February 10, 2022 Fiber Arts Center Board Meeting

February 10, 2022 Fiber Arts Center Board Meeting

Glenna

Carol Nieukirk

Mark Bond

Leigh

Dain Daller

Georgia

Dana Ecelberger

Deborah Harris

Pre-meeting conversation:

Maria can’t do April. A basket maker can teach 1st weekend of April. Second classes (waiting lists) can be in April

Dain said he would do May

A woman interested in teaching Knitting Machine in September but Leigh says we’re not ready for that. Leigh emailed her back. 

A woman was interested in teaching Painting Doll Faces on plastic but Leigh emailed her back that it wasn’t quite a fiber art. Not appropriate for the FAC.

Meeting:

Motion to approve last meeting notes Dain and Mark approved.

• Topics will include tabled items from last week:

• Churro webpage

• School looms

• 60-inch loom (Maria’s item/may get tabled)

• Looms

• Financials

• Free box

• Email from Vanessa: adult disability classes

• Questions that came in on Board email: 1099 forms have gone out & Dues invoices

• Churro webpage

• All Things Churro webpage is in the works between Leigh & Caroline Deichert. No progress yet. Leigh will bring up when there is progress.

• School Looms: Mark Bond has access to facilities to make rigid header, basic, Rio Grande looms for elementary schools that can be tied into social studies programs about heritage weaving of the area and could move into  more advanced studies at High School level. Could possibly tie into Lisa’s Ariat grant to increase interest in the training program. 12-20 students per school for a total of appx. 300 looms. Cost is about $30 per loom in materials. 10-12 inch looms. Mark’s design. Stackable. Numbered with info on back about being donated by EVFAC.  

• Leigh suggests that the middle school might be a better demographic for interest but schools need teachers. Maybe the weaving program could be both training weavers but also to set goals for identifying potential teachers for a school program. (The grant could track these sorts of measurable outcomes and also whether or not the school programs yield higher level students and weavers) 

• Teachers could be given the basics of these simple looms to be self-sustaining. They would teach at lower levels (Mark’s thought is that Elementary students don’t yet have gender biases about weaving)

• How to make it worthwhile for the teachers to take that on. Now there is an opportunity to get the looms made for very cheap while Mark is in his job still. 

• Is this an item for the Grant Committee to work on or is it an item for Board approval to approve siphoning off part of the grant money toward making the looms. 

• *1st: Mark may make a prototype for Board to try out. 10 inch should be big enough. 8 inch depth. 

• 1-2 week module for students. Students could take the looms home to play with. 

• Could the Center create the accompanying module talking about the history of weaving in the area? 

• Pull information from the All About Churro Website to create a module that incorporates the history of weaving in the area. 

• The Center may already have a boiler plate module from the “Teaching Fiber Arts to Children” program (Carol)

• Fund raising focus. 

• How to reach the teachers? 

• Maybe After School Programs are the right place to do this? There is already a program in place, and at the BOND House there is an after school program (Gabriela) and they would like to work with the Center. 

• Mark will work on the prototype. 

• Looms

• Walking Looms (Leigh). Donation of big walking loom. Should the Center keep it? 

• Dain: The middle room doesn’t have many open looms. Might want to consider selling the odd loom. There are 2 existing walking looms that could be repurposed. The loom in the front is really nice but a bit of overkill for teaching. That one should possibly be sold as it takes up a lot of space and use the walking looms. This seems to be the consensus. The big one is taking up too much space. 

• The middle room needs to be reorganized, in general.

• The looms get used for about a month at a time for each student and each project. 

• The walking looms are useful for the Walk in and Weave and Traditional weaving. 

• Dain: Computer loom outside the office, is it functional? Yes. But, it doesn’t get used where it is. Needs to be moved to a better location. 

• AVL owner? Can it be given back? Leigh said it was donated by Make Space, or on permanent loan to Center. They don’t have a place for it. 

• Maybe Leigh will teach a class on it in the future. Can’t sell it and can’t give it back so what to do? Sounds like it could be moved out of the way. 

• Financials

• Keeping a steady bank account.

• Not quite making bills this month but once classes start things will be okay. 

• $38,000 in the bank. Tends to go between that and $42,000. 

• Been about 2 years that the Center has gone from $20,000/year to more like $40,000/year. 

• Side trip: 2-year board mark. Time for re-election? No. 3-year terms so everyone has another year. Need to find new people who might want to be Board members. Roy? Maria? 

• Trish made a donation. Alice is going to make a donation. Listed with Schwab as a donee. 

• Free Box

• Dain: Slowly growing and in a prize spot in store. Not great stuff in it. Better to showcase featured products or class related products on that table. Move free box to a different spot. 

• With classes starting, supplies and relevant things should go in that spot. 

• Could be cycled through also to weed out the junk. 

• Tables should not be used for display but rather for classes. 

• Free stuff maybe by side door? 

• Merchandise should be front and center at check out desk. Not behind. 

• Need to make the middle room work better so this is part of that discussion. 

• Dana will take picture of shelf and send to group to see if it would work for something. 

• Metal shelving? Best if the shelves are open on both sides for visibility. 

• Carol got tables for back thumper room. Good to keep tables where they belong instead of moving them around.

Next Agenda Item: Debbie needs a new retail computer. Could someone do the research and bring in a proposal form. If there is money for it then it can be purchased. Leigh talk to Debbie about the computer and the iPads. 

• Vanessa classes

• There was a grant through LANL. Vanessa has tried to see if there is a way to get the money even though the deadline passed. 

• Talking with students and guardians and they are going to pay either for private or group lessons ($20 for private and $5 each for group lessons). Starting up again on Tuesdays. There may be more students joining. 

• Leigh will email her. Will the money go through the Center or directly to Vanessa? 

• There is still $5000 grant money in reserve at the Center. 

• Do the students need to pay if there is grant money still available?

• 1099s and Dues Invoices

• Jackie sent out 1099s already

• Membership renewal reminders already went out. 

• Invoices are not going to be sent out. Not set up to do that. 

• Zoom meeting are recorded. Old ones will be deleted so they don’t need to be paid for in storage. 

• Notes need to be put on the website. 

• Range top for dye kitchen came and dye kitchen is being set up. Carol needs to talk to Dain for placement and flow. Dain will be in class from 1-4 Saturday. 

• Dain look at where range is now and if that is a good place for it. 

• Donation of dyes needs to be put away and filed. 

• Keep it clean and organized. 

• Next meeting will be Thursday, March 10th at 4 PM.

• Annual Meeting in August? That way the Calendar year financials can be presented. Set a date next meeting. 

• Note: Set an Annual Meeting and discuss Board Members.