2023 annual members meeting

12:59:20 Hi, everyone, thank you. To all of you who joined us to Robert Morris University on Sunday, February 26th, for our 2023 annual member meeting.

12:59:32 I hope you all enjoyed the meeting as well as the exhibition

12:59:37 Balanced Response. It looks really beautiful in the Media Arts Gallery, and I wanna take a moment to thank Robert Morris University for hosting us for their faculty for just doing a wonderful job.

12:59:49 Having and having us out there.

12:59:53 The agenda for the meeting was as follows, we discussed 2023 board candidates.

12:59:59 We looked at financial updates, we discussed the news strategic plan as well as review 2022 programming and took a glance at 2023 our 2023 board candidates are as follows, Marina Balko the Director of Radiant Hall, Liz Rudnick

13:00:16 a marketing manager at Kelly Strayhorn, as well as an artist, and Erin Riggi and art teacher at Greensboro, Central Catholic High School and Board of Directors for the Pennsylvania Art Education, Association, Chris King our Board

13:00:31 President gave our financial update at the top. You can see the various grants we have received as well as see what the members know that we have 2 in progress grants with other foundations as well as an application for Covid recovery relief from the State.

13:00:48 He brought us up to date on the endowment and at the bottom, as you can see on this slide that we discussed growth in earned revenue specifically in the area of artwork sales. Sheila Cuellar Schaffer.

13:01:04 gave us the update on our transition from PNC

13:01:11 to First National Bank. We started that transition in January 2023, but had been a conversation that began in summer 2022.

13:01:22 The Finance Committee first met with the bank, then the overall Board.

13:01:29 Excuse me, Staff, first time with the bank and the Finance Committee met with the bank to make the reference for the overall Board in December 2022 is voted that the transition would take place, and they will be our home for all of our financial operations as well

13:01:45 as our endowment, management.

13:01:48 I took the mic back and gave an update on our new strategic plan.

13:01:55 We had surveys in person for members to fill out this as well as link that will be going out both in the Membership Quarterly, and dedicated other emails.

13:02:05 This is really kind of the chance for you all to inform the vision, the future, where AAP Is going.

13:02:11 There are questions on there about membership and the membership process exhibits and other projects.

13:02:15 Our mission and brand kind of who we are and how we get the word out accessibility both in our space and office and a few places for closing remarks.

13:02:26 Kind of a fill in wherever members can fill out what they would like as well, and then finally, optional demographic information.

13:02:34 The entire survey is optional, so you don't have to fill out every question.

13:02:38 If you cannot. It takes a 20 min to fill out so do keep that in mind.

13:02:43 But this survey will be used to inform our next strategic plan, which currently is going to be a 3 year Strategic plan, maybe a 5 year, depending on the information that we get from you all.

13:02:54 But really, this is, you know, we're looking. We're maintaining kind of an internal focus on this plan.

13:03:02 Really what the input from membership.

13:03:06 Looking back at 2022 I gave a fiscal review year review.

13:03:13 So many of you know our fiscal year, because July 1.

13:03:16 So my 2022 ends, June 13th, 2022.

13:03:21 We hosted 13 in person, exhibitions, we exhibited a work by 237 artists.

13:03:25 Well, we had 553 our works online, 453 are works in exhibitions and 5 online store we held various workshops and events, including our first ever performance series.

13:03:42 And then I ended with a review kind of our online growth.

13:03:46 It's grown exponentially as our I think our web site has gotten better and better through the work of Jamie Earnest so you'll see on here as in the end of 2022, there were 1,000 over 1,850 artist opportunities.

13:04:03 Up on the website.

13:04:07 Which is the total over time, which I think is the most robust.

13:04:12 Archive or collection of artist opportunities that I've seen, and so I'm really proud of the work that we do, that it's available there.

13:04:20 And the calendar year we had over 45,000 visitors again.

13:04:24 I think a lot of that is due to the artist's opportunities.

13:04:26 That's their second most visited page after our website, our homepage. And then the Isaac returns to Art Series. We've had

13:04:34 42 videos in 2022, and and those are still coming out weekly.

13:04:40 We love to feature the work that you all are doing.

13:04:42 But at AAP, and elsewhere, and less than at least, we're still doing our collective work with vacearts.org.

13:04:52 Hopefully, everyone got their 2023 calendar.

13:04:55 Here it is shared again. We try to send these out to be in the year.

13:04:58 So you all kind of can keep an eye out for upcoming events and things as they come along.

13:05:03 So preview of that 2023, probably our biggest shows are these biggest shows are these 3 upcoming juried shows.

13:05:13 An exhibition focused on power. What it means.

13:05:18 Who has it and doesn't. What it means to you.

13:05:20 All that kind of stuff. Juried by Eric Shiner, former director of the Warhol, Current Director of Powerhouse Arts in New York.

13:05:28 The show opened in the public May 6th, and run through June 24th

13:05:32 As exhibition. That exhibition called closes March 8th.

13:05:38 Opening in March will be the 100 and ninth annual call during by Elizabeth Chodos and the Miller ICA.

13:05:46 That exhibition will open Saturday, July 29th

13:05:50 But there will be an opening event on Friday, July 28th

13:05:53 So mark your calendars. Super excited to be there. It's a beautiful space, grateful to be working with the Miller.

13:05:57 ICA on this, and then new art space. The tomato foundation will be opening in fall 2023 will be working with Nina Friedman.

13:06:08 There! I believe her title is curatorial director, creative director, the Tomayko Foundation is a new foundation that will focus on awards directly to creatives as well as scholarships. Support.

13:06:22 So it's a great chance to get your work seen.

13:06:25 By the staff and board. There. We're super excited about the show.

13:06:30 Additional juried opportunities include the 1 13 by 1 13, as you saw earlier, we saw 130 works of our, we surpassed our 100 work of our goal, and it's become kind of a bit of a thing.

13:06:39 And I'm really well sending out those checks in January.

13:06:42 So hopefully, we can send out more next January as well as our exhibition proposal call, will open in the fall.

13:06:50 Finally, just a reminder to our members that the featured artist exhibition opened on March fourth.

13:06:59 Great show. Dawn Henry did a great job organizing it working with the arts and putting it together. Please check it out before it goes on April fifteenth.

13:07:08 And then also reminder to our membership that Touchstone Center for Crafts down in

13:07:13 Farmington does have a scholarship open for classes, more chefs specifically for associated arts, a Pittsburgh members.

13:07:22 We, through generous support of the family of a former, AAP

13:07:27 Board member and Touchdown Center for Crafts Board, Member.

13:07:32 So the family specifically designates associate, or as a Pittsburgh in that scholarship.

13:07:37 So this is available to any members to apply to we then ended the meeting with a question and answer session, where the membership president talked about the ask about sharing information specifically that we're reaching out to you all and utilizing the networks that you all have established to help

13:08:00 spread the word about what AAP is doing, regardless of whether or not you guys are in the show that you are supporting one another in support of what others work and love to help spread the word.

13:08:10 I think that's great, totally looking forward to sharing more stuff with you all that you all are also looking for more opportunities for customers and potential sales with customers, whether that's one-on-one or in a larger setting how we can perhaps facilitate that a bit more as well, as conversation

13:08:27 around numbers and sales, you know, not just price points, but timing.

13:08:31 Is a December sale. So really the way to go.

13:08:34 Or do we find that sales happen in the summer as well?

13:08:38 And can we maybe take advantage of some of those summer markets?

13:08:42 So again. Thank you. To everyone who came. Some of you feel about surveys on site.

13:08:49 So you don't need to worry about filling out a strategic plan survey.

13:08:51 But at the rest of you could I would be very helpful to our team.

13:08:54 We want to get as many members to fill out that survey as possible.

13:08:58 So we can get as much input to make sure that the strategic plan we put in place really represents the members and what they want.

13:09:06 But thank you for your time today. Listening to this hopefully, I didn't ramble too much or trip over my words.

13:09:12 Sometimes the pressure of recording can be a bit much. But do let us know if you have any additional questions, please email us at aap@aapgh.org

13:09:31 Thank you. Everyone.