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McCarty: Alstead Office Report.
Coming to you more or less live from Northwest Arkansas, where the weather is changeable.
Web Stats:
Sept Ask the Experts: 580 Members, 28 Forums, 14,617 views
Oct Ask The Experts: 593 Members, 27 Forums, 5,889 views
Nov Ask the Experts. 614 Members, 27 forums, 14,091 views
Sept Sales: 20,424.25 income from 105 orders, via 8156 page views
Oct sales: 27,988.55 income from 145 orders, via 8606 page views
last 30 days: 8,145.25 income from 85 orders, via 9422 page views
35,018 page views and $67,427.20 in the past 120 days, this report
32,902 page views and $70,795.85 in the past 120 days, from last month's report
Attached to this e-mail is a small HTML file giving a more extensive history of web stats. See file: 20Nov2003webstats.html
Russell Colbath bills and payments: Two more payments received this period. I should have issued the final invoice to the FS by the time this conference call rolls around. Thanks to Curtis and Will for patience and support. Next time will be easier.
Susan has been conspiring with Michele about the auction and design expo for the Western Conference. This would be a good time to voice any comments on either, preferably via e-mail. (susan@tfguild.org) The short of it is that we plan to continue the three-part auction pattern, and perfect it in a couple of areas We will not be using Andre Menard or Cathy Hansen as consultants this time around, believing that we now understand the systems well enough to handle them in-house. The Alstead office has pledged to write a thank-you note to each auction donor and buyer this month, and to more thoroughly promote the auctions and the Design Expo in other ways as the time approaches.
Conference programming from April on this end includes activity on the Basic Track and sending some folks over to Chris Dancey who has agreed to organize the Natural Building Track.
Through the mechanism of an almost infinite loop of thoughtful emails, five executive directors (ILBA, TFBC, TFG) have agreed not to pursue a joint conference with the ILBA this fall in the East. We agreed without rancor that the cultural and stylistic divide was a little too wide, and that we should focus instead on a joint Rendezvous of some sort for 2004/5.
Rick Collins, Tom Nehill and Chris Koehn have made a site visit and an organizational meeting concerning a large-ish park structure for Angola, Indiana, June 2004. Rick has a demonstrated track record of accomplishment, we probably haven't exhausted our interest to midwesterners, and this would give us a chance to test drive a different model of project management. Preliminary financial and logistical reports all look good.
John Buday came to the Arkansas event all the way from Washington State specifically to discuss a project he is championing that would build a memorial structure in partnership with the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Community to mark their exile to the desert during WWII. 2005 at the earliest.
I am closing in on the end of the Botanical Garden project. Reports appear on the web site. We appear to be meeting our cultural, educational and economic goals quite handily on this one. Is it bad luck to say that before the tree goes up? Heavy thunderstorms are predicted for Monday. Weather in the seventies, gravy on everything.
CD Project: I have received invoices for work that awaits my review back in Alstead. Which looks quite like the report last month, and the month before (about a different batch) - we're are closing in on it.
No new information has been forthcoming regarding the Colombian school house project.
Texas Parks and Wildlife project is booked for 4/25-5/1, 2004. Call for instructors has gone out and borne some fruit. Most of the design work is already done. Curtis and I propose a pre-conference workshop at the Western Conference to develop the compound joinery specific to this project, and then offer the pre-conference participants a modest discount if they come to Texas to try out their work.
Blood Farm Barn/Pisgah State Park, Friends of Pisgah annual meeting will be addressed by Arron Sturgis instead of me, because of scheduling. Arron is on line to lead at least a portion of that workshop, though no budgets or dates have been approved as of yet, for 2004. The State of NH continues to move forward with site and foundation planning for the destination. (The last time I saw them they were standing in the woods 'discussing' parking.)
YMCA Camp (near Penetanguishine, ON) is poking along ~ Steve Dunn is the point man.
Parke County (Indiana) bridge conversations have been very quiet, though I have had some support and encouragement from Dr. Brungraber.
Face to Face date and place: As agreed last month, we will meet the last weekend of January at Laura Brown's house. Travel days would be Thursday, Jan. 29th and Sunday, Feb. 1st. Food and housing arrangements are more or less complete, that is, we've negotiated a price and a provider, and are now working on menus. Are there any vegans or vegetarians on the board or running for the board?
As discussed earlier in the year, I am planning on being in Estonia Dec 4-15ish. We're calling that vacation. Cheshire County Superior Court has confirmed my Jury Duty sentence for the first two (max) weeks of January. I do not yet know if they will allow laptops and cell phones in the waiting area.
In short, there is no lack of activity or amusement, and I remain the luckiest man alive.
Beemer: Office Report
Besides catching up on Montebello stuff, we've been doing the following:
Servicing 1839 current members.
Reformatting all of the 2004 ad sheets. Ad contracts will go out Friday (14 Nov). Cynthia will be taking over most of the invoicing duties.
Joel, Nancy, the ILBA and I have been discussing the possibilities of a joint conference in PA, but there are some substantial hurdles. Remember Westfield? Sharing the trade show and the auction are the big problems, as they are set up very differently. Discussions continue. I'm now leaning towards a separate co-sponsored event with them, like a summer rendezvous, different from a conference. Like an "international building with wood fair", which wouldn't have a trade show but would have sponsors, could involve apprentices and members who can't afford conferences (camping), where everyone could build stuff.
Letter soliciting participation in the compagnon exchange has gone out to 17 Western companies.
On the budget report, you'll see that we remain about $55,000 behind the budget. Much of this can be attributed now to a lag in payments from the USFS for the Russell Colbath project. That currently amounts to over $35,000, but is a moving target as invoices are still coming in and going out. We also have the Germany trips early in the year as a major unbudgeted expense. We still have a major bill from Montebello coming. We have significantly more Internet expense than we budgeted for (twice as much), so we are using the Wormington's and the store more than we anticipated. We already know the publications are costing more than anticipated, and the CD-ROM project has eaten $8,239 we hadn't budgeted for. By the same "token", we haven't spent the $11,000 we budgeted for Workbook II. Curtis and I will be working on the 2004 budget in December, i expect, and I must say he's good at staying on top of things.
Second part of the SoBA survey is being set up on SurveyMonkey. When it is ready for pre-flight I will send it to you for review. I didn't have it ready for Montebello, and it will be easier to see it in its final form on the website. By next week.
I have told Gord MacDonald, who will be back on Dec. 12th, that we need to break his proposal down into more manageable parts with escape clauses. We will work on that after he returns from New Zealand. Should be part of the F2F program.
Conference call tonight with Joel, Lea Cloyd, Grigg and Peter Bull on the Masters of the Buildings Arts program in Charleston in late March.
Western Conference planning has begun. Room bookings are being accepted.
I haven't had time to work on a job description for a new "business manager" position (what does that tell you?), but will. You may be relieved that this is not a priority for me right now.
TTRAG member meeting this weekend in Stockbridge, including planning for the March Conference in Portsmouth.
We have to make a decision whether to buy the rest of Ted Traill's models from his sister. There are probably 20-30 more. We could look at it as an investment ($5000?) for future auctions, or as an archive (but where to put them). I think I would rather see them in members' hands. I could offer her 50% of what we could reasonably expect at auction to take them all off her hands at once (what she wants). You've now seen them; what do you think?
First payment for the Truss series has arrived from the NPS and we've been granted an extension until March. We'll need that and more before Ed, Ken, Jan and Jack get it done. But it will be worth the wait.
I will be going to Washington state to visit my family for Thanksgiving and will go to Skamania to negotiate for Western 2005. Any objections to that as a site? It's big enough. Leaving 11/23, back 11/28. I need to get the majority of the 2004 workshop series at Heartwood/Pingree set by the promised date of Dec. 1. I'm going to try and get a replacement for my teaching at Pingree as it's too much time away, especially since I'd like to keep going to Frame in September to nurture the UK relationship.
Ballots have been mailed to all US members not at Montebello; international ballots go out today. We only received about 60 out of 229 back at Montebello. 25% is not a bad return, but I'm wondering if it's worth the hassle of splitting up the ballots. It would be easier to do them all at once by mail. Can anyone give me an insight on why people wouldn't vote at the Conference? Should we go back to holding them hostage at lunch until they vote?
Finally, I have made an informal suggestion to Ross Grier, who is not at Cascade anymore and looking for things to do, that he act as a liaison with our Japanese friends, particularly Mr. Sugimura and Mr. Miyasaka. He has the time, the interest, the knowledge of timber framing and an interest in education, plus can speak both languages. He is going to Japan this week on other business and meeting with Miyasaka. I would like to get approval from the Board to proceed with this, since I think it is the best way to keep this exchange going. Hida Tool and the other Guild members such as Ryosei don't have the time needed to set up the programs. I propose we pay Ross on a per project basis, with a goal of having an event (such as what we did in Asilomar and Miyasaka hosted in Japan) in each country each year.
Addendum caused by an innocent question from Milton:
SoBA will lead the Masters of the Building Arts event at the Smithsonian. Invited to participate are Rudy Christian, Grigg Mullen, Donna Williams, and Bob Smith. They have funding for three. Christian requests that the Guild cover his expenses to allow the other three Guild members to be supported by SoBA. A limit of $1000 is approved by the Board.
We are likely to only break even on the Montebello conference due to the lousy exchange rate. It is likely that future conferences at Montebello could be arranged at more favorable financial terms than this last meeting. They are pleased to have us, thus we have some leverage to negotiate better arrangements (exchange rates, room rates, etc.).
The dates will be 29 January (travel day) through 1 February (travel day) 2004. Location will be the Brown residence in Norwell, MA.
It is suggested that payment be made on a quarterly basis. This suggestion has received general support from the Board. We will seek to divide the project into quarters with payment for work completed at the end of each quarter. Authority to continue with the next phase of the work will be given on an incremental basis, following each quarterly report. Interim reports during each quarter will be requested. Thus, there will be eight reports total. We will attempt to arrange a meeting with MacDonald at the Western conference in April.
Beemer wants to consider bringing apprentices to Heartwood on an individual basis rather than as a group who start at the same time and finish at the same time.
Results are discussed in Scantlings and available on-line. The second survey is available and ready to be sent out. Beemer wrote up the second survey and SoBA cleaned it up. On-line surveying is proving effective, both in terms of the number of responses and the overall cost.
The conference was held in Baltimore, October 10-12, 2003. Well attended, about 150 people, many of whom were presenters. Glen James did a fine job with the timber frame repair workshop. The next conference will be in Mobile, Alabama, October 2004. There is talk of a joint conference between the PTN and the TFG - nothing definitive yet to report.
Disposed of by the EDs. We won't be doing this.
Motion: Beemer will negotiate the purchase of the models at an equitable price. Seconded and approved.
Ross is no longer at the Cascade Joinery and has some time on his hands. Since he is fluent in Japanese, he would be an excellent candidate for maintaining our relationship with the Japanese carpenters with whom we have worked over the years. We could hire him on a per-project basis. Ross is intrigued by the idea. Communication has been a major barrier to working with the Japanese. The Board offers its support to this notion. We wish for Ross to maintain a dialogue with the various Japanese interests in the US as well as in Japan.
There are times when the proposed position is useful and necessary. The concept deserves some serious conversation at the F2F. A test case with Chris and Rick Collins is under development. Based on recommendation of McCarty and Milton, subsequent discussion will be reserved for the F2F. Chris will be informed that the Board is interested in the proposal but not yet ready to act upon it. If Chris requires a more definitive answer prior to the F2F, then he will be informed that his involvement could be considered on a case-by-case basis, as decided by the EDs.
Tangenitally, this is a role that the EDs have customarily taken for the Guild, so there is a budgetary concern. Nevertheless, for large projects, there is often a need for a dedicated project manager who needs not be one of the EDs.
