In Attendance (13)

Melissa Aho - University of Minnesota
Suzanne Degler - Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD)
Barbara Economon – Walker Art Center (WAC)
Rosemary Furtak - (WAC)
Kathy Heuer - College of Visual Arts, St. Paul
Jeanne Iverson - Perpich Center for Arts Education
Janice Lea Lurie - Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA)
Jessica McIntyre - (MIA)
Amy Naughton - (MCAD)
Heidi Raatz -(MIA)
Daniel Smith - (WAC)
Kay Streng - (MCAD)
Jill Vuchetich - (WAC)

Meeting commenced at 10:18 after a lovely period of socializing and refreshments.

Introductory remarks were made by Janice Lurie, chapter president, in which she thanked Rosemary Furtak for hosting our meeting and providing us with a guided tour, to follow, of the exhibition, Text/Messages, which she co-curated. The chapter congratulated Rosemary for her work in building an outstanding artists’ books collection for the Walker Art Center. As the Twin Cities is lucky to have this international treasure as part of its cultural offerings, a warm expression of thanks was also extended in Rosemary’s honor.

Janice announced that Kristen Mastel and Deborah Boudewyns would be unable to attend the meeting. In her email to Janice, Kristen requested that members be encouraged to please renew memberships as needed.

1) Minutes from 11/3/08
Janice requested a motion on the approval the minutes from the 11/3/08 meeting. Kathy Heuer motioned to approve the minutes as posted on the chapter website and Kay Streng seconded. The motion was carried by a unanimous vote.

2) Travel Award
Janice announced that Kristen is the recipient of this year’s award of $200 to attend the ARLIS/NA national conference. Janice thanked Kathy for chairing the travel award committee and for handling the announcement of the award so nicely. Kristen sent a letter of thanks to be read which included comments on how pleased she was to receive the award and that it would facilitate her planning of BJ Irvine’s reunion party and her work with the Web2.0 tech kiosk. Janice also thanked Rebecca Moss, in absentia, for posting the award information to the chapter website.

3) Treasurer’s Report
As per Kristen’s email to Janice, the chapter currently has a balance of $704.03 in its bank account, not withstanding the $200 travel award. This will bring the balance to $504.03.

4) ARLIS/NA
Janice reported on a variety of emails that she had received on behalf of the chapter: Cate Cooney will be working as the “chapter coordinator” (previously known as the Regional Representative), which will include representing chapter concerns to the Executive Board. She has been exploring the idea of using Memberclicks to give webspace to chapters. There has also been a discussion of featuring chapters on the main page of the ARLIS/NA website. Janice will find out more from Cate about these new developments.

Janice read Ken Soehner’s, (ARLIS/NA President) 1/14/09 email about the Board’s plan to announce a new ARLIS/NA management firm, as our contract with McPherson Clarke ends on 4/30/09. There are plans to introduce a representative of the new management firm at the conference in Indianapolis. As in a previous TC chapter meeting discussion, the new management firm may also play a role in ARLIS/NA hosting the websites of its chapters.

Ken Soehner says that 2009 memberships are doing well and is encouraging ARLIS/NA members to attend the upcoming annual conference, A brief discussion of attendance at the national conference followed whereby it was determined that Janice Lurie, Jessica McIntyre, Kristen Mastel, and Rebecca Moss would be the only Twin Cities attendees. Kay was under the impression from national organization’s listserv messages that many members would not be attending. Janice stated that she would be going to Indianapolis with an eye toward the planning of our own 2011 conference. Heidi Raatz suggested we should be aware of alternative options for conferencing, especially in light of the current economic situation. She highlighted the problem of filling hotel room blocks and the use of third party reservation services.

5) Silent Auction, Basket
Jessica presented our conference donation basket and we all agreed that it was outstanding. She requested that members who donated please email her with an approximate dollar value of the items so that she can provide the national conference planning committee with this information. A photograph of the basket will be sent and posted on the conference website. Jessica offered to look into getting it physically moved to Indianapolis.

6) Conference Welcome Party Donation Update
Kristen reported to Janice that she had sent the welcome party donation of $100 to ARLIS/NA headquarters. Subsequently, we received letters of gratitude from both Cate Cooney and Barbara Rockenbach (Chair, ARLIS/NA Development Committee). Barbara included a comment that the twin cities was the first chapter to donate. Everyone was greatly pleased by her response. As the 2011 conference will be held in Minneapolis, our support for the welcome party is particularly important.

7) May/June Meeting 2009. Chambers Hotel/Foshay Tower Museum
Rosemary announced that she has been in contact with Jennifer Case Phelps (Chambers Hotel/Foshay Tower Museum Art Director) concerning arrangements for our next meeting. The dates of May 11, June 1, 8, and 22 were agreed upon for possible dates for the meeting. Rosemary Furtak will follow up with Jennifer to ascertain which of these dates work best for her. Once that is confirmed we can solidify plans for our next meeting.

8) Fall Meeting Ideas
After a brief discussion, it was agreed that members will email Janice with ideas of potential sites and she will gather and then send them out to the list for feedback. Kathy Heuer made the wonderful suggestion of having a tour of the Rare Book Room/Special Collections area of the downtown Minneapolis Library.

9) Any New Business
Jeanne Iverson announced that her institution was beginning the planning stages for an institutional archive. She would be interested in looking at archives policy of other arts organizations.

10) Our First Conference Kick-off “Icebreaker” event on January 23rd
Janice thanked Kathy for hosting our first conference icebreaker event and said that she thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to get to know other members more informally.

11) 2011 Conference Planning
It was noted that our last planning meetings for the 2011 joint conference were on April 28th and June 23rd, 2008. It was agreed that we should schedule a getting “back on track” session this summer. Kathy offered CVA as a site for our next meeting. Jeanne would also host us at the Perpich as another potential meeting location. Early July was selected as a good time, though it would be dependent on the date of our May/June meeting. Kathy will be responsible for coordinating the planning of the meeting.

As we were finished with all agenda items and time was running short, the meeting was adjourned. After additional refreshments, members proceeded to enjoy a wonderful guided tour of the Walker’s outstanding artists’ books exhibition.

Respectfully submitted,
Amy Naughton

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