After my birthday weekend, I had lots of meetings before heading off to Salida for the Creative Industries Summit.
Monday, April 28, I met with Rocky Mountain Highway coordinator for the Beer Garden at Trinity Brewery on Garden of the Gods. He had a meeting there and I had a meeting near there shortly after that, so it seemed reasonable to meet at Trinity.
I learned he was going to the Creative Industries in Salida also. He is looking to apply for a grant from the Creative Industries and wanted to see what it was all about. Plus never hurts to connect with people in the music industry and other festival coordinators to see how we can all work together. He was at a couple of the same workshops that I attended. One was directly related to Colorado musicians and another was related to a 4-day music event in Denver. I learned some things from each one of those, but mostly it made me want to figure out ways to network more in our area to get people to festivals and events that spotlighted local talent.
The Beer Garden contract is close to being finalized. We didn’t want to sign anything until we had the Insurance piece figured out. Both entities are happier with how the contract reads, so know we will have a beer garden with RMH’s running it. Just need to get a few more pieces in place before signing off on it.
He has an Insurance agent that did the policies for the Music Festival and the Beer Garden for MeadowGrass on Memorial Day Weekend. I suggested we go to her together and see how we can work to get insurance for both pieces for the Commonwheel Art Festival. The next day he did email me with a date and time to meet with her and him the next week. So that is where I am going tomorrow morning and hoping that this will get one big piece for the Art Festival in place and off my “to do” list.
I had ordered a Bloody Maria when I arrived and as he was moving over to his meeting, he said he’d buy me my drink. Nice.
My next meeting was a Commonwheel Board Meeting. It was held at a member’s home because of the flooding last August made Commonwheel’s basement unusable and we lost all our chairs even if we wanted to meet there, it would need some chairs.
I had a 2 for 1 Kentucky Fried Chicken coupon that I decided to use for my dinner. What I didn’t realize that in the “To Go” box there was no utensils or napkins. Dang! I had picked up a straw, so used it to shovel the cole slaw out of its container. And I did have a napkin in my glove box, so was able to eat and keep my fingers sort of clean.
My next meeting was a Commonwheel Board Meeting. It was held at a member’s home because of the flooding last August made Commonwheel’s basement unusable and we lost all our chairs even if we wanted to meet there, it would need some chairs.
We had a lot to talk about including the new POS system and the timing of that. Some Board members really want to change the way the shop looks, others are totally opposed. The one member who wants the potters to not show work on the best lit, top shelf, so have less space to use, covers the top of her jewelery case with multiple, not matching earring displays. REALLY!?! She wants more space while asking others to use less space. And the Potters bring in about 50% of the earnings at the Gallery. Does this make any sense? Does to her.
All and all, for various reasons, this was a very frustrating meeting for me. I often wonder how these members think.
When I mentioned how much more difficult the Festival coordination is this year with a committee of 5, including me, compared to 7 or 8 in the past, another member told me that was a large committee. WHAT!?! We have more to do in the past with fewer members, but 5 is a large committee?
I said I was wondering if we could even do this in the future as more new members joining recently live farther away and many more members than normal are away from town that weekend plus losing a key committee member who did a great deal of work during the Festival. A different member said “it was too much work for the little return.” Another member quickly added that the Gallery would not exist if it hadn’t been for the input of profits from the Festival that has kept the organization in the Black, where as the Gallery has operated in the Red for many years.
And then my favorite comment to me was spoken, not you are doing great keeping this alive after last year, but “Your reports ramble.” And when I said I had typed them up the last few meetings, that didn’t change that opinion of that member. And no one said, but she has a lot to convey and needs help to be offered and that is the central issues in most of my reports, other than letting the members know what is getting done to keep the Festival on track, and hopefully more financially successful this coming Labor Day Weekend.
I went home wondering if Commonwheel will survive past its 40th year. Wrote a bit of rantings in Word thinking of sending it to the President of Commonwheel as she wants to know how things are going with us on a personal basis. Slept on it, and didn’t send it, but still considering it. Some of my points are ones we might want to address at another meeting. But maybe need to rewrite it a bit . . . or not.
Tuesday morning, I found myself wanting to sleep in when I suddenly realized it was just past 9am when my Aine phone Healing Circle starts every other week. Grabbed the phone and dialed the number to just be a few minutes into the session.
This usually helps me center myself and gives me insights on how to keep my Spirit healthy and happy.
After this, I moved slowly into my day. Emails and Festival needs. But mostly worked on getting my HieroGraphics Books web site looking like I would want to send people there. I had wanted to have my “Sustainable Event/Festival” book done, but realized that wasn’t going to happen, so focused on getting this web site up.
I had a Manitou Springs Chamber Marketing Meeting at 2pm that I had gotten myself invited to a couple of weeks ago. Like I needed another meeting to go to . . .
I was really glad I went. I spoke up for the Arts, 3rd Friday Art Walks and the Commonwheel Art Festival to get some advertising help using the grants the Chamber got for marketing this year. I really liked some of the campaigns the marketing group that had been hired was planning, and not so much one of them. Especially disliked the picture they are using in a couple of ads, but held my tongue, as it seemed pretty agreed upon by others to be used. It looks like the little girl is making a bad face as she sips water from a mineral spring, not a happy face. I did help convince them to keep “events” in one ad they were shortening some of the text. I need to come to few more of these meetings to make sure the Art Festival does get some help this year with its new location and other challenges it has to meet this year to be successful.
Came home to discover that Tony Laidig’s weekly Expert Media Show was canceled as he was driving during the time it usually happens to a big event in Wisconsin. So I put time in creating a special business card for the Creative Industries Summit that had a little bit of information about many of the hats I wear. Not a card I would hand out normally. And it did work very well at the Summit. If I was talking about FantaFaces, I could say, just add the normal URL info to pull up that website, same with Commonwheel Festival. Plus, I could write the proper email or website URL for different conversations on the back if that was appropriate. I handed out lots of these cards for many different conversations, so they worked well for me.
And I did get my HieroGraphics Books web site looking how I wanted it for now. It has information about the books I have written and published on CreateSpace and Kindle. Plus it has information about books I have published for other people. And lots of links to my other businesses and blogs like this one.
I did make sure I had good directions to my friend’s house and knew the route I was taking to Salida, so felt comfortable with getting on the road in the morning. What I didn’t get done was packing for the trip to Salida. And as the last email addressed that and how inefficient I was doing that, I won’t go into that here again.
I was hoping to get my weekly hike in on the trip, but didn’t. And into this week, not sure how to get one this week. I am sure I will figure it out.
