Bruce Ridge, Brian Rood, Laura Ross, Michael Moore, Richard Levine, Matt Comerford, Paul Gunther, Cathy Payne, Meredith Snow, Susan Martin
Conference Preparation – there was discussion about potential local press coverage prior to the conference in Detroit and attendance at the governing board dinner Monday evening.
The Tuesday pre-conference board meeting will include Mark Clague from the University of Michigan School of Music, who is on the schedule from 11AM-noon. George Cohen and Jay Blumenthal are both scheduled for the afternoon.
Agenda walk-through – Tuesday evening: Brian would like a more structured discussion that can cover specific topics. Susan asked about asking negotiating orchestras to answer a few questions to build a topic list; Brian will contact members on Delegate-L to identify negotiating and attending orchestras. Laura agreed to send Brian the list of attendees to reach out to new delegates.
The beginning of the conference will include a request from Honolulu for dues forgiveness. There was a brief discussion about the orchestra’s name change to the Hawai’i Symphony. Bruce will reach out to Steve Flanter to ask what the musicians would prefer to do.
Bruce will reach out to Congressman Conyers and George Cohen to ask if they would like to join the governing board for lunch on Wednesday.
Bruce has purchased DVDs about the Louisville Orchestra and Philadelphia Orchestra - Laura will work with Brian Ventura to investigate the possibility of providing a TV/DVD player to allow delegates to view them after hours at the conference.
There was a discussion about a policy regarding how delegates and others may contact Susan during the year. Laura explained that the contact policy is normally included in the Delegate Manual – Bruce and Susan will work on this.
MAL/Delegate Luncheon – the governing board agreed that ICSOM providing lunch was appropriate. There was discussion of buffet or box lunch and Laura explained that an extra 30 minutes had been added to the lunch period to account for getting food and moving to individual rooms. Michael will also send the board a breakdown of costs.
Parliamentarian – Paul Castillo will be attending the TMA conference (which is at the same hotel just before ICSOM.) The governing board agreed to cover 2 nights stay at the conference. Bruce will contact Paul.
Resolutions – There are more in the pipeline including a resolution to support foreign orchestras in trouble; Laura suggested asking George Brown to draft a first draft.
Orchestra Reports
Louisville – Bruce updated the board on the latest information, including that the judge called for mediation. The next hearing is in August.
New York City Opera – musicians are getting the word out and working well with Local 802. NYCO board members are resigning in protest over the General Manager’s decisions regarding their departure from Lincoln Center and new season programming ideas.
Other – Philadelphia Orchestra musicians will be voting on extension of the agreement through November 18 (they will be out of town on tour much of the time). The board is pretty entrenched about withdrawing from the pension funds.
AFM updates – Bruce spoke about a few recent issues, including the SSD director transition between Chris Durham and Jay Blumenthal, which is reportedly going smoothly.
League of American Orchestras – Bruce and Brian spoke about their recent conversation with LAO musician board members Robert Levine, Robert Wagner and Tina Ward.
[Matt left the call]
The governing board agreed we needed to continue discussion on this and other topics prior to the conference. Bruce will send out a request for dates and times.