All-School Meeting Follow-Up
On Saturday, January 9, we had our first all-school meeting in several years. Thank you to the 40-plus people who showed up. We talked to many more who were interested in attending, but couldn't.
Everyone who participated in the meeting brought a grounded, thoughtful, and inquisitive attitude to the process, which is truly a testament to your practice. Thank you!
Members of the board and the teachers were all impressed with the level of questions about complex issues facing the school.
We began the meeting by exploring the history of the school and its growth to a peak enrollment of 400 in 1998. When the non-profit began running the school, at 300 students in 2005, we raised $70,000 from our community to cushion a major transition. We took on a business model with less financial flexibility and were fielding a less experienced teaching staff.
Over the past 5 years, we expanded our course offerings through new programs and a variety of workshops with visiting instructors, but we have not been able to grow overall enrollment or build this cash reserve.
With this information on the table, and an upcoming lease renewal in August, we framed the current issue facing our school, which is whether or not we can stretch our resources further to stay in the current space with the current model.
The overwhelming response from the students in attendance, many with 10 or more years of study at BTC, was that there is lots of untapped volunteer potential in our community and that all of these resources should be explored as fully as possible to preserve such an important and unique center of practice for so many.
With that energy and enthusiasm, we split into different interest groups, led by board members, to explore these topics in more depth. If you would like to be involved in future discussions in a particular area, please email the board member heading that group. What follows is a summary of the topics each group explored.
Student Advisory Committee (Eric Peters, ericlpeters@verizon.net): Focused on the need for outreach and personal contact among students, teachers and the Director.
Marketing/Outreach (Marie-Helene Jouvin, mjouvin@speakeasy.net): Focused on using social and professional networks, medical care providers, etc, to talk about/demonstrate the benefits of Tai Chi.
Fundraising (Nina Avergun, navergun@comcast.net): Focused on creative ways to expanding people who give to support the mission of the school beyond current and former students.
Finance (Dan Kleiman, dan.kleiman@brooklinetaichi.org): Focused on defining the current business model and examining alternatives to see how to best meet our financial needs and support our program.
Special Events(Katie Keane, katiebtc@gmail.com): Focused on new and creative ways for new students to explore our program and bring in other special interest topics, through lectures and social events, to our community.
We hope to hold another similar meeting in March to update the community on our progress.
Thank you all again for your support!