ARS Annual Members Meeting Held in NYC

Minutes for ARS Annual Members Meeting
Thursday, October 26, 2017, 8:20 p.m.
At the New York Recorder Guild meeting,
All Souls Unitarian Church, 1157 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY
 
Present: Wendy Powers, treasurer of ARS, Deborah Booth, Gene Murrow, and about 20 members of the New York Recorder Guild.
 
The meeting was led by Wendy Powers. She handed out pie charts created by David Podeschi that summarized income and expenses of ARS.
 
Wendy explained that the meeting fulfilled a legal requirement, taking the place of a full national meeting, which would be difficult to organize.
 
The mission of ARS: To promote the recorder and its music, by providing resources and opportunities to the diverse recorder community—members, potential members, vendors, students—educators—teaching organizations, on the social, educational, and professional levels.  We envision a future in which the recorder and its music are enjoyed, valued and supported across generations, ethnicities and cultures. ARS wants to be the community that recorder players naturally want to join.
 
STATISTICS
There are currently:
Approximately 2,200 active members, flat over the last several years, which includes:
100 local chapters
10 recorder orchestras
29 consorts
 
KEY ELEMENTS OF OUR ACTIVITIES:
  • AR Magazine—articles on recorder history, technique, and important advertising for early music vendors
  • Recorder compositions, both Members Library Editions that come with AR, and those available to members on the website
  • ARS Nova, our monthly e-magazine
  • Website, with instructional videos, FAQ’s, a growing library of recorder music, our directory of members, chapters, teachers, vendors, and links to many recorder online resources
  • ARS on Facebook and other social media
  • Grants—professional development (including the Sitka Center), scholarships to workshops, Traveling Teacher Program
  • Promotion of the many local chapters, recorder orchestras, member consorts
  • Educational outreach to primary and secondary school students, and to adults
  • Activities at Boston Early Music Festival and the Berkeley Festival
  • Annual Play-the-Recorder Month activities
 
KEY ELEMENTS OF ARS STRATEGIC PLAN FOR CURRENT YEAR:
  • Improve engagement of Chapters, Consorts, and Recorder Orchestras.
  • Improve ARS fundraising, including planned giving and building an endowment.
 
ARS FINANCES
Income: Here we can see the vital importance and power of membership and dues. We are a community, both locally and nationally. TOTAL INCOME = approx. $184,000
  • Membership dues--$85,577 (approx. 46%, almost half our income)
  • Unrestricted contributions--$44,790 (approx. 24%, about a quarter)
  • AR Magazine ads--$25,514 (approx. 14%)        
  • Through investments in restricted funds for scholarships and other activities, dividends/interest earned $10,556 (approx. 6% of income).
 
Expenses: How we spend our money. TOTAL SPENT THIS PAST YEAR = approx. $171,000
  • Salaries of Administrative Director, Admin Assistant and Editor of AR, plus related: $63,307 (approx. 37%)
  • AR magazine--$51,865 (approx. 30% of expenses)
  • Grants to individuals and for outreach from restricted funds--$11,162 (approx. 7%)
The rest goes for office expenses, printing, postage, maintaining the web site, and fundraising.
 
The ARS is a frugal national organization that watches every penny, and gets a tremendous amount of good from its annual budget. A modest increase of membership would greatly improve the ability of the ARS to fund outreach projects or to offer additional benefits for members, e.g. recorder compositions. We encourage every recorder player to consider becoming a member. New members still get half off the regular $50 annual dues for their first year.
 
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Deborah Peters asked how we could engage members younger than 50 in the organization. The increased use of social media was an important idea that was mentioned.
 
Alfrida Tozieva asked whether we had any contact with the Orff Schulwerk Association. Wendy answered that our administrative director, Susan Burns, attends the national conference annually and takes a table in the exhibition. Alfrida wondered if the New York City chapter of Orff would be a good partner with ARS.
 
Alfrida also mentioned Carnegie Hall’s “Link-up” program, which works with teachers to prepare performances by school children that are presented at Carnegie Hall. I mentioned the Dallas Symphony program from the past couple of years. Could a NYC teacher apply for grant money from ARS in conjunction with funding from “Link-up” for a project?
 
Meeting adjourned at 8:50 p.m.
 
Respectfully submitted,
 
Wendy Powers, treasurer, American Recorder Society