Terry Sullivan/Nottingham Center for the Arts on fri 31 mar 00
NCECA 2000 was certainly the best organized of any I've attended. The best
hotel/convention layout as well.
Yes I have recomendations, complaints etc. It'll never be perfect. It is run
by a whole bunch of unpaid, hard working volunteers most of whom have little
professional conference expirience.
Always a completely new venue, mostly new staff and always new program.
It's a miricle how well it all comes off.
I send my stuff ( suggestions, complaints etc.) to Louis, the NCECA board,
and Minerva. Posting it on Clayart is good for discussion but remember
Clayart is not NCECA.
Write up your stuff and send it to them so they can do something about it.
I also note that the only board meeting open to the general membership is at
the end of the conference on Sat. Members are invited to attend and voice
their opinions etc. This year only about 10 out of 3500 were willing to give
up one hour of their time ( 1:15-2:15 p.m. ). Wonder what sort of impression
this makes on the board who work their asses off for us all year. Wonder what
might happen to the responsiveness of the board if several hundred members
decided to attend and speak out. Hmmmmm.....???
Conference content was mixed but, as Louis points out, there is so much more
now than 8 years ago that there is much more good stuff than before.
One point on Louis's tally: there were less booth spaces for the Non-Profit
art centers than last year but the NCECA staff would not budge on allowing
several NPs to rent a commercial booth together ( $1200 commercial vs $ 300
for the NP booth). NCECA still gives preference to the commercial customer
and treats the Non Profit Educational Centers as poor step children. I point
out that several of the "Commercial" booths were in fact rented by Non Profit
entities ( like Ceramics Monthly/ACS) and that not all supposed Non Profit
Clay/Art centers are in fact Non Profit/Tax exempt entities but privately
owned sole propriatorships.
As I understand it from Minerva; there were about 20 non profit art
organizations turned down this year due to booth shortage.
So what happened to the "Education" in NCECA ??? or does that only apply to
the colleges and universities ??
Terry Sullivan
Nottingham Center for the Arts
San Marcos, CA
http://www.nottinghamarts.org
Louis Katz on sat 1 apr 00
Hi Terry,
Actually I like productive posts to clayart. Specific problems often lead to
specific responses, sometimes solutions.
"All board meetings are open to the public", says Curtis Hoard.
Comments are solicited at the meeting after the conference. This has been a
traditional time for members to voice concerns. Often however the only response
to concerns can be, "we will discuss it further" or "who is going to run it? Any
volunteers?"
The two general business meetings have time allotted to questions from the
floor. This is traditionaly when we here from Leopold, who by the way, is one of
the reasons I help with the sound and projectors. I agreed with him too
frequently and decided to help. He also writes the board occasionally iwth his
concerns and shows up to the Saturday Afternoon meeting most years. Although, I
have seen him sit next to a noisy slide projector and complain about not being
able to hear and yell focus when he was the closest to the projector. We listen
to him and spend time discussing his concerns.
The May board meeting is three or four days long. The time is mostly spent
dealing with the next years conference. At the end of the meeting the conference
schedule is mostly planned, but agreements from the participants take a long
time to firm up and we generallly need to leave some details in our able
Programing Chair's hands.
I was happy that the DAL (director at large) that was elected was nominated from
the floor. This is good for the organization and keeps the board fresh and more
representitive than it would be if DAL nominees were a board shoe in. More
people should run. Maybe another studio potter will fill Susan Filley's shoes.
Maybe a studio potter from Clayart? If the clayart membership wanted to elect a
representative they could.
Ceramics Monthly and American Ceramics are given commercial booth space in
exchange for the advertising they provide. Just look at the magazines and see
what they do for us for these commercial booth spaces. We get a bargain. I hope
they continue to do such a fine job for us.
Nonprofit and Commercial Booths are layed out before anyone knows how many will
be needed or desired. I have been turned down in the past when I tried to get a
spot for my school(Las Vegas). So it goes* . This is the one aspect of the
conference that Reggie will keep handling.
One of the biggest threats to NCECA's Fiscal health would be a few years of
planning too big. We have consitently underestimated the number of booths needed
and the number of registrants. Some years this is more an issue than others. For
a few years the planning seems to have been fairly close to the mark. Not many
years ago a big snow storm or flood could have bankrupted the organization.
The Fall board meeting used to be just the executive committee, (everyone except
the DAL's). This changed for many reasons. One is simply there is too little
time for the board to discuss longrange planning without all getting together
after the short term needs are met.
We are growing out of using hotel conference space and sooner or later will have
to move into convention centers or work with larger hotels. Every place we turn
to seems to require much more space rental costs or significantly higher priced
hotel rooms. As a board we decided that rotating cities where it was still
possible to keep the price of our conferences down was better than mvoing to
places where the prices are higher. I try to keep these numbers in my head.
Registration cost including bus and catalog + 2.5 nights hotel (2 per room).
$150 + $275 = $525. It is a cheap conference. Registration for the woodfire
conference was $250. CAA is more than NCECA. Registration for the American
Ceramics Society Conference is about $400.We could provide many more amenities
and much better planning, more space, more audio visual equipment, professional
operators etc. if we started charging what the American Ceramics Society does.
Maybe it would be worth it, but our membership would plummet, students would
stop coming. Studio potters on the fringes would cease to see value in a
conference that was more expensive. I ramble.
I am subsidized for travel by the University I work for. Maximum I can weedle
out of them in a year is $800. Next year it will be $500, athletics is loosing
money. Most of this money is spent on travel to NCECA. With it the conference
doesn't cost me anything. The other subsidy is time. As a University employee I
am expected to work sixty hours a week and then do community service.
The board all have email addresses now. As soon as I get an update from Minerva
they will all be on the web site. Until then feel free to use the addresses of
our continueing board. If you think we need something on the program let them
know by email. As of this year they seem to read it. Last year snail mail was a
prefered medium for being heard.
Ramble Ramble Time for sleep.
Louis
>
>
> I send my stuff ( suggestions, complaints etc.) to Louis, the NCECA board,
> and Minerva. Posting it on Clayart is good for discussion but remember
> Clayart is not NCECA.
> Write up your stuff and send it to them so they can do something about it.
> I also note that the only board meeting open to the general membership is at
> the end of the conference on Sat. Members are invited to attend and voice
> their opinions etc. This year only about 10 out of 3500 were willing to give
> up one hour of their time ( 1:15-2:15 p.m. ). Wonder what sort of impression
> this makes on the board who work their asses off for us all year. Wonder what
> might happen to the responsiveness of the board if several hundred members
> decided to attend and speak out. Hmmmmm.....???
>
> Conference content was mixed but, as Louis points out, there is so much more
> now than 8 years ago that there is much more good stuff than before.
>
> One point on Louis's tally: there were less booth spaces for the Non-Profit
> art centers than last year but the NCECA staff would not budge on allowing
> several NPs to rent a commercial booth together ( $1200 commercial vs $ 300
> for the NP booth). NCECA still gives preference to the commercial customer
> and treats the Non Profit Educational Centers as poor step children. I point
> out that several of the "Commercial" booths were in fact rented by Non Profit
> entities ( like Ceramics Monthly/ACS) and that not all supposed Non Profit
> Clay/Art centers are in fact Non Profit/Tax exempt entities but privately
> owned sole propriatorships.
>
> As I understand it from Minerva; there were about 20 non profit art
> organizations turned down this year due to booth shortage.
>
> So what happened to the "Education" in NCECA ??? or does that only apply to
> the colleges and universities ??
>
> Terry Sullivan
> Nottingham Center for the Arts
> San Marcos, CA
> http://www.nottinghamarts.org
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