Sponsor Meeting
Conference 2015
Welcome
WELCOME TO THE DOWNTOWN MARRIOT KANSAS
CITY AND KANSAS CITY CONVENTION CENTER
A gentle reminder – whenever we move to a new site we
experience “growing pains”. Please bear with us as we
try to figure out the ins and outs of this new space and
how it impacts our conference.
A brief look at the
State of MST
• Missouri continues to grow – with more than 5 new troupes
affiliating in the last 6 months.
• Missouri continues to be active leaders in Educational
Theatre – Debbie Corbin Vice President Elect of the
National Board.
• Missouri also has one of the largest delegations at the ITF
festival in Lincoln every year.
• Leadership will continue to be looked at to be an activity
you and your students view as a valuable experience in your
season. If you have workshop suggestions for things you
would like to see at Leadership 15 please let Jennifer
Forrest-James know.
Thank you!
• Thank you for helping us to grow – the 2015 conference
has the largest number of delegates, troupes, and
colleges/vendors ever! We look forward to bringing a great
educational theatre conference opportunity to more
Missouri ITS students.
• One of the ways we can do this is through the active
involvement of our sponsors. Thank you to those of you
who are presenting workshops and productions. Thank
you in advance for performing your adult delegate duty – it
helps make everyone’s conference experience smoother.
Numbers
• Total Troupes – 89 (83)
• Total Delegates – 1769 (1668)
• Total Student Delegates – 1550 (members 1235/non 315)
• Total Jr. Delegates – 66
• Total Jr. Student Delegates – 54
• Colleges – 25 (26), Vendors – 5 (10)
• Total College/Vendor Attendees – 90
• Guest Artists – 26
• TOTAL - 1951
More Numbers
• Largest Registration - Lee’s Summit North – 80
• Welcome to New Troupes (or at least have not attended for
more than 8 years):
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Battle
Carthage
Liberty
Nevada
Platte County
Raytown
Raytown South
Warrensburg
Winnetonka
Conference 2015
• If you are staying in the conference hotel – please collect your student delegate’s
room keys each day and only allow them in their rooms when you see fit. This
allows you greater control as to where your students are and releases you (and us)
from any liability in case a student is in their room when you don’t want them to
be.
• Also remember our insurance does not allow for delegates to use the pool (and the
Conduct Guidelines state it as well) so please do not allow your delegation to do
so. If you do it is at your own risk.
• You should not have needed a credit card at check in – however this means you
can not charge incidentals (wifi, parking, room service) to your room. People who
do so will be locked out of their room until they provide payment. In addition
those troupes will not be covered on our security deposit next year.
• Reminder that there will be a luggage holding room when checking out and the
suggested gratuity is $1 per bag.
• Remind your bus driver that if they move the bus they may risk losing their spot.
Same with cars.
Conference 2015
Reminders
Each adult delegate received a punch card for snacks in the MST
store in their troupe’s packet upon check-in.
Please be present in the halls and workshops – your presence
encourages appropriate conference and theatre behavior.
Go to General Sessions. There are less of them, so the ones that
exist will all have very important announcements.
Dismissal from the final session will be complicated since (again)
we are in a new space– please keep this in mind and prepare your
students to be aware it may not/will not be super smooth
Finally – please read the Sponsor Reminders in your handout. It
helps if we are all on the same page.
New/Tweaks to 2015
• College Sponsored Scholarship Breakfast – was successful last year and
will continue to be tweaked to make it a tool that students and colleges
find a good use of their time.
• Guidebook – again, EdTA made it affordable and helped expand it’s
possibilities.
• 6 in 60 – a new performance opportunity for students
All State
APplications
• We did not receive any applications to produce/direct an AllState Show for 2015-16 – even with several inquires and direct
marketing to parties we thought might be interested.
• Reasons?
•
•
•
•
Production Costs
Time commitment
Interest
Structure
• We will continue to look at this program as see if there is
something we can do to make it a reality – or does this need to
be on a 3 year (instead of 2 year) cycle? We welcome your input
(especially from those directly active in the process in the past)
Next year changes
• We are going to try to continue to keep these to a minimum –
however we are going to continue to tweak activities and policies to
gain the most advantage, the safest, and most cost effective
conference for the most number of students. In addition a new site
will mean new challenges.
• In order to reduce potential mistakes in the future we ask that you do
not use old forms or assume “it’s always been done this way so…”
• We have tried to increase the amount and timely manner in which
we send/post information for you and will continue to try to do so.
(Note: sometimes we are at the mercy of other non-MST board members for
this)
• Related to the above - please remember all the members of the
board hold the same jobs you do – theatre teachers who have classes
to teach and productions to direct like you do. It is not always
possible for us to answer you as quickly as you/we would like.
Expense Breakdown
2014 Registration Actual Breakdown
• Scholarships - $4.25 (5%)
• Office/Conference Supplies/Badges - $.85 (1%)
• Chapter Travel - $.85(1%)
• State Conference Expenses (not counting Guest Artists) - $56.95 (67%)
• Guest Artists (Meals, Travel, Hotel) - $5.95 (7%)
• Website/Postage - .85 (1%)
• State Board Expenses - $2.55 (3%)
• State Non-Conference Specific Student Activities (All-State/STO/ect)- $11.90 (14%)
• Advocacy - $.85 (1%)
NOTE: none of the above takes board members donations (usually unofficial) into
account
Financial Report
• Treasurer’s Report
• Thank you to all those who paid their conference bill on
time. We are at 93% paid.
• Please make sure in the future you update your
bookkeeper’s W-9
• Reminder that you can print off paid invoices on-line at any
time after you have paid and/or received notification of
payment received.
Financial Report
• Main Checking:
All State:
Money Market:
CD:
$108,335.29
$4,183.77
$10,000
$14,135
• Total:
$208,654.55
Financial
(cont.)
• Due to venues requiring pre-payment of goods and services
we can no longer wait for your PO’s check to arrive – we need
the funds by the requested due date to pay for the conference.
We do understand that many of you are at the mercy of your
schools but for the most part 85% of the conference needs to
be paid for BEFORE the conference and the other 15% is
directly after the conference.
• Some of the large checks that have already been written and
sent before we arrived:
Security Deposit for Marriott: $27,500
Downpayment for Marriott:
$52,606.50
Hotel Rooms:
$157,819.50
Overflow Hotel Deposit:
$15,640
Financial
(cont.)
• Reminder: any school/troupe who owes money (either
registration or hotel) on Jan 10th will be charged a 20% rate
for the ‘loan’ MST had to extend to the troupe to cover their
pre-conference expenses. (NOTE: this is not inclusive of
late/change fees but will include charges to hotel rooms if
they show up on the final bill).
All-State Show
• After reaching out to several parties we thought might be
interested we received no applications for the All-State
Show.
• Variety of reasons
• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of interest
• Application process
• Application Forms will be available on our website starting
Feb 1
• If you have suggestions for shows you’d like to see produced
email Jennifer Forrest-James
Leadership
• Leadership ‘15 will be held at the Capital Plaza in Jefferson City
on Sept 13 (with some optional evening activities/workshops held
on Sept 12). Look for more information to be released as to hotel
room prices and registration in early May on the website and in emails.
• If there are workshops you would like to see presented and/or
would like to present please email Jennifer Forrest-James
• As with last year, Leadership will have the following activities:
• Voting for new board members (student and adult)
• Voting for the conference logo
• Honor Troupe presentations
REMINDER
PLEASE read all emails completely from Missouri Thespians. We
know you are busy people and we try to be very judicious in how we
use the email blast system. Some emails may be very long, but they
contain information that you need to know to help your students
have a successful conference experience. It is imperative that you
read for detail.
Priorities for 2015
• Create a policy within our organization for an increased presence of
our Alumni who wish to remain active and use their skills to help run
the conference in order to encourage a continuing involvement after
graduation.
• Look at how MST/ITS troupes can help support troupes in crisis in a
planned out/structured way.
• Increase the number of Jr. ITS troupes in the state and the number of
them attending our state conference – especially from parts of the
state that are not just STL.
• Continue to bring the largest and most efficient conference possible
for the largest number of students.
• Explore potential funding options and/or sponsorships to help
continue to bring activities to conference but keep costs low for our
students.
Reminders: Running for office
• Students and Adults who are interested in running for
office at Leadership in 2015 will be able to get the
application on-line on March 1st.
• All applications are due June 1st with interviews
happening at the July meeting.
• All interested should look at the on-line listing of dates
and times for board meetings to make sure they can
meet the obligations.
Future Sites
• 2016– Downtown Kansas City. Hotel costs may be
very slightly higher but pretty similar to this year.
• 2017-2018 – St. Louis Renaissance Grand Hotel and
America’s Convention Center.
• 2019-20 Currently under investigation.