New Chairperson Melissa Walker presided over her first official meeting January 23, 2007 when the board met for its monthly meeting at The Showroom. Items discussed included a move toward long-range planning, reprints of two titles and a new website for Hub City. Also: The Showroom intends to tweak program offerings, and the Artist-in-Residence program prepares for a new round of applicants.

Present: Mack Amick, Monta Anthony, Paula Baker, Peter Caster, Linda Cobb, David Dedmon, Liz Fort, Ibrahim Hanif, Tom Johnson, Jeremy Jones, Dorothy Josey, John Lane, Nan McDaniel, Rebecca Ramos, Jessalyn Story, Mike Trammell, Melissa Walker, Chris White, Dwight Patterson

Staff: Betsy Teter, Stephen Long, Kerry Ferguson, Leah Brown

Melissa Walker called the meeting to order. Introduction of new Board Members Monta Anthony, David Dedmon, Ibrahim Hanif, Rebecca Ramos and Jessalyn Story. New board member Chris White was unable to attend because of duties at Spartan High. Approval of the November 28th, 2006 Minutes.

In our by-laws there are some anomalies: we say there is a President, a Vice President and a Secretary/Treasurer. We actually only have a President. The issue was sent to the Operations Committee, who will meet and come back to the board with recommendations. Melissa also suggested the board embrace a strategy for Long Term Planning. The first step in this is for Melissa and Betsy to attend a workshop at Mary Black Foundation about leading the process.

Mike Trammell is working with Betsy on financial matters. Our annual audit is underway. It will cost $5,000 this year. We don't have our year-end figures in yet, but we have had a very strong year.  We have $50,000 put aside from Hub-Bub revenues to be used on the 5 months rent in 2009 if our funding runs out before the lease does. We will have to reapply for additional funds, and the Resource Development Committee should start thinking toward 2009 and how to continue.

Thanks to strong sales by Comfort & Joy, Hub City increased its assets by more than $40,000 last year. All together, we sold 10,363 books in 2006, making it our biggest year by 30%. Big sellers were Comfort and Joy, Cottonwood Trail, and South of Main.

We have five college interns working with us this spring, 4 from USC Upstate and 1 from Converse. Peter Caster said this work is tremendously helpful to the students.

Betsy recommended spending $2,500 to make the Hub City website as good as the Hub-Bub website. Steve Adams will build and maintain the website. Writers can have their own pages, we can be part of the Amazon Affiliates program, and Jeremy will be able to publish the longer versions of his interviews on the site. This motion was approved.

Some of our titles are running low, and we need to order more. 4,000 Comfort and Joy books for $10,200 approved. 2,000 Seeing Spartanburg for $10,000 approved.

We are eventually going to have to deal with long term storage and insurance of books. Currently, we store books in 4 separate warehouses which keeps our overhead low, but they are not insured. Access has to be convenient. Operations Committee to discuss this further.

Someone wants to make a church play out of one of the Comfort and Joy stories.  We are discussing with a lawyer in Greenville how to handle derivative rights to this material.

Courageous Kate will have a reception at the Barrett Room in the Library on Sunday Feb 4th from 3-5. Rebecca, Monta, and Liz volunteered to make cookies, and Jessalyn will help set up.

Stephen Long's report: In the Showroom, we have had a structured schedule with music on Friday nights and films on Thursday and Saturday nights. We are going to be moving out of this structure in the months ahead because we are losing money on the films, and we want to have more free events to better integrate the public with organizations and get more people involved. Some of these events are Justin's experimental film fest, the Talk 20 series, Poetry Out Loud, and the Veggie Feast. We like it when people come to us with ideas of how to use the space and run with it.  Because of this, the next few weeks will be our busiest and most diverse period of programming. December was successful for the Showroom, with events including the BYOA sale, the DesCchamps Band and Dezeray's Hammer.

Kerry Ferguson's report: The Artist in Residence Program will be accepting applications for the next 3 weeks, so if you know anybody, tell them to apply! The current Residents are working hard on projects involving the community. Justin is working on his film fest and curating a photography show from his work with the Boys and Girls club.  Brian and Leah are installing a temporary sculpture project called the Scarecrow Wedding at the Cottonwood Trail. Emily is working with the schools for Poetry Out Loud.

Betsy reported that the Lease is expected to be sign soon on the restaurant below us. It is expected to be open in May.

Meeting Adjourned a little after 1:00, at which point several members journeyed to the basement to see the ever-lengthening line of scarecrows.  

Respectfully submitted,

Leah Brown