EVFAC Board and all members meeting 3-7-2024 ZOOM

EVFAC Board and all members meeting 3-7-2024 ZOOM 

Attendees:  

Board members:  Roy Kady, Dain Daller (President), Leigh Alexander (Treasurer), Mark Bond (Vice President), Maria Jonsson (Secretary)

Employees:  Debbie Harris (Retail Manager), Kim Zitzow (Director), Amanda Speer (Educ Coordinator)

Members:  Mary Pahl (potential new board member), Lianne Brown, Nadina Barnes, and possibly someone else via phone

Maria moved to open the meeting at 5:00pm, Lianne seconded.

Mark moved that we approve the last meetings minutes, Leigh seconded.

ACTION ITEMS:

-Voted in Mary Pahl as unofficial board member-will be voted in at all members meeting.  She will start a UFO (unfinished fiber objects) group once a month at center.

-Kim waiting to here about McCune grant $ for youth education events, should know by mid March.

-Summer Youth Fiber Camp planned in month of June (Mon-Thurs).  Ruby and Amanda helping out with teaching, need to reach our for interested middle school and high school students.

-Will install security cameras on center building for added security.

-Open House event being planned to promote youth education program at Center, need demonstrators for this (weaving, print-making, spinning, etc.)

-Phasing out jotforms, replacing with something that will be more streamlined.  

-Working on bringing back Espanola to our name EVFAC.

-Will have a big loom sale again and bringing back Artist of the Month in the front window.

-A small Churro week event is being planned, Los Luceros day is 7th of April, some classes at center the following week.  A larger Churro week is being planned for the fall with NRGHA.

-Increasing hours for Kim our Director and Amanda our education coordinator.  

New Board Member:  Mary Pahl

Mary is from Chimayo, NM and spins, weaves, knits, and crochets.  She has been a member of EVFAC for quite a while.  She has more time now and wants to get involved at center.  She wants to see more walk-in events like Glenna Deans once a month spinning gatherings.  She wants to start a UFO group “unfinished fiber objects” at the center so people can finish their unfinished fiber projects and get group support.  Amanda mentioned motivating the group via zoom, or maybe we can eventually email out to the membership the idea.  The board members approved to have Mary Pahl as an unofficial board member for now until we can vote her in at the all members live meeting later in the year.  We still need help with youth education, Mary said she could help with curriculum writing, but someone else would do the teaching.  She has experience in working at schools.  We are happy to have a new board member!  Amanda will help Mary promote the UFO event at center.

Directors Report: Kim Zitzow

-Emily Trujillo is doing another Ariat/Rio Grande weaving apprenticeship at the center in August.  We have the grant money.  Emily has been teaching many Rio Grande weaving classes at the center, so many people are interested and there is always a long waiting list.

-The center will sponsor a summer youth fiber camp in the month of June (Monday-Thursday).  A young gal by the name of Ruby will help out with the teaching.  Classes include: screen-printing, weaving, knitting, dyeing and spinning.  Classes are free for youth participants (middle school and high school kids).  Amanda will also help teach.  The McCune grant money may help with this, still waiting to hear back from them, should know if we get that grant money by mid-March.  Northern Youth Projects and Camino De Paz middle school were mentioned.  Kim needs help with youth education work.  Need to reach out to get youth participants for camp. 

-Another gal by the name of Amanda Curreri, was interested in joining the board.  She is a print maker and fiber artist.  She has taught at UNM and has taken weaving classes from Dain and bought a big loom from the center.  Hope to hear more on this later on.

-Leticia is still figuring out her health stuff.

-A pick up truck was stolen in the parking lot close to the road in broad daylight.  Need to improve security.  Security cameras have been ordered.  They will be placed in strategic places around the building.  Hopefully this will help security in the surrounding parking lot.

-Still planning on having some kind of Open House event to promote youth education activities, dying and weaving demonstrations etc.

-Got a random $8000 donation today.

-We are eventually going to phase out the jotforms.  We are going to replace the jot form and consolidate another system into Shopify to stream line and simplify our report system.

-Kim will start to organize speakers at EVFAC.  $150 dollars will be paid to lecturers.  Kim meeting with someone to organize speakers at the center          

Financial Update:  Leigh

Discussion of Linda Pete’s Navajo weaving class, the center made $2000 from her class which is good.  We have over $41,000 currently in our bank account.  We are still generating twice as much income from classes then we are from retail sales.  Lots of classes, doing good financially at the center.  

Clean Up in Back Room:  Maria

Maria has been working with Debbie to help her get rid of large trash items, and bringing plastic bins with no lids to Habitat for Humanity.  Also donating items that are hard to sell at the center.  The back room looks better now, always need more room for incoming donations.  

EVFAC Name:  Mark

Discussion of going back to Espanola Valley Fiber Art Center.  We all know the center as EVFAC.  Is there a way to really put Espanola back into our name, without having to change all the digital stuff (website domain etc.).  Can we change the domain name/website address?  The reason the name was changed to New Mexico Fiber Art Center is because we had a store in Santa Fe, and the board during that time (Santa Fe people) and employees decided that was best.  We want to go back to our roots now as being only in Espanola.  URL change possible?  Can we change nmfiberartscenter.org  ?  We would have to change the name with the Secretary of State of New Mexico.  Can we link everything to a page that says EVFAC?  During the last live all members meeting in September 2023 everyone was unanimous in bringing back our original name.  We all need to look at the bylaws.  The bylaws were changed just before COVID hit in October 2019.  Mark is going to write out an argument for why we should go back to our original name.

Retail Update:  Debbie   

The center has been getting lots of new donations which is great.  Discussion of getting a new rug display rack as customers are interested in buying rugs.  Mark will work on this to explore our options.  Planning a month long sale on looms at the center.  Debbie is bringing back the Artist of the Month display in the front window and wants to make room for this.  Suzi will be the first artist.  The big upright loom is not selling.  Discussion about donating some of the looms that never will sell even at a huge discount.  Discussion about having a silent loom auction at the Open House event, no date yet.  The large Cranbrook loom that was purchased is still here, no word from purchaser, we need to re-sell it.  We need to put in our monthly newsletter pictures of looms and selling them at huge discounts.  Does the local high school want any looms?  Los Luceros wants looms (Barbara Berger) but they want the looms in back room that Irvin Trujillo made, no we are keeping those for Rio Grande weaving classes, they are part of the center.  Does Roy want any of the looms?  

“Mini” Churro Week in April at Los Luceros and EVFAC:  Leigh

Sheep shearing and fleece washing at Los Luceros will be on the 7th of April on Sunday.  Might want to do an email call out for more volunteers maybe?  There will be some classes at EVFAC the week following probably related to processing Churro fleeces, shearing, skirting and washing.  Kim might arrange for a speaker.  Discussed using the indoor space we used last year at Los Luceros, we can use this space again for vendors and demonstrators.  Leigh will talk to Michelle, the manger, about this.  Lianne B.  and Kathy K. will vend/demonstrate again.  There will be a larger Churro Week event in the fall and Northern Rio Grande Heritage Area (NRGHA) will help us out with this.

Additional Hours for Kim Z. and Amanda S.:

Kim would like to have an additional 5 hours per week to be able to complete her tasks.  Amanda is still working 16 hours a week, she could be bumped up to 20 hours per month.  We are getting most of our money from classes.  The center seems to be doing well enough to increase Kim and Amanda’s hours.  

Miscellaneous Discussions: 

We discussed if EVFAC should be open on Sundays.  Not really that important for retail, we tried it during the Christmas holiday, not great.  We are open on Sunday if some classes need to be open but that is it for now.  We are all going to think about it.  Tabled this for now.  The center used to be open Tuesday through Saturday and closed on Sunday and Monday.  

Roy mentioned having a Spin-Off event at EVFAC.  He would come from Teec Nos Pos to help out with this.  A Sunday gathering at center for spinning.  Mary P. could help out Roy with this idea.  Anyone can spin whatever fiber they have.  Discussed that maybe the 4th Sunday of the month is a good time to have the UFO event at center, we could call it Sharing Sunday.

Dain motioned to adjourn the meeting and Maria seconded.  

The meeting ended at 6:34pm

The next EVFAC board meeting will be May 9th, 2024 at 5pm