The Tipp City Area Arts Council Needs Board Members!
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- Hello everybody and welcome to the Newsmakers podcast
sponsored by the Tippa New Gazette.
My name is Greg Enslyn and today we've got
some very exciting guests on the show.
It's the Tipp City Area Arts Council.
Who's joining me?
- Hey!
- It's Lynn Shirkterrill joining you?
- How are you?
- I'm good, how are you?
- Sorry it's so hot in here.
- It's not hot.
- I don't have AC in here yet and it's May 1st
and it's warm, goodness gracious.
- It is muggy out today.
- It is very muggy.
My hair's gone crazy today.
- And I'm Mary Lay.
- Hi, how are you?
- I am the president.
- Yes you are.
- Arts Council.
Lynn is our administrator.
The official title we settled on.
- You make all the decisions, most of them?
- Between the two of us.
- Do you guys ever--
- We actually have a board.
- Yeah, the board is very cool.
And just a full disclosure I used to be
on the Arts Council board and you guys do really good work.
Very excited to have you on.
- We miss you, Greg.
- Okay, thank you.
That's nice of you to say.
If only I had more time, frankly.
I wish I could sit on every board that would be great.
I think a lot of people know the Arts Council.
They know of the Arts Council.
They know about what you guys do and they know about the shows.
But I think I get a lot of questions about
what other stuff do you do and how is it organized?
So do you want to just kind of walk us through
the Arts Council and how it's structured maybe
and then how people can get involved?
- Okay, well our mission statement,
we are dedicated to the promotion development
and support of the visual musical performing
and literary arts in tip CD Ohio and surrounding areas.
And when we created this vision statement,
we did it purposefully because some people
when they think about art they think about visual art.
And that's it.
And there are many different types of art
and we try to support all of those.
We have in our events that we have throughout the year
do support all of those things.
At one point we even were supporting culinary arts.
(laughing)
'Cause we had gingerbread houses.
But we were not doing that one anymore.
- That was always a tasty one.
- Although the gingerbread houses were plastic.
But the icing was tasty.
- Yes, very good.
You've got a lot of other events on here.
- Right, great.
- So how does the arts council decide what they're gonna do?
Like do they get together and like pick a list of things?
- Well, some of it depends upon our board members
and where they're interested.
- Oh, okay.
- You know, because for instance,
that's how the writers camp started.
Because I'm in addition to being president,
I'm also a literary chair.
And so that was sort of the piece that I brought.
And it's, I've created the art camp.
I've done it for probably six years, seven years,
maybe more than that.
- Maybe more than that.
- Yeah, the little fan.
- I don't like reading.
I'm not a fan.
I don't like books and I don't like reading.
- I know, I'll tell you don't.
- And what's really exciting about that is
we don't have a large group because it,
by the nature of it, a large group would not work.
But they become a little community.
And when they first come, they are very afraid
to share their work or anything.
By about the second or third day,
they can hardly wait to share what they've written.
And they are so affirmative of each other.
And they'll write together and come up with new ideas
and all that.
And so it's really exciting.
And then we put everything together in a journal
that they each get a copy of that when it's published.
- That is so nice.
And it says on here, writers camp for budding writers
in grades three through seven.
- That's correct.
- And this year that's gonna be in.
- And you can register now.
- Registration.
- Yeah, registration is open.
- That's a good point.
- There are already a number of people who have registered.
So if you'd like to participate,
- Yeah, so people hear something on here,
they're like, oh, I have to do that.
- They pause the podcast and race to the computer.
How would they register for--
- You register through community services.
And that's also true for our art camp,
which is also in June.
So, and that is filling up even faster.
- Yeah, so, I don't know what the number is now,
but it was about half filled last week.
So, it may be full by now.
I don't know, I haven't checked.
- And you guys also have a website, right?
What's the website address?
- Subcityartscounsel.com.
- Okay, and if they go on there to register for something
that they need to register through community services,
there's a link or something like that.
- Right, that's correct, that's correct.
- Yeah, if you see the events listing on the homepage,
you can scroll down, hit either the literary camp,
writer's camp or the art camp,
and that goes to the page.
And then there's links to the community services.
- Yeah, these two camps are registered through community services.
And then in the fall, we have a photography class.
- Okay.
- That it's actually for just using your phones.
- Nice.
- Not for super fancy equipment.
- To take pictures or just to take pictures.
- To take pictures.
- To take pictures, that's correct.
- And that is extremely popular.
And it's for all ages, but it also,
you register through community services.
And that one there, we have an angel that takes care
of the cost for that one.
So, there is no fee to register for that one.
- That's nice.
- Right, and Matt Viewer is the teacher for that.
And he does awesome photos.
- He's amazing.
- He's amazing.
- He's really, really, really good.
Well, I'm excited about the arts council that we have one.
A lot of towns don't even have one.
Tell me more about the structure.
So you have a board and then you have committees or have that work.
- Yes, we have a board and each board member
is responsible for a certain area.
And that's why certain things get covered that way.
That's because of their particular interest.
We have a very busy working board.
And we are in need of more people.
- Are you?
- Really enjoy the arts and would like to join us on the board.
- Okay.
- I would say you don't have to be an artist
to have a passion for the arts.
- That's true.
- And we need people with a passion.
- Yeah, and be supporting of the arts.
And honestly, if we had an arts council
with all true artists, nothing would get done.
- Nothing would get done.
- It'd be like hurting cats.
- Everybody would be pointing at everybody else
and being like, yeah, that's you should do that.
We have to have some of those either both brainers
or the organized brainers.
- Some dreamers and some doers.
- That's right.
- Dreamers and doers.
- So if somebody wanted to be on the board,
what are you looking for?
Are you looking for particular types of things
that people are interested in?
Or is it just that you need some people with time
that can be really pitching?
- What we need are people that are interested in the arts
add half time to be willing to work.
Because some boards, you just go to the board
for times of year and you make some decisions.
- Show up and you have same dreams.
- And that's not true with our board.
That's our board is the beating heart of the art council.
And that's why you need to be willing to work
to be on the board.
We do have that expectation that you intend
the board meetings that you chair one of the events
or help co-chair an event,
and that you are participating in most
if not all of the events that we have.
- And how often do you meet?
- We meet monthly.
We take a couple of weeks months off
and the summer usually.
- That's not too bad.
People can do monthly.
- Yeah, we understand if you have to miss a meeting
every once in a while because life happens, you know?
- Right.
- So, but the majority of the meetings,
you know, you need to be there to participate.
- I can say from personal experience,
they're a lot of fun.
It's a lot of fun to have a bunch of artists
and artists type people sitting around the brainstorming.
It's a lot of fun.
Sometimes we bring food.
- There's almost always cookies.
There's always cookies all the time.
- Well, if we forget to bring food,
we meet at the tip center
and Sheila Ingram usually has food for us.
We need it.
- And the public is invited to come by our board meeting.
So we meet at seven o'clock,
second Tuesday at the tip center
and come in the back because the back is the front.
And you're anyone's welcome to pop in
and just hang out with us for a couple hours
and see what we're all about.
- Yeah, it does sound like you guys do Dean board members.
So how many are you looking for?
Are you just looking for a clutch of them?
- We can, our, our,
- Two or three, four.
- Our regulations say,
our by-laws say that we need to have,
we can't have more than 15,
we can't have less than 99.
- 99, right.
- So we would like to have at least 12.
- 35?
- Yeah, at least,
- And right now we're right at nine.
- Nine, so we need at least three more.
Maybe four more would be, would be very good, right?
- Okay, great.
- And how would people, if they were like,
this is, this is my dream.
I wanna be on the Arts Council board.
How would they get their information to you guys?
- Okay, they, you could get on the website
and look up either board apply or type in slash board apply
and a question here will come up
and information that you would fill out.
So we know about you and can sort of see how the fit would be.
We would invite you to a meeting
to see if this is truly what you'd like to do.
- Right.
- And then of course it is a board decision
on who board members would be.
So, but we would welcome anyone to come and apply.
- That's awesome.
And there are cookies, so.
- There are cookies.
Always good, chocolate sometimes too.
- How did the Arts Council get started?
Has it been around a long time?
Is that a?
- Since, well, they first started organizing,
they did windows in 2009.
- And Ellen, yes.
Ellen Coderman was in charge of all, basically,
if it hadn't been for Ellen, we would not exist.
So in 2009, they did windows.
This was actually before both of our times.
I didn't go until the next year.
- And it was not an art council at that time.
Ellen had seen this happen in another community.
She had lived it and wanted to bring that to tip.
And so what happened was the artist took like a window frame.
And they created whatever they wanted.
And they were all displayed outside on a building.
- Side of the Midwest, memories.
- And then they were auctioned off.
And that money became the core of what became the art council then.
- It was our starting upline.
- It was a great event.
I love that.
And I remember the people standing in the parking lot
and looking at all the windows.
It was great.
I got one of them with an alien head.
(laughing)
- It was good.
- A very appropriate, I think.
- And from the Windows project,
then they, I think they were doing farmers market
down at that time.
Because the tip arts council before they were the arts council
had a booth and they were getting members.
And I happened to, long and my aunt was at the booth and she said,
"Lin, Lin, you have to join.
You have to join."
- You have to.
- That's when they were just creating it, right?
- So unbeknownst to me, I became a charter member.
- There you go.
And Ruth, say for you was she involved with that at the beginning?
- She was an Ellen.
- Ellen and Molly Spencer and Randy Lucas.
They believed the Gilmores were involved with that.
- Right, yes they were.
They were charter members, yeah.
- And that was 2000.
- And that was the Yale Stokeman.
- 10 in there somewhere, 2011 in there somewhere.
- Yeah, 2009, 2009.
- I'm excited about hearing about the vision statement
you've got here.
It's nice.
This is exciting.
- Our vision statement is the tip city,
the ARA Arts Council envisions a thriving community
where the arts inspire creativity,
foster cultural appreciation and bring people together.
Through support, education and engagement,
we make the arts an integral part of life
in tipsy Ohio and beyond.
For the past 16 years,
tipsy area arts council has provided arts-related programs
for our community, supported area organizations
and schools in providing art-related events projects
and promoted our member artists,
both budding and professional.
We have in the past and will continue
to collaborate, honor, support special art events
in our community.
- That is great.
That is really, it's nice to see it all,
I can encapsulate it in one statement
because it really does hit all the high points
of exactly what it is that you're trying to do
as an organization.
- That's great.
- And a lot of,
sadly a lot of organizations don't seem to have
that kind of like,
this is what we're doing
and we're not gonna wander off the reservation from this,
let's also do poker night and you're like,
why, what's that for?
And then it'll all cause it's cool.
- Well, we do have a quarter-octagon.
- You do.
- You do,
but there's a reason for it.
- That's a reason for it.
- And that's for our fundraising.
But even that becomes sort of RV too,
because we do have lovely baskets
and some of them contain,
we have some that contain art.
We also have some paintings
that are part of our people's quarter-octagon.
- Some of our artists, member artists,
especially will donate art
for our quarter-octins, though.
- That is great.
That is so cool.
And the list of events you guys hold is just,
I know we talked about that a little bit earlier,
but some of these events, it's just,
I don't know how you guys manage to like,
track all this stuff.
And I guess it's 'cause you were saying
the board members kind of like,
you don't do all 12.
- Correct, correct.
- Each board member does one or two.
- In responsible, responsible.
- And they kind of pass it around.
- And then everybody helps out with that.
- That's nice.
That's a smart way to do it,
'cause then you're not burning anybody out.
- Except for Lynn.
- Well, we set up our calendar every year too.
And many of these things are pretty much in place.
But if we're going to add something additional,
we have to look at everything else that's involved there
because we don't want to ever take away
from a project that we're already doing.
- Right, and you don't wanna overwhelm your board
or your board people.
And Lynn, do you do all the social media for all of these?
Or do other people like do their social media
for their own of individual events?
- I do all the Facebook social media.
- Yeah, great.
- And we used to have a board member that did
the Twitter and, oh, I asked now.
- The Twitter.
- The Twitter.
- The Twitter.
- And she Twittered and Instagramed.
- And did she takey-talky?
I don't think she did takey-talky.
- No, I don't think she did takey-talky wasn't a thing.
- I'm not a fan of takey-talky.
- I get on there and I get dumber.
I can feel it.
- Yeah, yeah.
I'm not fan either.
But I don't have anybody to do that now.
And I don't have time to do all that.
- It's a lot.
- If someone is really into that,
we need somebody.
- Sure, like you use a board member who is very,
very good at that.
- Yeah, that's the thing.
- But would you take a board member that's like 11?
'Cause I think that's what you need.
You need somebody really good and really young.
- Well, maybe if they have a child who's 11,
(laughing)
that would work.
- Maybe a little bit of a super vision.
(laughing)
- That's for sure.
- That's at the tip center, you also can view our art gallery.
- Yes.
- Because that's a permanent home.
- Yeah, so the art council has sort of like their home base.
- This is the tip center.
- That's correct.
- And you guys have all your meetings there
and a lot of your events are there,
but you also have a permanent collection?
- Yes, we do.
Yes.
These are ones that some of them were donated to us.
Some of them are ones that we purchased
from our playnears and things like that.
So we have, what is a number of things now?
- We just added it.
- We have a number of 3D things
that are gonna be going down to display.
- Right, we just got a new cabinet.
She let Ingram use the tip center and she is just.
- She sounds like a big supporter.
- An amazing patron of the arts.
- Yes, so it's like she's really gone above and beyond
to help the arts council find a place to live.
- Right.
- And also share, find a place to share your collection.
- She actually put up all the lighting for us
and the cabinets hers too, so yeah,
we've done all the plaques and the frames
if we need to and stuff like that.
- That's nice.
- It's a great facility also.
- It is amazing.
- They do a lot of other stuff out there also
if you're interested in the tip center,
look them up because they rent spaces
and you can rent offices.
They have a lot of event spaces for rent,
so it's a great collaboration that you guys have with them.
- Right, it is truly is.
And that's another thing too.
If you're interested in maybe helping or promoting
a particular event, but you can't commit
to being a board member, we can certainly use that house.
- You still need help?
- Absolutely.
Like Resty Hardin does our fine art exhibitions.
She needs help for next year because she's wanting
to step away a little bit more from it.
- It sounds like you could use help on the board
and also with all the events.
- That's correct, exactly.
- So somebody wants to be,
it's interested in helping out,
getting involved in the Arts Council.
It's a great way to meet a lot of really nice artistic folk
also if you're new to town,
but you don't want to commit to being in every meeting.
A good way to would be to contact the Arts Council
and say, "Hey, I'm new.
I would love to help out.
How can I help?"
- Exactly, yes, yes.
We will certainly find a job for you.
- Don't find a place.
- Find a happy home for you to help out.
- That is awesome, that is awesome.
So that's all the events that you guys host.
- Those are community events.
Do you want me to pop in here with our fundraisers
that were to add a fundraisers?
- Yes, yes, do your fundraisers.
- Okay, the other fundraisers coming up May 17th,
there is a Chipotle fundraiser.
And for that one, you have to have the little flyer.
So the flyer will be available on Facebook
and also on, I'll have Amy put it up on our website.
- Okay, you put that out, take it in with you.
- And out, take it with you.
- To any Chipotle is just the one.
- And such a Chipotle in Troy.
- Troy, okay.
- So Troy, Chipotle.
And I believe it runs from five to nine,
as the time period, that you need to go in and eat.
So that's on May 17th, that's coming up soon.
And then we have another fund fundraiser.
And I'll remember, all our fundraisers
are many goes towards our kids and their scholarship stuff.
So those are the two things that we try to keep
really inexpensive for the children.
So the other one is we are going to be going
to a dragons game in July.
And it will be on July 23rd,
but you need to purchase the tickets ahead of time.
And I believe the cut-off date is the month, a month ahead.
So June, so--
- And you guys get a portion of that too.
And I will have that on Facebook as well,
along with our website.
- Okay. - Those are two places
that people can find out more information
about those fundraisers.
Typically we do a third one, which I think we're planning
for the ball with Reina, Reina Spears is on our board.
And she's in a couple bands and she has some do-os
that she plays with.
So down at Little York Tavern,
we've been going down there and listening to Reina
sing and eat drink and be merry.
- Nice. - So as soon as we get that date
firmed up, we'll have that on the website.
- Put that on the website.
- Right, right. - Yeah, good pizza.
- Yes, they do.
- And you've got a little list down here
at the bottom of community events.
So these are things you're participating in,
but you guys don't host these.
- That's correct. - 'Cause you're doing enough.
- That is correct. - It sounds like
you're doing a lot.
- Yeah, we are doing a ton.
Even more so this summer,
because it's just so happened, all these things were happening.
- Right, right.
- They said, "Would you like to help us out?"
- Yeah, sure. - Yeah, do you guys ever have ideas
about stuff you want to do and you're just like,
oh, no.
- Yes, we have a project we're talking about
that we want to do, but we haven't got there yet, so.
- Okay, well, when you want to spill the beans on that,
let me know. - I will, yeah.
- We'll have you on the show and you can break the news.
That's great.
That's great.
Well, thank you for joining us.
This is exciting.
Anything else on the old Arts Council
that we forgot to talk about?
- Oh, we covered a lot.
- I think we got everything, but you are looking for board members.
- Definitely.
- And you are definitely looking--
- And you're looking for volunteers.
- Especially for Canal Music Fest.
- And you're looking for ideas for more events, right?
- No, no, no, no, no.
- Well, honestly, great.
- That's too much.
- I mean, sometimes you need to freshen it up.
- Yeah, yeah. - Right, that's exactly what you need.
- You need some new ideas and you talk.
- And that's what we did when we started.
Hey, I've got this great idea.
Why don't we do blah, blah, blah, blah, the chair,
the chair auction that we did with community services?
- Oh, forgot about that.
- Somebody threw that idea, the six by six thing that we did.
- Yeah.
- Art for all.
We did, you know, somebody brought that to the board
and said, and we said, let's go for it, let's do it.
- Yeah, if people want to get involved in something like that,
the probably the best way to do it would be to help out
with some of the existing events now.
- Yes, it's right, right.
- And get to know everybody and see kind of like,
what's the, what's, you know,
what are you guys interested in doing?
And then suggest new things.
- Right.
- Especially if you are young and you wanna run
people's Instagram, that would be great.
- Yeah, that would be fantastic.
- We need some help with the social media
on that particular thing.
Well, thank you both so much for joining us.
This has been a great episode.
And if people wanna get a hold of you,
the easiest way would be the website, how would that?
- Email to city arts council at Gmail.
The website has all of our information on it.
Our phone number, which goes to a voicemail
and I call you back is 937-545-345
115, I always have to be careful.
I have discount callias, so sometimes I reverse numbers.
- Yeah, a lot of people do that.
- So I don't, I've said it enough, so that's right.
- And a lot, yeah, a lot of people do that.
And then you have the website and that's where I always go.
- And Facebook, you can always get us on Facebook
if you're on Facebook, but some people don't have Facebook.
So the Gmail accounts the best, probably,
if you wanna use email.
- And then they can get a hold of you through that
if they wanna volunteer at an event,
or if they have ideas,
or if they want to sponsor, so another thing I was gonna say
is if somebody wanna make a donation,
do you have memberships or how does that work?
- That can happen right on the website, right?
Yeah, you can become a member on the website,
you can make a donation on the website,
and it's quite easy to do.
- Okay, good.
- You go to the homepage and it says join us and click that
and it takes you to membership page and donation stuff.
- And is that just for artists or is that for people?
- And is that just for artists or is that for people
that want to support the artists?
- That's anyone.
- That's for anyone.
- We have people on the board that would not call themselves
artists on a site.
- Right.
- Well, and we have quite a few members that are not on the board,
because you become a member does not mean you have to serve
on the board, right?
- Yeah, right, right, yeah.
But if you love arts, if you love music,
if you love going to the theater, then you're an artist, right?
- There you go.
- You're a member of the arts.
- Yeah, if you like seeing things that are artsy,
happening in tip, it would probably be a good idea to support that.
- Yes, exactly.
- With your time or your money or your...
- Or all of the other...
- Or both.
- Or both.
- That's great, that's great.
Well, thank you, thank you so much for coming on.
- You're welcome.
- Thank you everybody for listening today and we will talk soon.
- Thank you.
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(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
