03.15 IFDA-NE Board Meeting Minutes

IFDA New England Chapter Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting March 5, 2015

Meeting called to order at 12:15. Attendance was taken. All of the board members were present except for Al Lagueux, Sean Reynolds, Vivian Robbins and Gary Rousseau who were excused.

Jennifer Driscoll moved to approve the agenda for the meeting. Dianne Ramponi seconded the motion. A vote was taken and the agenda was approved.

Jennifer made a motion to approve the minutes from the last board meeting. Bob Grossman seconded the motion. A vote was taken and the minutes were approved.

In Gary’s absence, Karen delivered the Treasurer’s Report. If any member has questions about our financials, please contact Karen Dzendolet, karen@kdzdesigns.com.

Rob Henry delivered the Membership report.

We have 150 members and 8 new members. (This 150 member number includes some members who may not renew in 2015.)

National extended the deadline for members to re-­‐up until March 13th.

An administrative fee of $35 is charged after one year of non-­‐membership to rejoin.

If someone is not a member for 2 consecutive years he/she is treated as a new member and there is no fee to rejoin.

Pro-­‐rating of membership dues only applies to new members: June 1 to September 30, dues are $225; October 1 to December 31, dues are $150.

If someone is retired from the industry, he/she can join for $75. Student dues are $45.

In Vivian’s absence, Rob gave the Membership Retention report.

There are 37 people who have not rejoined: 31 are professionals and of that number, Rob has talked to 8 who will not rejoin.

Bob Grossman offered to call Ray Bachand.

Polly Corn is probably not rejoining. She signed up for the March event as a nonmember.

Karen offered to call Nancy Feldman and Christina.

Carol Brown is not rejoining Rob offered to call Michael Resoco, Susan Fuller and Kelly Weber.

Bob Grossman will call Sarah Grossman.

Liz Hause– Gloria emailed and called her with no response. Jen offered to call her Nicole Hogarty—Rose Ann has called her but she has not called back.

Karl Ivester will join.

Christine Kay – Jen called her.

Jen offered to call Michael Kim. Chris Saad offered to call Murat and John Pompeii.

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Hillary and Steve from Rug Merchants – told they will renew but they do not come to events. Rose Ann offered to call.

Michael at SieMatic will rejoin.

Our aim is have people remain members; not come to events at the non-­‐member rate.

Jen delivered the Programming Report.

37 have registered and paid for the March event Woodmeister has publicized the event in South End media.

We have gotten 5 guests through Eventbrite.

Karen is going to look at the list of people who signed up to see who has signed up at the member rate and are not members. Dianne has asked that we collect the extra $10 at the door. Jen prefers to collect it in advance to avoid a bottleneck at the entry at Woodmeister.

Jen suggested to remedy this problem that we send members a code for registration and then require that code in a required field when they register.

April event—Cowtan and Tout showroom will not be open by then. Jen contacted Veretex.

The May kick off for Take A Seat will be on May 13th at the North Benet Street School.

(Note – The May 13th kick-­‐off event location has changed – Jen to update.)

Press, our members and trade representatives will be invited.

The boat cruise will be on June 25th and The Take A Seat gala on June 4th. (Note – this has been changed to June 3rd.)

Rob addressed the boat cruise. Last year, we got a large boat at a small boat price. This year, check-­‐in will be on the first floor and the bar will only be on the second floor.

There will be a change for this year—each person can bring one person as a guest either from his/her company or their significant other at a member rate. No non-­‐members can come. It will be a member-­‐only event but a member can bring a guest at the member fee.

In August or September, we may do a designer retreat. Budd Kelley wants to do a talk about property management. Louis Postel will do a workshop. We are looking at Kennebunk for a location. We have been talking to the Puffin Inn and the Long Meadow Inn. The cost will be about $800-­‐1000 to attend for the weekend. Jen wants to have 4-­‐5 workshops. We will not be paying for the accommodations for the speakers.

Take A Seat Event: Sponsorship levels—see attached.

500 postcards are being printed.

We are teaming up with builders’ associations and professional women in building sectors.

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There will be a display of chairs from May14th through June 3rd.

Chair designers will get press in news and online media. Louis will include something in his New England Home magazine column. There will be a $75 admission fee which includes a ticket to the gala.

We have the planning committee looking out for sponsors. We need to get them on board to start getting them into press.

We will donate some portion of the proceeds to the North Benet Street School, in addition to WIHED, who will receive the majority of the proceeds. (This may now change, due to kick-­‐off location changing.)

Membership is not required to do a chair.

Jen recommends “massaging” the sponsor thresholds if 3 members of the planning committee agree to have a sponsor at a “flexible” amount.

Dianne Ramponi gave the Hospitality report.

We are addressing the issue of people paying the member rate when registering for events who are not members.

Bad attendance at our February event was most likely due to weather and driving difficulties.

We are sending thank you notes to new members who attended.

Karen reported that the most effective way to retain members is make two contacts with new members within 90 days of membership. This was suggested in a presentation by a membership consultant at the IFDA national conference.

Gloria Robertson knows a BAC student who may be good as the student chapter president. She was at the February event.

Chris Saad delivered the Communications report.

Chris is continuing to work on linking to members Facebook and Twitter pages.

Chris will post every two weeks on Facebook to link back to our meeting minutes and calendar.

Jen suggested posting things from our newsletter.

Chris is using the Hootsuite social media tool to schedule posts.

Chris is thinking about doing a social media training before a meeting. Jen asked if we could do the training in April and maybe Wolfers could host.

Karen suggested that we publicize Take A Seat on Instagram.

Gloria Robertson gave the Education report.

Gloria has reached out to the BAC Interior design and kitchen & bath students, and has sent them scholarship information.

Gloria has had difficulty reaching out to NESAD. She tried through Karen Clarke and Anna Gittelman. Laurie Gorelick gave her Jessie Baxter’s card. Jessie is the Interior Design program coordinator at NESAD. Gloria reported, however, that once she sent information about scholarships, she got a response from the program directors.

Sean had a contact at Wentworth who is no longer there.

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Karen, Gloria, Chris and Sean will be meeting to discuss how to get student involvement.

Gloria reported that we are applying for chapter grants. We applied for a chapter grant for our March event which will be submitted to the educational board. We are trying to get two grants from National.

Rose Ann Humphrey delivered the Sponsorship report.

Rose Ann reached out to Marie Chaput of Thread; they will likely not become sponsors.

She spoke to Bianca at Restoration Hardware who said that RH wants to be involved.

However, it's a slow process. Rose Ann told Bianca that RH would have to be a member first, and then can be a sponsor.

Rose Ann is meeting with AllState glass.

We have to figure out the difference between annual sponsors and event sponsors. Is our current sponsorship program working? Is it effective for the sponsors? Karen requested that Rose Ann do an analysis.

Karen requested that we email Rose Ann with ideas for corporate sponsors (Miele, Clark, Yale, C&R Flooring, Lillian August, Sherwin Williams)

Jacqui Becker did not have anything to report regarding Community Relations.

Bob Grossman reported that he is keeping the industry calendar up to date. He was informed that our March event is not listed on calendar.

In Sean’s absence there was discussion about Future Directions.

Chris reported that the Google doc for our mission statement homework is not working.

Board members should just email Chris with their homework.

Karen wants to bring Louis back for our April meeting at 11:00 am to work again on our mission statement. (This has been postponed to allow for the Take-­‐A Seat meeting before our board meeting.)

Karen asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting. Jen made the motion and Rob seconded it.

The Meeting was adjourned at 2:19 pm.