Friday, August 16, 2002, 7:30pm at the Home of Anne Baldwin

Present: Mark Alburger, Anne Baldwin, Art Bodin, Joanne Carey, Sondra
Clark, I'lana Cotton,  Nancy Bloomer Deussen, Ilya Dimov, Chris Enni,
Herb Gellis, Lori Griswold, Brian Holmes, Owen Lee, and Dale Victorine.


Wish list: add a fifth member to the CPE (Composers Performance
Ensemble) and featuring CPE at 2 instead of just 1 concert per season.
This will cost money...

Herb summarized three ways to meet our financial goals:
1) bring in a larger audience
2) get money through fundraising (garage sales, donations etc)
3) save money by trimming our mailing list and using smaller postcards
for our announcements.  Anne reminded us that most of our audience
members are our friends.

To increase our audience suggestions were made to put announcements on
music websites such as San Francisco Classical Voice.  Many of us agreed
that e-mail is an efficient way of passing information about our
concerts and activities.

ACTION: Chris Enni was appointed to the programming committee for a two year
term, joining Brian Holmes and Kathy Nitz of CPE.

ACTION: an e-mail poster will be created and distributed to all NACUSAsf
members via YahooGroups, so we can pass it along to friends and other
groups that we are affiliated with. Mark suggests adding a personal note
to individual e-mailings.

Members are urged to weed out their personal mailing list on the
YahooGroups database.

Chris suggests getting newspapers to write articles about us.  To do
this we need pictures and a write-up or better, a brochure, describing
what we are doing as well as the specific concert program that we are
presenting.  Herb described a San Jose Arts Coalition Seminar on publicity
and marketing that is offered for $50.  Chris offers to attend

ACTION: We voted to fund Chris to attend San Jose Arts Coalition Seminar
on publicity and marketing, date TBA.

I'lana divulges that we may get an anonymous donation of $1,000 this
season in the form of stocks.

ACTION:  After discussion about raising door prices, Art moved to
immediately raise the regular admission to $15 and the student and
senior price to $10.  This was seconded and approved.

We also discussed raising the dues for our chapter: regular: $30 chapter
dues up from $20; this is somewhat problematic, since they are combined
with the national dues.  Amid some discussion of the usefulness of being
a chapter in a national organization, Sondra reminded us that we can
list our works on the national website or if we send program information
to Al Brenner, it will get listed.  Owen recommended that we continue as
a chapter of NACUSA, ask national for an accounting of spending, and
push for a June 30th fiscal year, so we can get our share of the dues by
August.

ACTION: Nancy offered her house for a garage sale.  We decided to have
it on September 14th and Nancy volunteered to organize it.  Contact
Nancy in this regard.

Nancy brought up the idea of getting businesses to sponsor us. For this
we need to put together a brochure.

ACTION: I'lana, Herb, Mark and Chris volunteered to be on this committee
to put together a presentation packet to use in soliciting donations and
sponsors.

ACTION: Mark moved that for this concert, represented composers pay for
their own postage on announcement cards to their friends and
associates.  This motion was seconded and approved.

I'lana stressed that we adopt a policy that composers who are
represented on a concert contribute to publicity for that concert..

The need for grant money and the possiblilties of getting it were
discussed.  Nancy offered to be on a committee to solicit grant money.
ACTION: Nancy, Sondra and Brian volunteered and were appointed to
comprise the Grant Committee.

Mark offered to continue to do the program but requested clear
information from composers, especially in regards to who will perform
their piece.

Art will talk to a professional web designer the cost of design and
produce a good-looking brochure.


More fundraising ideas:

Brian (and I'lana)  reminded us that the NACUSAsf Young Composers'
Contest, as well as any other outreach activities that we can manage,
will greatly help us to get donations, sponsors and grants.

Herb related that the San Jose Chamber orchestra has an annual silent
auction that has been successful.  Discussion revealed much support
and many creative ideas for this type of fundraiser.  For example,
I'lana would offer "musical portraits",  we could offer to write music
to someone's original poem, we could offer performances,  etc.

ACTION: Amid much enthusiasm, and Herb's offer to take charge, Herb is
appointed to spearhead a silent auction at our next concert.  Please
contact Herb with your ideas and offerings.

ACTION: Brian offers to underwrite a second Blossom Quartet concert in
his church in San Jose. He also offers to negotiate with them regarding
this plan. In light of this, Mark moves to go ahead with the scheduled
string quartet concert on Friday, Nov. 8th at the Palo Alto Arts Center.
This was seconded and approved.

Owen asked for suggestions of names for this season's concerts.  Since
it was getting late, members were directed to e-mail suggestions to Owen.


ACTION:  Dates were announced for our concerts and set for our mailing
parties:
Fri. November 8th and possibly Nov. 9th or 10th is the string quartet
concert.
Mailing party at Art's house in Palo Alto on Oct. 11

Composer's Can Play, Too... is Saturday March 8th.
Mailing party is February 7th at Herb's house in San Jose.

CPE concert is Saturday June 7th .
Mailing party is May 9th at Sondra's house in Los Altos.


Mark reminded us of his 21st Century Music publication and the need for
reviews to generate publicity.  He requested anyone who does NOT have a
piece on a NACUSA concert to write up a review and send it to him for
publication in 21st Century. The CD's that we have make this job easier
and it is possible to use a pseudonym.  Please contact Mark Alburger in
this regard.

ACTION: The percussion seminar is set for Sat. October 19th at 10:00 AM
at the Percussion Studio, Dept. of Music, San Jose State University.
Info will be on our website. We decided to charge participants $20,
enabling us to use around half of that for chapter fundraising.  Please
contact Brian Holmes if you wish to attend.

I'lana invited all members and friends to monthly listening sessions of
contemporary music at her house.  These would be the third Sunday of
every month at 2:30.   Please contact I'lana in this regard.

Mark announced a Marathon concert slated for late February 2002 at
Diablo Valley College where he and Owen teach.  He said the College
Music Society would be willing to include NACUSA composers and that for
this concert he was looking for short pieces, 5-10 minutes in length.
Please contact Mark Alburger in this regard.

Herb announced that KTEH might be will to make and present a video show
of NACUSA music.

Meeting Adjourned. (about 10:30)

Respectfully Submitted,

Joanne D. Carey
Secretary of NACUSA