From time to time I like to make entries about my involvement in the Performing Arts Presenters of Hawaii booking consortium because I have never come across another situation where arts organizations cooperated so closely with each other for the benefit of all.
I spent most of the day at my consortium’s annual meeting. Essentially, it was a day to look back and assess the success of our cooperative efforts and project forward to next year.
Since we often share the costs of bringing performers in, there was discussion of who bore what percentage of the total share. Also, since we had applied for a hub grant to support the tour of a New Zealand group, we discussed what expenses that money would cover.
There was also discussion about the membership fee structure, if it was valid and if there should be any changes made to the way fees were assessed and how the monies were used. We actually ended up deciding to apply more money toward supporting the attendance of members at the regional booking conference in September.
A new slate of officers was elected, the structure of the committees was debated and the terms of the board of directors were renewed.
The thing that took the most dang blasted time though was trying to set a time in August to have a pre-conference meeting and then a post conference meeting in October to discuss what type of acts we wanted to see and then what really great groups we saw. There are so many people with their own busy schedules, it was a very time consuming process.
So all in all, sure not an exciting time. But it is instructive as to how to form a cooperative environment. I did, however, get more information on the symphony story I have been following from some musicians who attended the meeting. More on that later..