Mat-Su Concert Band Board Meeting 11/4/2013
Minutes submitted by Bev Earley, Secretary/Treasurer
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Call to Order by Bev at 5:53 pm
Roll Call
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Gleo Huyck – EO
Bev Earley, Secretary/Treasurer – 2014
Lane Olson, President – 2014
Jeff Stout – 2014
Bruce Brown – 2015
Gene Horner – 2015
Faith Kolean – 2015
Drew Holifield - 2016
Zaz Hollander, Vice President – 2016
Linda Menard - 2016
Guest – April Atherton
Absent
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None
Vote #1 - A motion was made by Jeff to approve the minutes of the 10/7/13 board meeting. It
was seconded by Drew, and unanimously approved.
Reports
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Artistic Director - Gleo – Gleo has named this holiday concert “’Tis the Season” after
getting some input from the rest of the board.
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Treasurer (Bev) - See attached treasurer’s report.
Vote #2 – A motion was made by Faith and seconded by Jeff to approve the treasurer’s
report, and then unanimously approved.
Vote #3 - A motion was made by Linda to pay Matanuska Music $125, was seconded by
Drew and unanimously approved. This was to pay for the tuning of the Teeland Middle
School piano prior to the October 18th concert.
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Grant Funding (Zaz) – Zaz appreciated the concert donations to get us started on the
Rasmuson 4:1 grant.
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Committees – Concert Manager (Gene) Gene said that 300 chairs were not enough
for the crowd and that many people were left standing at the fall concert. 250
programs were made, and that was not enough, also. We were surprised by and
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Mat-Su Concert Band Board Meeting 11/4/2013
unprepared for the large crowd. The cafeterium is allowed to hold 1,500 people per
fire code. Stephanie will not be able to do decorations in the future. Lane will recruit a
new decorator.
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Solo Ensemble (Faith) – Faith plans to send out an email to the entire band to help
get people together in ensemble groups.
Unfinished Business
1) Band member photo and bio on band web site – Zaz now has material on all of the
board members and is ready to write up the bios.
New Business
1) Record Keeping Suggestions (April Atherton)
April is a member of our band and a tax professional. This fall she completed an informal
audit of the record keeping of the 2012-2013 season. Last month she wrote up a 4-page
document of record keeping suggestions. Most of this meeting was given to April to educate
the board on the suggestions, to answer board members’ questions and to help us to apply
the suggestions.
April told us that an auditor will likely be concerned with the following: (1) that the band’s
financial statements are fairly stated and in accordance with generally accepted accounting
principles (GAAP); (2) that there are sufficient internal controls to prevent misappropriation of
assets; and (3) that the band is in compliance with all legal and tax-related filing
requirements.
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Unrelated business income – April told us that even though the band is exempt from tax
while pursuing its exempt purpose, any activity that falls outside this exempt purpose and
that is regularly carried on may be subject to tax as “unrelated taxable income.” The Board
should be aware of this requirement and realize that the rules surrounding unrelated
business income could be complicated. Advertising Income: Income received for
advertising in the band’s programs is not considered unrelated business income because
it is not regularly carried on; however, other types of advertising may be considered
unrelated business income (for example, if the band were to allow a company to advertise
on the Mat-Su Concert Band’s website, the IRS may consider that to be unrelated
business income for which the band may need to pay income tax).
Note that it does not matter whether the money generated is used for the band’s exempt
purpose. What matters is how the income is generated.
To help in identifying any possible unrelated business income, the band’s revenue should
be carefully accounted for, using separate accounts for each type of revenue. The Board
should be able to explain to an auditor how the band analyzes its revenue for possible
unrelated business income.
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Mat-Su Concert Band Board Meeting 11/4/2013
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QuickBooks – April told us that ideally, the band should be able to pull any financial
information for each month and year-to-date just by running a QuickBooks report, if
QuickBooks were set up properly and used to its full potential. Online QuickBooks
available for 12.95/month. The benefit of the online program would be that it would never
become obsolete and that more than one person would be able to have access, but it
would generate a recurring expense. The band laptop has QuickBooks with a 2012
QuickBooks Accountant’s software. It was decided to use the band laptop and existing
QuickBooks software for future bookkeeping.
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Sufficient Internal Controls – Separation of duties surrounding bookkeeping: April told
us that if possible, the person preparing the check should not be the person signing it.
Up until now, Bev has been preparing checks and signing the checks (a Red Flag). The band
has a share draft account and primary share account at Matanuska Valley Federal Credit
Union (MVFCU). Lane and Bev are the only board members on the account as signers. Tom
Moore’s name is on as a signer, but he left the band several months ago. Lane Olson, Bev
Earley, Jeff Stout and Zaz Hollander offered to be the four signers on the MVFCU accounts.
Bev will arrange for this to take place at MVFCU on Seward Meridian in Wasilla, and then
send out an email to Lane, Jeff and Zaz to complete the paperwork by signing signature
cards.
Vote #4 - Gene made a motion to add Jeff Stout and Zaz Hollander to be signers on the
Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union Share Draft Account and Primary Share Account.
Linda seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.
Vote #5 - Zaz made a motion to remove Tom Moore’s name from the Matanuska Valley
Federal Credit Union Share Draft Account and Primary Share Account. Jeff seconded the
motion and it was unanimously approved.
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Checks paid to Board Members are a red flag for an auditor. April told us the band
should try to pay for its own expenses out of its own funds as much as possible, rather
than reimbursing board members.
Bev suggested that the band get a credit card to pay for being a board member purchases:
music, programs, posters, other bills, etc. Jeff suggested that MVFCU could give us a debit
card to pay for these expenses. Linda did not think that the band had enough purchases to
warrant having a credit card at this time.
Jeff wants to discuss debit card limits today (but Jeff was suddenly called away to a fire
fighting emergency). Linda suggested postponing the discussion on debit card issues until
after the first of the year.
April suggested that we consider having 2 signatures on checks over a certain dollar amount.
Vote #6 - Linda made a motion that any check for over $300 has two signers. Bruce
seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved.
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Mat-Su Concert Band Board Meeting 11/4/2013
Vote #7 - A motion was made by Faith to have April Atherton as our bookkeeper. Zaz
seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved. The band laptop was handed over to
April to do the band bookkeeping.
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Registration with the State of Alaska if Soliciting Contributions – April told us that
Alaska law requires charitable organizations to register with the Department of Law
prior to soliciting contributions of money or property in Alaska and pay a $40 annual
fee. Our band has reached the donation threshold for this to apply to us. Bev is
working on completing the application and sending it in.
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By laws, Conflict of Interest policy. An annual conflict of interest letter needs to be
signed by the board members. The band has these documents in place, but they were
last signed in 2009. Bev will review these documents and bring them to the next board
meeting to be signed.
Next Monday Bev will bring the blank checks to April to keep and write.
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Donations of $250 or more (in aggregate for the year) - April suggested that since we
are already providing a thank you letter to each donor, we should add the language
that is required for the $250 or more donation threshold to the existing letter so we
don’t have to track whether someone has donated $250 in aggregate for the year.
Bev began to do this last month after reading the suggestion.
2) Starbucks is donating coffee and cookies (Drew) – Starbucks is providing over
$400 worth of coffee and tea at the holiday concert. We decided that we would
prefer an intermission serving. We will place a Starbucks ad in the concert
program. The Starbucks district manager will be at the concert. There was also the
offer of a Starbucks gift basket (valued at over $100) for a future raffle.
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Meeting adjourned – 6:50 PM
Upcoming Events:
Friday, December 6 at 7:30
Monday, December 9, at 5:45
Friday, March 7 at 7:30
Friday, May 9 at 7:30
Holiday Concert
Board Meeting
Mid-winter concert
Spring Concert
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