THE WALLKILL RIVER SCHOOL, INC.
NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING OF MEMBERS
There will be a meeting of the members of THE WALLKILL RIVER SCHOOL, held on
January 10, 2015, at 3:00 p.m. The meeting will be held at: 232 Ward Street (Route
17K), Montgomery, New York.
The agenda for the meeting includes the following items:
1. Highlights from the Annual Report
2. Presentation of the 2015 Budget
3. Election of the Board of Directors
4. WRS 2015 Art Awards
It is important that you attend this meeting. If you cannot attend this meeting it is
important that you fill out your proxy. Your proxy can be given to someone who can
attend the meeting on your behalf or you may send it to the School for Secretary of
the Board to vote on your behalf.
Election of Board of Directors Members
At this meeting there will be an election to fill the open seats on the Board of Directors.
There are three total seats open. The number of votes each elected Director receives will
determine the length of term they will fill - with the Directors receiving the highest number
of votes filling the longer terms.
Each Member will be able to cast as many votes as there are board seats to be filled. With
the number of open seats at three (3), each member will be able to cast three (3) votes for
Directors. Thank you for your attention. Please plan on attending this meeting.
PROXY FOR 2015 ANNUAL MEETING
of
THE WALLKILL RIVER SCHOOL, INC.
KNOW ALL MEN BY THESE PRESENTS, that the undersigned, Member in THE WALLKILL RIVER
SCHOOL, INC.
residing at _______________________________________, hereby constitutes and appoints
___________________________________ or Denise Aumick, the secretary of the Corporation
name of person to hold proxy
my true and lawful agent(s), for me and in my name, place and stead, to represent me at the Annual
Meeting of the Members of THE WALLKILL RIVER SCHOOL, INC., to be held on
January 10, 2015 at 3:00 p.m., or any adjournments, thereof, as fully and with the same force and effect
and with all the powers that the undersigned would possess if personally present. The undersigned hereby
revoke any proxies heretofore given by me.
This proxy shall give the holder of the proxy the right to vote on my behalf on all matters that come
before the members.
Dated: _______________
_______________, New York
County
State
____________________________________
signature
NOTE: To be valid, this proxy must be completed, dated, signed and given to the appointed person
for presentation at the meeting.
BALLOT for ELECTION OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Of Wallkill River School, Inc.
ANNUAL MEETING – January 10, 2015
The following Candidates are running for 3 seats on the Board of Directors. Please vote for THREE
(3) of the following candidates by marking the box next to their name.
Penny Thelman
WRS Board President, served on the board forever. Currently works
with RECAP, a community partner, and brings vast board knowledge to our board.

Jim Rathbun
Current treasurer of our board, emerging artist, and participates in many of
our programs. Jim is a retired school administrator, and is instrumental in bringing us a working budget
and transparent accounting.
N
Connie DeSantis is an artist and long-time supporter of WRS. A retired teacher, Connie bring
organization and a thick network of local contacts to a position on the board.
____________________________ Write-in name of candidate nominated at Meeting-if any
2014 MEMBER ART AWARDS
Of Wallkill River School, Inc.
Please write out the name of each artist you think is best in the category:
1. Member’s Choice Favorite Artist _____________________________________
2. Member’s Choice Favorite Teacher________________________________
Any comments of suggestions for the board?
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________
__________
President’s Annual Report 2014
By Shawn Dell Joyce, President of the Board of Directors
2014 marks our fourteenth year as a movement, and our seventh year in business in Patchett House.
We have become an established regional arts organization and are expanding our reach each year. Our
gallery and school grossed over 192,000 last year, and offered most of our programming free to the
public. Today, we have about 200 total members, an email list of over 1000, and a Facebook Group with
over 800 members.
Our cooperative gallery hosted 14 monthly exhibits in 2014 grossing $17,000 in fine art sales. We
represented 33 artists in our main galleries and introduced 10 emerging artists who had their first
gallery exhibit. We also hosted 8 exhibits and silent auctions outside of our own gallery, partnering with
5 community-based nonprofits and three homeowners associations grossing an additional $5000 in fine
art sales.
Our nonprofit art school had $80,000 in adult enrollments, and $10,000 in child enrollments; half of
which was paid out to local teaching artists. The rest is what funds our movement; paying local staff
salaries, bills, utilities, and other overhead costs.
The adult drop in on Tuesdays, led by Louise McCutcheon attracts and average of 15 seniors per week,
serving a total of 1040 drop-ins per year surpassing attendance in our paying classes. We also started a
Free Teen drop in weekly serving about 25 teens so far.
Our plein air workshops had more than 45 enrollments, visiting local farms from the Farm/Art Trail,
historic sites and open spaces. We hired 22 artists to demonstrate 26 times, and auctioned our works
to benefit O.C. Farmer’s Museum, Bull Stone House, Wolf Lake, Wanaksink Lake, and Lake Louise
Marie Homeowners Association, Bethel Woods, Shanti Mandir, and Vision of Wallkill.
We offered 40 scholarships to local children enabling them to participate in our Children’s Summer
Camps which ranged from “Following in the Footsteps of Jane Colden,” to “Nerf Guns and Imaginative
Play.” We also awarded 12 teen scholarships which enable 12 local youths to participate in adult classes
and build portfolios for college.
We worked with Orange County Tourism and Planning Office to develop the Farm/Art Trail which is a
creative placemaking project designed to bring customers directly to farms, connected through a
GeoTour of artist’s work. The Farm/Art Trail stems from the series of charettes we hosted in 2012 on
farms bringing together artists and farmers to generate cultural tourism initiatives. We also worked with
Elant in Goshen to bring art classes to seniors, and ORMC to showcase our Farm/Art Trail artists.
We raised $15,000 through fundraising events like our Annual 100/$100 in Feb, our Annual Mother’s
Day Sale and a Frame Sale. The Mother’s Day Sale, led by Nancy and Lily, netted enough money to
upgrade all the gallery lighting and allow us to switch to high powered LEDs. Also the recent bake sale in
conjunction with Handmade for the Holidays allowed us to upgrade our outdoor lighting system to add
four solar-powered LED spot lights for the banner and sign, and purchase a new banner for our porch.
We received $20,000 in grants, mainly from NYSCA for the Farm/Art Trail, and also for our Emerging
Artist program. We also received funds to send two teaching artists into elementary schools in Valley
Central to bring arts programming to students who wouldn’t otherwise receive it.
We created economic impact in our home community by partnering with local farms, and restaurants,
and bringing business to small local businesses. We pay rent to a Montgomery landlord (Edward Devitt),
Multiple insurance policies through a local insurer (Neumann Insurance), we partnered with several
local farms including Froelich’s Farms to feed the plein air class and Hoeffner’s Farm for seasonal
decorations and flowers for Mother’s Day sale. All together, our economic impact on this community
was to pay out more than $100,000 to other local businesses, staff and artists, creating a multiplier
effect as they, in turn, support other local businesses.
Vision for 2015-“Sustainable and Stable” are our catchwords for the year!
We have a full gallery for 2015 with 50 Represented and Emerging Artists. Our 2015 Gallery Lineup is
posted on our website. We also are finalizing the Farm/Art Trail with the opening of the GeoTour in
May, offering geocoins for those who complete the tour. We have another NEA grant pending to this
effect, and are partnering with Orange County Tourism and the TriState Geocachers Association to make
this happen.
Our 15th year in business will find us finally in the black as a nonprofit. We have made some adjustments
to our budget and set fundraising goals that will keep our small organization stable and sustainable for
future generations. This includes a “prudent reserve” in our checking account to cover three month’s
bills, and elimination of all debt. Plus, we have set the goal of a long range financial plan; including
building an endowment through Community Foundation that will help us make it through hard times
and guarantee we will be a resource for all Orange County artists.
Some of these adjustments include sharing our space in the Patchett House to reduce overhead, and
cutting back on staff hours and expenses. More funds are earmarked for promotional expenses like our
website which will soon be upgraded to include a cloud-based database where teachers can log on to
see their class enrollments, and students can register online and info will be captured and immediately
appear on class enrollment sheets. This will free up staff hours, and make data collection and reporting
more transparent and accessible.
What you may notice is that our hours are now noon -6pm, Mon.-Sat. Our website is more navigable
and you should be able to enroll and pay for any class in three clicks. Also, Marilyn Bove steps up as
Gallery Director taking over part of my job, and freeing me to do more grant writing, pursuing my own
art career, and fulfilling our mission as a nonprofit to create economic opportunities for local artists
while preserving small scale agriculture.