The board of the Hub City Writer Project met for the first time at its new building on June 26, 2006. The Hub-Bub artists in residence were in attendance, fresh from the wave of publicity in local media about their arrival. Betsy announced that Stephen Long has been hired as Showroom manager and gave reports on the concert an the writers conference.

Present: John Lane, Dwight Patterson, Mickey Pierce, Dorothy Josey, Angela Kelly, Nan McDaniel, B.G. Stephens, Linda Cobb, Jeremy Jones, and AIR guests Justin Plakas, Leah Brown, Brian Hitselberger, and Emily Smith

Staff: Betsy Teter, Kerry Ferguson, Stephen Long

Mickey Pierce called the meeting to order. The minutes were read and approved. Mickey says the new Showroom sign looks great. It lights up at night!

Kerry introduced AIR program participants. Mickey welcomed residents to Spartanburg. Residents have been featured on the cover of The Beat and in The Link. Justin mentioned seeing a blurb in the Asheville paper about how jealous they are of our residency program.

Betsy introduced new board member Jeremy Jones, who moved here from Lexington, K. He is a fine English teacher and old friend of John's. Stephen Long is no longer an official board member. He is now the manager of Showroom activities. He will document the upcoming year in photographs (along with Justin), including activities of Hub-bub and Hub City. Regrettably for several board members, he will no longer be working at the photo shop.

Betsy says were 98% there in terms of the building. Carpet walls, the gallery system, and furniture (chairs, cocktail tables, groupings of furniture, bar on wheels) are in or soon to arrive. The office is up and running. We have exposed air ducts from Belgium, the first of their kind in this area. Stephen is working on the retail storeofficially "The Hub"which will sell H.C. books, t-shirts, mugs, and cds. Two different kinds of shades will arrive soon. One variety lets light through but won't damage art work; the other blacks out light for films.

There has been an enormous amount of interest in the retail space downstairsespecially from health food stores and restaurants. W suspect that publicity in Greenville about Hub-bub has driven interest.

Our art opening is coming up Thursday, July 6. Postcard invitations were passed around. The donor reception will be held at 5:30 pm, with the public reception beginning at 7:00 pm. Please come! Lots of people to meet and greet! No idea yet how many people are coming, but the spider woman will be here for the reception. Open studio night July 28th. Paper postcard to go out soon.

The Waybacks out of San Francisco will play the Showroom on August 4th. Betsy says we expect to sell out. Get tickets early! Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 30.

One hundred regular donors have still not given this year. Book sales are normal. Everything is on target financially. Expect mid-year numbers soon.

The Dixie Hummingbirds concert was very successful on many levels including its racially diverse audience (about 50/50). Rain depressed attendance, but the band played again the next night for free. We had hoped to raise more money, but we did not lose money. ($4,500 raised, which will be turned over to the county for the Music Trail fund).

Attendance at the Writers Conference was lower than usual. We have maxed out the last four years. Betsy mentioned that we have either used up the market or simply need to change up the offerings. Emily and Betsy will meet to go over evaluations and see what we can do to create new interest.

In terms of publications, we will send off the Kirk Neely Christmas book soon. Cottonwood Trail and Comfort & Joy will both be at the printer (and back by Oct). Deno Trakas is in Greece working on a book for us, too, about the influx of Greek immigrants.

Our insurance for alcohol liability is going to run no more than about $100/year. All employees will need to be trained. Insurance is based on our amount of alcohol sales.

Two resignations came in this week. Max Hyde has joined Rotary and can't do both. Concern was expressed that we need a lawyer on the board. Eugenia Hooker is also resigning. She is going to work for the school district in Woodruff and can't get here for meetings.

A new project has landed on our doorstep. The Healing Arts program at Spartanburg Regional wants to do a Hospice book with a writer-in-residence. They worked with us to get poems on the walls in the Emergency Room. Also they were our partner for the Dixie Hummingbirds show. They liked the Hidden Voices AIDS book. We have put them in touch with Scott Neely, brother of Kristofer Neely who did Hidden Voices. Scott just graduated from Harvard Divinity. A motion was made to approve and seconded.

Kerry will be on maternity leave for 6 weeks (if we're lucky). Her schedule is moving toward 10ish hours a week. We are in a transition period right now. Kerry will be working with the artists a couple of hours a day and starting recruitment for next year.

Stephen has hit the ground running. He ordered t-shirts which will be in next week (for both Hub City and Hub-bub).

We have a big fall ahead with our transition from publishing to programming. Movie titles have all been announced on the website. Please come to the movies, which will be held TH/SA at 8 pm. Junebug, Thanks for Not Smoking, Elephant, The Squid and the Whale, Napoleon Dynamite, and Cache, are on the schedule. Halloween week we will be showing the original Psycho.

Hub-bub will begin a film society, which will have its own brochures in 3-4 weeks. Society members will receive reduced admission to films. We hope to make the society self-supporting. Members will receive movie for $4 rather than $6.

No meeting in July! See everyone back here in August.

For those who could stay, Kerry navigated through the new website.

Respectfully submitted in the absence of your Secretary,

Emily Smith