jury (Chris)

We’ve received 23 applications for the current jurying. Discussion focused on whether to modify a long-standing “modified by heat” rule for clay and glass artists; this rule excludes stained-glass artists from festival eligibility. The Board voted 15-1 to accept applications from stained-glass artists, effective immediately. Jurors will evaluate the work using the same strict artistic criteria as applied to other types of submissions.

Storage Unit (April)

There are storage units in Sunnyvale and Santa Clara that are less expensive than our unit in Berkeley. April will pick a location and a convenient date this month for moving everything, and she’ll recruit volunteers to help.

Exhibitions (Jan, Susie)

We’re still working on trying to set up a future exhibition with Benicia Arts.

In Santa Cruz, we’re working with the gallery Curated by the Sea to organize an exhibition that will open in early April 2024 and will run for several weeks.

Susie is exploring the possibility of an exhibition at Mount San Antonio College in Walnut, CA.

Artist-of-the-Month (Emil)

Emil is working out a protocol for choosing the Artist-of-the-Month for our website, and asked that we email him our ideas by the end of the month. We agree that this feature should highlight both established artists and emerging artists.

The meeting adjourned at 7:15 p.m.

Next Meeting: 5:30 p.m., Monday, May 8, 2023 via Zoom

All are welcome!