ELVIS PRESLEY CONTINENTALS FAN CLUB MEETING
APRIL 14, 2013
Meeting called to order at 2:00 p.m.
Pledge of Allegiance said at 2:10 p.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Nancy Tint; Dennis DeFalco; Diane Barrett; Sue Demetrius; Steve Demetrius; Donna Casenove; Onie Casenove; Linda Fresno; Linda Warsaw; Miriam Medina; Jeremy Ewbank; Lisa Johnston; Kay McCullough; Jim McCullough; Karen Langston; Marie Thompson; Dawn Padilla; David Jericko; Joann Digilio; Margaret Guiltner
Visitors were: Gladiola Mercado; Sadarius Lewis; Ashley Boyd; and Angel Davis.
Treasurer’s Report: Miriam Medina
Deposit: $7,675.96, Expenses: $7,591.91, Ending Balance: $321.59, Current Balance: $105.81, Festival Breakdown: Club Table: $580.00, Front Table: $1,061.00, Dancing with Our Stars and Kissing Booth: $73.00, 50/50 Raffle: $91.00, Car Show: $30.00, Vendor Tables: $160.00, Diane’s Table: $240.00 (2 t-shirts and 6 show tickets), Silent Auction: $65.00, Dinner Auction: $990.00, Hospitality Room: $87.00, Total theme shirts sold: $270.00.
Secretary: Diane Barrett: The birthday cards and “In Memory” of CD’s and “Elvis is the Best Medicine” CD’s. She also thanked everyone who helped out at the festival.
President: Nancy Tint: Nancy thanked everyone who came to our meeting. She announced Steve Demetrius was stepping down as Newsletter Editor but would still remain as a member in the club and help out when he can. A new Officers position will be created as we are removing the Newsletter Editor as an Officer’s position. Another “Member At Large” Officers position will be created as we have to have an odd number of Officers positions for voting purposes. Sue Demetrius, our Vice President, will be taking over the Newsletter Editor position. We will be appointing a new Officer until the next Festival. At the next Festival we will be having elections for this position. So if anyone wants to run for that position they may apply at that time.
Vice President Sue Demetrius: Sue further explained that she will continue to do the newsletters as she is the co-editor and we will be creating another Member at Large position. So it will be: President; Vice President; Secretary; Treasurer; and three (3) Member at Large positions on the board. Linda Fresno volunteered for this new position.
If someone wants to run then we will have voting. If no one wants to run for the position then she is one of our Officer. Elections are every 4 years.
President Nancy Tint: Nancy stated that Linda Fresno would like to be an officer and asked if there was anyone else who would like to run for this position since no one else volunteered it was motioned by Onie Casenove and seconded by Marie Thompson that Linda Fresno would be the new Member at Large. All members present approved. Linda was welcomed by the other board members and was asked to come up to the podium.
Members who arrived late were brought up to date on what was going on.
FESTIVAL:
President Nancy Tint: We all talked about doing away with the Car Show since it is a lot of work and cost us more then it is worth. We still have trophies left so we may be able to use the trophies and just change the templates and use them for the Member of the Year award. We would be saving money that way. If everyone agrees and the officers agree then we will do away with the car show at the Festival. We will still keep the committee in tact and maybe use it at other events. All members present approved.
Karen Langston: Karen had a suggestion about the trophies for the Member of the Year. Have a plaque with the names of the winners of Member of the Year and the winner will keep the plaque for the year and then present it to the next winner at the next festival. Give the winner a certificate to place on their wall when they return the plaque.
Nancy stated that we will go to the trophy place and see what the cost will be. We will let everyone know by the next meeting. It was further explained by Onie Casenove that upstairs at the Union Hall there is a plaque that is about 12” across and that there are chains attached to it with 42 plates engraved with the members names. Marie Thompson made a statement that if for any reason the person moves while they have the plaque make it known that they will be responsible for getting it back to the club.
Nancy: We will be saving money by using the trophies from the car show and just changing things out. That will take care of the next 3 years for Member of the Year and save us money. We also only have to pay only $200.00 for the guests for next years Festival, as we have a voucher from this year to use for next year. We will only have the cost of the t-shirts for next Festival, but we will make it back when we sell them. She asked if we should start the plaque now or wait and use the 3 trophies that we already have. I will send out a fan-out to see if members want to keep the trophy or do the plaque and return it after a year. Miriam Medina felt that we should start the plaque at the next festival. Onie made a motion that we get the plaque. Dawn seconded it. Nancy asked and the members present approved to start the plaque next festival. We will decide what to do about the trophies we have.
Nancy asked that our new officer say something.
Member at Large Linda Fresno: Hi, thank you very much for letting me be an officer. I will do my best for the club.
Nancy gave out the dates for our events.
Next Festival: March 7th, 8th, and 9th. This is between the Tampa Festival and the Georgia Festival. It works both ways as it will not conflict with them because it will be a week that nobody will be going to anything. The ETA’S will be here for the Tampa Festival so maybe they will come to our festival before going on to the Georgia Festival. We will have to tell the hotel now to lock in the dates.
Halloween Party: October 26th, 2013 at the hotel
Christmas Party: December 7th, 2013 at Karen Langston’s home
Sock Hop: May 18th, 2013 at the hotel
Sha Na Na: January 25th, 2014 in Mount Dora
Sha Na Na: September 14th, 2013 in Melbourne
Sha Na Na: July 29th, 2013 at the hotel
Steve Demetrius asked if Nancy would be sending out an email letting every know of our dates so that other ETA events will not be booked on those dates. Nancy stated that yes she would be sending them out.
We owe the hotel $500.00 and we gave $1,100.00 to the Russell Home. Since we are going to have “Kid Galahad” next year, because we already paid for Michael Dante and will only have to pay an extra $200.00 for their tickets. Billy T won the Sing Off so he will be doing the songs from the movie “Kid Galahad”. We are going to do 3 different movies and use 3 songs out of each movie. We will pick singers from our sing off. Michael Rocca for GI Blues because he sang our club song American Trilogy really well. We usually use Patrick Sebastian but since he didn’t come to the sing off and isn’t up to date on his dues we couldn’t use him. David Jericko was in our last festival and did such a great job but we can’t use him again this next festival. The next person is Eric Erickson because he has such a powerful voice. Nancy asked for suggestions for a movie theme. Sue Demetrius stated that it was going to be called either “Elvis at the Movies” or “Elvis in the Movies”...something like that.
Suggestions made were: ”Love Me Tender”, “King Creole”, “Live a Little, Love a Little”, Jeremy suggested “Fun in Acapulco” since Eric likes this movie and if he is one of the three singers he would like that. Some other suggestions were “Change of Habit” and “Harem Scarem” as it was suggested we do movies we have never done before. “Kid Galahad” will be the first movie up with 3 songs by Billy T, “GI Blues” with Michael Rocca, We will then ask Eric Erickson about some of the suggestions to see which one he would like to do. Dan Stevens would be asked to be the MC again as he did a wonderful job as our MC he kept things rolling right along.
President Nancy Tint: We have asked Joel Harris to do the concert since he stated that he would like to do our show next year, however, we found out that he is having a problem with his voice and he will let us know next month if his voice will allow him to do it.
Suggestions were made to bring up guests for Dan to interview but it was brought up that it would take away from the guests Q and A sessions on Friday and Saturday. We really need to make sure that the show is not as long as it was this year as we will have people leaving.
Steve Demetrius asked if all three movies will only have 3 songs each, Nancy said yes, that would make the first part of the show 45 minutes. Michael Dante will be introduced by his seat and asked to stand up and say thank you.
President Nancy Tint: Nancy read letters from Roger McKay from Palm Bay, FL; Greg Guilderson from Ottawa, Canada; Mary Makuszewski from New York; Ann Seaton and Fred Spilane from Palm Bay, FL; Maggie Tyer and her granddaughters Brianna and Dakota from Lakeland, FL.
Steve Demetrius made a suggestion that we need a backup for the concert part of the festival if Joel is unable to do it Steve suggested Ted Torres or Cody Slaughter. Nancy said that Darwin Lamm told her he would help us get Cody Slaughter but then we are talking more expenses. Steve was thanked for his suggestion.
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Making Changes to Festival:
Several ideas and complaints were made about the festival this year and how we should change / improve it next year.
Karen Langston: We have to get quality entertainers to bring people in to our festival. If we have to pay them some money to come then that’s what it takes. Maybe set aside $500.00 to bring someone in. It’s just a suggestion. If the ETA is a member great if not get them to pay the $15.00 dues. We have used and used our ETA’S so much that people want to see new blood. If we can get Cody Slaughter people will come to see him.
Onie asked if Rich Purnell was paid for the the festival. It was explained that he was asked. Nancy explained that we have helped him in his shows. If we help the ETA’S then they should be willing to help us. We help them with sound, lights and other things. I offered to give Rich any money he spent on the Hawaiian girls, but he didn’t take it. If Joel comes he will do it for nothing. Member at Large Dennis DeFalco: This is supposed to be for our charity. If we help out other ETA’s then they should be willing to help us out for charity.
Jim MacCulloch: Why are we spending money if this is for a charity. If we have to use old blood then so be it. This was my first festival and when I looked at the food it wasn’t worth it. Why don’t we do away with the food? Nancy explained that if we do away with the food then the room price triples. Also we don’t pay for the food unless we use it. When we sell a plate we pay for the plate. Jeremy Ewbank stated that if the entertainers are worried about getting paid then they can take the festival off their taxes.
Onie Casenove suggested we have a one day festival at the Mount Dora Theater that would only cost us $300.00. The vendors could set up in the lobby. We can make some real money for the charity and for the club. We have an awesome stage there and we could bring in a great entertainer. Sunday gospel was a bust.
Nancy explained that a lot of members come for the 3 day festival as their vacation. We also get people who are staying at the hotel. Three people who were staying at the hotel were from England and they thoroughly enjoyed the festival. We have had non members come to the Festival because we are at the hotel and in the tourist area. If we cut things out then we will have no members. Members that aren’t local get nothing much from our Club except The Festival and The Newsletter. They come from far away for the festival. Except that we are Elvis Presley’s Club and the only Club he named “What will keep our members paying dues if they don’t get something for it?”
Kay MacCulloch asked about how many dinners did we sell for Saturday night? Nancy stated that we sold 110 dinner and 65 show only tickets. Onie stated that Mt. Dora holds up to 600 people and Steve asked about where would the guests stay and Onie said we could put them up overnight at a local hotel for $89.00. We would have more come for the show if they paid $25.00 per person and if we got 600 people to come that would be a lot for our club. Onie further stated that we get the Mount Dora Theater for 2 days and pay out only $600.00? Just have the sock hop at the hotel.
President Nancy Tint explained that we get the room for the Sock Hop, Halloween Party, ETC… free at the hotel. They will charge us for the room if we don’t have the festival there. Also we wouldn’t get the convention room at the low price for our Kissimmee Fundraiser if we didn’t use them for the Festival. We spent a lot of money on the plane fares. We have the fare for Michael Dante and his wife already paid for and we will use it for our festival. Steve asked if the Georgia Festival was 2 days? Onie said yes, but there was no food.
There were vending machines and vendors around. It was just the show. They had guests also. But they had the State of Georgia helping them out with thousands of dollars and the headliners got a couple of thousand dollars each. Plus the State paid for lots of advertising too.
President Nancy: We have tried with the city of Kissimmee to help us. We tried to get sponsors with no avail. Onie said that Mount Dora does the advertising that is included in the price. They advertise all over Mount Dora. Nancy stated that Dennis does our advertising all free, except for the newspaper ad which we still have to do no matter who advertises.
It was suggested by Jim MacCulloch that since we are in a competitive market we should tell the hotels what the Ramada offers us and see if they can match it. Ramada is not the only show in town. Also I wasn’t impressed with the rooms there. If we took the papers from the Ramada and went to the Hilton for instance they might be able to give us a good deal.
President Nancy Tint: We went all over the place and no one has the big convention center we need.
Liaison Jeremy Ewbank: I don’t know what happened Friday night of the festival but we always made money and had lot of ETA’s. Nancy explained that the Georgia Festival is what happened. She received e-mails from members who said they would have been at our Festival if it was a different date, but they went to the Georgia Festival instead. There were several members that came to our festival only because we had Donny Edwards, if we didn’t have him we would have had hardly any members there.
Nancy further explained the costs of the hotel....the big room that we rent goes way up if we don’t have the dinners. The big room is $500.00 dollars and they give us the other ones free. It would be $1,500.00 per day for the room. Karen Langston stated that If we pay $4,500.00 for the room that is less than the $7,000.00 we pay now to the hotel. We could still make money without the food. We used to not have meals with the show. We would go to another hotel and rent the room for the show. We made $3,000.00 profit.
It was suggested that people check in their area for prices of hotels and see what can be done. Nancy Tint further stated “We had people in the club who had money like Kethel; Kay and Noel; Priscilla; and Joel” and that helped. If anyone wants to go and find different places let us know where and we will go and check them out and let you know by the next meeting. We won’t get the hospitality room free, The two complimentary rooms free, The free rooms to use for our other events, etc.. if we don’t have the food. We will compare prices and bring it to the next meeting. I will send out these suggestions to all the club members and will bring in the letters from the members as to whether they want a weekend or one day. Whether they want to travel to another hotel or keep it in one place.
Vice President Sue Demetrius stated that we want to ask for everyone’s input to help us. It is not an easy job to be on the board; it is a volunteer position and we get criticism from people about the things that we do and how we handle things. We do the best that we can do and everything we do we are trying to keep this club going...the only club that Elvis himself named. We are an Elvis club not an ETA club and we need the members to support “us“. Onie stated that it is not criticizing but asking questions.
When Nancy asked if there was any further discussion Jeremy Ewbank said that If you find something better come to us and let us know. Also I will be helping out more with the club.
Margaret Guiltner reported that A golf cart was stolen from the Russell Home but someone heard about it and bought them a new one.
Members of the Month: for March, 2013 … Donny Edwards, Rich Purnell, David Jericko and Dan Stevens. For April was: Dawn Padillo, Melanie Rocca, and Billy T Redish.
Meeting adjourned at 3:55pm All members present approved.
