Houston Polymer Clay Guild
Board meeting minutes
Saturday, March 15, 2008

The meeting began at 12:14 p.m. Present were: Bob Wiley – President, Ronalyn Hurley – Treasurer and Membership Coordinator, Paula Kennedy – Secretary, and Carmen Anderson – Member-at-Large. Absent were Rebecca Wells-Stout and Meg Marchiando.

Ronalyn gave the treasurer’s report and membership report. We currently have $11,344.07 in the bank. All those who have signed up for Donna Kato’s class have paid in full. There are 41 paid members at this time. Five of these memberships expire at the end of March. There are also eight lapsed memberships. Ronalyn will contact those eight former members to remind them of them of the $5 discount for memberships paid in April.

Ronalyn also reported on her trip to the national clay guild’s Synergy held last month. She will bring materials on possible teachers she obtained there.

Classes:
Donna Kato’s class will be April 5&6.
Maureen Carlson has agreed to teach a workshop in 2009. A date has not yet been set.

Future meetings:
March: Bob will do today’s demo – faux raku. The raffle for the Makin’s pasta machine will be held. Tickets for the raffle will be $2 each or 3 for $5. We will conduct the vote on the bylaws change concerning duties for the Member-at-Large position. [Secretary’s note: The bylaws change passed unanimously at the general meeting.]
April: We will hold elections for the 2008-2009 board members at the April meeting. The nominating committee has compiled the following slate:
President – Bob Wiley
Vice-president – Rebecca Wells-Stout
Secretary – Paula Kennedy
Treasurer and Membership Coordinator – Ronalyn Hurley
Education Coordinator – Patricia Daugherty
Member-at-Large – Betsy Frasier
Marketing Coordinator – (no nominee)
Ronalyn will make the arrangements for the on-line proxy voting to be held April 12-19. The results will be announced after the balloting at the April meeting.
The demo for the April meeting will be “transfers”. Bob will demonstrate several different methods of transferring photocopy and inkjet images to clay. There will also be a challenge - “empty bowls”. All bowls entered in the challenge will be donated to the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft’s fundraiser for the Houston homeless.
May: Bob will demonstrate “invisible canes” and techniques for sanding and buffing.

Challenges:
The challenge for April is “Empty Bowls.” See April meeting plans above for details.

Sale: Bob reported that the Houston Center for Contemporary Craft is not available for a sale in August as had been previously thought. The board will get information from the Houston Bead Society (HBS) about the possibility of having a sale table at HBS’s annual sale in November. HBS requires sellers to charge sales tax. Ronalyn said that at the sale at Synergy, the national guild charged sellers 15% if they worked at the sale or 25% if they did not. We would also need to arrange to take credit cards. The guild would need to take approximately 5% of those sales as well to cover the credit card fees.

Retreat: It was unanimously agreed that a committee should be formed to plan the 2009 retreat. Ronalyn suggested that the retreat be held in April rather than in February. The exact dates will depend on when the teacher(s) we invite are available.

The meeting adjourned at 12:58 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,
Paula Kennedy, secretary