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Meet Volunteer Jenna Shearer, Marketing & Communications Committee

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Categories: EEFC News.

Jenna Shearer EEFC Volunteer

The Marketing and Communications Committee is fortunate to have Jenna Shearer on the team. Her decision to offer her skills in social media has provided the EEFC with better and more consistent content that stimulates more interest on the part of our Facebook community. In the long run we equate more interest with increased attendance to our camps!

My history with the EEFC stretches back to before I can really remember. My parents, Wendy and Doug Shearer, are long-time campers, and I’ve attended camp almost every year of my life. Camp became more significant to me in middle school, as my “safe place” where knowledge, skill and dedication mattered more than superficial qualities that the greater world emphasized. Camp has played a huge part in developing my self-esteem and influenced my decision to pursue dance through high school and college, and now as a full-time professional belly dance instructor and performer.

I chose to volunteer with the EEFC because I’m concerned by the dearth of campers aged 20-40. I am working with Elena and Eva in Marketing and Communications, because it complements the outreach I’m already doing in the belly dance community. I’m currently providing some of the posts you see on the EEFC’s Facebook page and am reviving the organization’s Twitter account. It’s immensely rewarding to give back to the community that’s given so much to me.

—Jenna

Spring 2015 Board Meeting Summary Letter

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Categories: Board Reports, EEFC News, Message from the Board.

From board member Nancy Leeper

Hi all,

Thank you so much for our productive meeting! It is a joy to work with all of you, and I am continually impressed with everyone’s dedication to our “cause” and passion for putting the effort into “getting it right.” We all want the best for EEFC and each other, and, to me, this meeting really laid that commitment out on the table—both the easy stuff and the hard stuff—and we dealt with it. I, for one, can see some clarity in our path forward and, through this in-person gathering, I am reassured of our collective commitment to doing what is right for our organization.

This meeting was particularly special (for me, anyway) because we were able to touch in with significant members of our Bay Area community in a highly meaningful way. We managed to attract an almost perfect demographic of founders, medium-timers (I consider myself in this group, at about 27 years of connection with the community), and relative newcomers. Everyone in the room had something to say, sometimes with widely differing opinions on the way forward, but without rancor and with positive intent from all participants.

As always, we have a lot of work to do in the wake of our meeting. Amy is compiling our resulting to-do list today and/or tomorrow in the cracks of time in her work day, and we can review that list and continue to chug forward.

It was particularly good to have the technology to conference people in via skype or other means. We are all very busy people, and we all have personal, professional, and family issues that we are dealing with. I am so grateful that no one had to completely forego participation, while still attending to “real life.” Thank you all for your patience and willingness to adapt to our dispersed meeting style this past weekend. Meeting in person is, of course, optimal, but sometimes that simply can’t happen. Thank you Noel, Corinna, & Demetri for hanging in with us. It would be great to find a different platform that would allow a stronger technical connection and offer the ability for remote participants to, at the very least, visually indicate their interest in speaking/responding to each other and those at the table. It’s reassuring to know that these solutions exist and that we have the technical expertise on the board and within our community to implement them. Our adoption of this technology internally will go a long way toward hosting virtual forums effectively.

And thank you Rachel and Traci for joining us! As we are currently a more or less working board, your knowledge resulting from immersion in operations is a keystone of our conversations regarding sorting out our respective roles (board and admin staff), and how we can most effectively move forward on expanding our human resources structure to include volunteer resources. Thank you so much, Noel, for stepping up to organize and launch a volunteer coordinator position and system.

Once again, thank you all for a great meeting. We had a perfect space (thank you Elena, for organizing it!), fantastic food (thanks Eva for taking the lead!), and even managed so celebrate Pi Day with the appropriate pastries (thank you Trader Joe’s)!

Now—back to work! Please review Erin’s notes from the forum, the meeting minutes, and Amy’s action list. In my estimation, we’re in pretty good shape, so let’s continue to develop and maintain our very special organization.

Best to you all,

~Nancy

Note. Community Forum, Ashkenaz: Attendance included 6 board members, 2 staff, and (at my count) 15 other community members, with input from another member via letter to the board, which Craig read in full at the beginning of the meeting.

Read the Spring Board Meeting Report.

EEFC 2015 Spring Board Meeting Report

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Categories: Board Reports, EEFC News.

March 13 – 14
Berkeley, CA

Attending:
Ann Norton
Amy Mills
Nancy Leeper
Elena Erber
Eva Primack
Biz Hertzberg
Rachel MacFarlane
Traci Speed

Corinna Snyder, Demetri Tashie, and Noel Kropf were unable to attend in person. They Skyped in when available.

FINANCE COMMITTEE REPORT: Biz

  • With the help of our accountant, the finance committee and staff have worked hard over the past year to get our accounting to match nonprofit best practices. The committee is working on pie charts of expenses and income, which will be put on the website with 3-5 years of info, formatted to standardize the information.
  • The new website needed to be up and running for registration and not all of the financial and cultural information is there yet, but it’s coming
  • Biz estimates that we need to raise $80,000 – $100,000 in donations annually

PROGRAM COMMITTEE REPORT: Demetri

The committee opted to increase its size last year,which proved to be too big to work effectively.

Accomplishments in the past 6 months:
Pared back the committee to 5 working members

  • invited Corinna S to be part of the committee, increasing our number to 6
  • Put the Workshop slates together earlier than last year.
  • Complete the Workshop Slates In time for Registration opening in March

Goals for the next 6 months:

  • Identify experts we can consult with for recommendation on teachers and performers in their particular areas of expertise/knowledge/passion (i.e. genres, regions, offerings)
  • Form our committee earlier than the usual September to September term
  • Identify other individuals who could work well on the committee that we could recruit
  • Begin the process of programming this Summer for 2016 Workshops

The current group works well, and swiftly together, while still maintaining healthy debates on disagreements. We realize the needs of the committee are for individuals who can work well together ; have a collective broad base of knowledge and experiences; have a familiarity with both Workshops and their needs; can commit to often lengthy — and frequent — conference calls;

MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE REPORT: Elena

Accomplishments in the past 6 months:

  • Organized and produced fall fundraising campaign: mailing coordination, design & printing
  • Created workshop promotional postcards [printed] & flyers [digital]
  • Distributed workshop promotional materials
  • Placed print ads in BNNW, Chicago Spring Event, Boston Balkan Night; web ad: Dance Flurry
  • Organized EEFC presence at:
    Golden Festival, with a table (slideshow, swag, postcards, email sign-up sheet, banner and volunteers to talk to)
    Saratoga NY Dance Flurry (banner & postcards). Tables were staffed by Board and Community Members
  • Swag: design and fabrication of stickers, t-shirts, tote bags, water bottles
  • Moved email service providers [easier to use platform] and instituted monthly newsletter mailings beginning January 2015 . Coordinated content for monthly e-blast newsletters.
  • Organized the Golden Festival Drom AfterParty: profits were put into scholarships for Cocek Nation
  • Redesigned website: phase one: design, develop & launch.
  • Completed brand and marketing consultation with Catch A Fire volunteer.

Goals for the next 6 months:

  • Continue camp promotions
  • Continue development of the new website
  • Fill out the marketing committee roles [descriptions & people]
  • Create a “relaxed” timeline/production schedule for creating the monthly enews; assign roles.
  • Swag: promote orders for delivery at camp
  • Begin work on Spring Mailing Drive
  • Documentation: finish creating a marketing calendar

DEVELOPMENT COMMITTEE REPORT: Amy

Activity and accomplishments:

Reviewed and streamlined membership program

  • Membership appeal sent out November 2014, raising $19,630 in memberships and other donations. This means that we are at 50.5% of $25K budget goal for memberships.
  • Plans for the next 6-9 months
  • Identify 1-2 new Development Committee members
  • Review and update at-camp fundraising
  • Provide community with easy-to-use community fundraising ideas and info
  • Work with to set a process for tracking goals against regular financial reports
  • Review how we acknowledge giving
  • Work with rest of Board to provide tools and information, so that they can easily assist in development

SALESFORCE UPDATE: Noel

Working with the Marketing & Communications committee to work out web hosting details

BOARD DEVELOPMENT / SUCCESSION PLAN: Corinna

Board members rolling off this year:
Biz
Demetri
Ann
Nancy
Eva
Departing members will start working on recruiting new members.
Information on board service and an application is now on the website.

BOARD GOALS FOR THE NEXT 6 MONTHS: Nancy

  • Update Bylaws
  • Community relations plan
  • Work to continue community forums, probably with audio &/or video conferencing
  • Define roles of the EEFC reception and lunch with the board
  • Redefine General manager & Administrative Assistant’s roles
  • Fundraising strategy & plan

Letters to the Community — from the Board of Directors and Rachel MacFarlane

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Categories: EEFC News.

Dear EEFC Community,

The Board of Directors has just ended its spring face-to-face meeting in Berkeley. Rachel and Traci were invited to participate in all our sessions, and were able to be a part of the conversation for much of both days. We all spoke frankly and respectfully to each other about where we have been, where we are going, and what we want to do together to achieve our goals. We all felt very positive about how much progress we have made as a team to rebuild trust that had eroded over time, and feel this is a good time to share with you our thoughts about what we have gone through, and what we are looking to do going forward.

Looking back:
Starting in the late 2000s, the Board identified serious long-term financial concerns about rising costs, already-high tuition, and demographic trends in campers, and struggled to find a way to respond to them. Beginning in 2008, the EEFC was also reacting to a much broader phenomenon, the U.S. financial crisis. At the time, all nonprofit organizations shared similar struggles, and, like us, they continue to wrestle with the effects of the downturn. After much discussion, in late 2010 the board initiated a restructuring of the organization, which created a part-time executive director (ED) role with primary responsibility for fundraising, strategic planning, and administrative leadership. The Board felt this role would also give our community an enduring and confident leader. Two new part-time positions were also created: workshop manager and administrator.

The changes did not lead to the intended results. All three positions were part-time and paid part-time wages; as a result, the limited hours and pay had everyone feeling overworked and underpaid. We made much-needed strides toward improving and upgrading the organization’s financial reporting and data tracking, but we did not make necessary progress on fundraising, strategic planning, or leadership. Communication across the organization became strained. The process was difficult and painful for individuals and for the organization, and the EEFC community overall was clearly confused and frustrated by decisions we, the Board, had made. Some long-time members became disillusioned and angry, and voiced their frustrations. Changes we had made led to stress, confusion, and frustration for our staff.

In December of 2014 our executive director resigned. An interim ED was named with the intention of maintaining continuity. It was clear that we — the board and staff together — needed to look at our past decisions and outcomes, and understand what had happened, before moving forward.

What we have learned:

  • Our staff members are a crucial part of the EEFC’s sustainability and we need to invest in them as we would in other parts of our infrastructure. In retrospect, the Board made an unrealistic assumption about fair remuneration when it chose to create three roles without increasing the overall budget for staff compensation, and we acknowledge that this change caused hardship for Rachel. The board also acknowledges that all three roles continued to be stressful because of their limited time and compensation design.
  • All of our staff members deserve frequent and constructive feedback on their performance, provided in a structured and systematic form, from a Board-designated individual or team.
  • Our community wants to hear more details of both Board and staff accomplishments and plans, including clear statements of specific targets and outcomes.
  • It’s not clear that we need an acting ED at this moment, so we are revisiting that decision.

Going forward:
Staff responsibilities have been increased, and accordingly, salaries and benefits have increased as well. The Board and staff are communicating much more frequently, openly, and with growing trust. All agree that we are on a good track, and we are all looking toward the future from the same page.

The Board has solicited and continues to solicit feedback from the community, and we are committed to creating ongoing face-to-face and virtual forums as opportunities for conversation and connection.

Together with Rachel, the Board is trying to figure out the best way for the organization to get the fundraising, strategic planning, and leadership support it needs. We are considering different scenarios, including hiring fixed-term consultants or staff to help us with (a) a strategic planning process, (b) an effective fundraising strategy and plan, and (c) the right staffing model, all of which will make us a healthier, and more sustainable, EEFC.

Thank you all for sharing your concerns, your support, and your ideas.

Yours in Music and Dance,
The EEFC Board of Directors

 

Dear EEFC Community Friends,

I’d like to follow up on the Board’s letter with a few words. I couldn’t be more happy with the outcome of this last weekend’s meeting in Berkeley. After a rough couple of years, it was a real pleasure to be “back in the room,” literally and figuratively, around the table with board members and my fellow administrative staff member, Traci Speed. We took what was a prime opportunity to air some difficult matters. From my perspective, I was met with nothing but a respectful and loving attitude from my fellows. Among us, I felt a wonderful sensation of lightening, followed by a strong resolve to move forward together in good faith, while keeping in mind the hard lessons we have all learned.

Even during the most challenging times in the past few years, I have been buoyed by and intensely grateful for the good will and support of many of you in the community. I am proud to be a part of this passionate group of people and honored by the trust the Board—and you—have in me. I am eager to continue our journey together.

Yours faithfully,
Rachel MacFarlane

Earl Galitz

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Categories: EEFC News, In memoriam.

March 3, 1946 – February 22, 2015

On behalf of the EEFC community we extend our deepest sympathies to Earl’s family and friends. The board, staff, and membership are grateful that gifts in his name can honor his memory by bringing Balkan music & dance to others through our annual summer workshops. He touched many of us during his visit in 2010 with his wife and sister. May his memory be a blessing.

From Facebook:

Earl H. Galitz, age 68, passed away February 2, 2015 from complications of various illnesses over the past two years.

Earl lived in South Florida since the age of 8 and was a family lawyer in Miami for over 30 years. He retired in 2013 and moved up to Baltimore to be near his sister. An avid stamp collector, he was an expert in Bulgarian philately with many international award winning exhibits. He loved to play and dance to folk music. He also played classical chamber music for many years and had a collection of over 4,000 compact discs. Musically gifted, he could play almost any instrument. His wit and intelligence was the life of many a party. Earl and his wife both enjoyed traveling the world, eating exotic foods, and having friends from all places and walks of life. His parents lived to 99 and 95 so it’s just not fair that he didn’t emulate them. However, he did live life just the way he wanted it and had fun along the way.

If you wish to make a donation, you may donate either to Heifer International or the East European Folklife Center. Earl is survived by his very sad wife, Marisa and his very sad sister, Nina. Memorial will be held in South Florida the weekend of March 13th. Contact mmgalitz@gmail.com for details.