2020 Annual Meeting Information & Resources
The 2020 Annual meeting will take place on Sunday, June 7th at 2:00pm via Zoom. Because of the limited amount of seats on Zoom, procedures for attending the meeting will be different than a normal meeting, and priority will be given to those officially representing their teams. Additionally, voting will be handled differently than normal because of the circumstances. Please read the directions below carefully to make sure you are registered, and your team profile is set up for voting.
- Log into your team profile- only primary and secondary contacts will have access to voting, and only one will be able to vote for that profile. Remember that for all scholastic your primary contact is required to be the credentialed teacher responsible for your students. If that person is different from the team director, for example a band director or administrator, the team director should be the secondary contact. If the primary contact is not interested in participating in the meeting, the secondary contact can attend and vote on behalf of the team.
- WE WILL NOT BE UTILIZING VOTING DELEGATES for this meeting. Only the primary or secondary contact will be able to vote on behalf of the team, and all teams will get one vote per team. If you have a JV & Varsity team, for example, and are the primary contact for both, you will be able to vote on behalf of both teams.
- Voting will be monitored by our web master, a third party, remotely to ensure that all have access and runs smoothly.
You MUST pre-register to attend the meeting by Friday, June 5th at 5:00pm. Please remember that priority will be given to those representing their teams as the voting representative. While we would prefer to have the meeting open to anyone, the limits of Zoom hold us to 300 seats. Please discuss amongst your staff who will be your official representative, and have them register by 5:00pm on Friday, June 5th.
To Register for the Meeting, fill out this form:
Prior to the meeting, please review all of the resources below.
2020 Annual Meeting Resources
Please review the attached proposals for discussion.
2019-20 Board Reports
Tom Slaughter – VicePresidentReport
Trevor Cox – 2020 Contest Administrator Report
2020-2022 Board of Directors Candidates
Recommendations of the Nomination Committee
The Nominating Committee was defined by the Policy and Procedure Manual two years ago. The participants are elected by the Advisory Boards of the FFCC and the FFCC Board of Officers. At the first meeting of the 2020 Nomination Committee, Mike Higbe addressed the importance of confidentiality of all FFCC committees so that they can function in the best interests of all of the FFCC membership. He then discussed the purpose of the Committee and the task it is charged with accomplishing. He also discussed the long term plan of the FFCC to establish the Board of Officers as the philosophical compass of the organization with a separate functioning operations component. Mike also explained that it is the duty and obligation of the Committee to verify the eligibility, vet, and select the optimum slate of six officers. The selection process is based on who the committee felt fit together in way that would offer strong talent coupled with depth of experience to enhance the quality experience of the FFCC performers and directors. Further, it is the obligation of the Committee, should they feel the need, to solicit additional candidates to fill the needs of the FFCC membership.
Slate of Recommended Candidates for the FFCC Board of Directors, Term 2020-2022
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- Jennifer Barker
- Cichele Fields
- Jen Karp
- Tom Slaughter
- Andy Snow
- Carrie Smith
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Scroll down to learn more about each candidate.
Jennifer Barker
I have been involved and admired the FFCC for over half my life. I feel every year or so I take a step upward whether it’s in advisory board, judging and now potentially board member aspect. I believe I’d be able to offer the membership the “younger” / “next-generation” voice and have the connection with them… giving them the comfort of knowing their issues will be addressed if needed. Many of the current board members seek my advise /insight already and I’ll continue to do that whether nominated or not!
My strengths are definitely in the realm of marketing, design and sponsorships. Anything logistical or requiring mass amounts of organization are my forte! But, like I have always been in my life… if there’s a task I don’t know how to do, I’ll be ambitious to figure out how to do whatever needs to be done!
Cichele Fields
I am applying to be a member of the board of directors for another term to help continue building our organization towards the goal of becoming a sustainable, mission-focused non-profit. I believe we have made great strides over the last few years in our efforts to become financially stable and in developing professional staff members to take on organization business, even with setbacks that included our year in Tampa and our current pandemic.
In my current role, I have worked to bring in new sponsors and partners each year in support of the FFCC, to build consistent branding and marketing efforts across a number of channels, and have developed and managed a team of event media staff members to promote the teams and performers of the FFCC. I feel like there is more work to be done to make these changes sustainable and systemic.
If re-elected to the board, I intend to continue developing my current areas of responsibility, which include branding, marketing, social media content creation, media team development, sponsor relations, and vendor programs. I currently oversee our Featured Performer program, all social media, website updates, the championships program, vendor photographers, our relationships with sponsors, vendors, and local partners, director and fan newsletters, contests and other outreach to performers and teams, and other duties as needed.
Throughout my time on the board, I have constantly worked to develop the skills I needed to serve the organization in whatever capacity was necessary, through education, further training, or simply self-teaching. I want to keep developing more people on our staff and sharing that knowledge so they can begin taking over some of these responsibilities. While I enjoy serving our membership and organization immensely, my ultimate goal is to develop systems and people who can can continue that work and vision whether I am involved or not. I believe it’s critical that everyone in our organization have the goal that it can function and thrive without us.
Jen Karp
I’d like to continue my position in serving the membership as an active, working member of the FFCC board and continue to promote and foster the positive growth for our schools, directors, and students in our activity. I feel that I have been a strong liaison between the board and our membership, which is vital to our continued growth.
As a board member, I would use my past experience and awareness to help continue the education process and growth throughout our membership. With the growing number of competitive groups in the FFCC, I feel that having a non-affiliated liaison between the board and all colorguard, percussion, and winds groups is vital to our circuit. I feel that my strong interpersonal skills could help with the continued planning of our FFCC procedures, policies, events, and educational opportunities.
Tom Slaughter
I have had the honor of serving as a member of the FFCC Board of Officers for the past 20 years. Through those times, I believe I have developed the skill set, financial acumen, and network of professional connections that the FFCC benefits from continually. The work we do within the board, though often in the background, is inspiring to me personally. Creating such unique and special performance opportunities that our “kids” will remember and value for the entirety of their lives is something that I have been blessed to be a part of, and would be grateful to continue.
Throughout out my tenure on the board, the process of hiring, maintaining, and managing our judging community has been a responsibility of mine. I have been a member of the WGI judge roster since 2004 and have built a network of contacts in the judging community that benefits our FFCC member teams annually. In the past few years, I have utilized skills I learned in my first career as a Certified Public Accountant to streamline and improve the financial reporting processes the circuit follows and grown into a role of Chief Financial Officer to monitor the budgeting, financial goals, and reporting aspect of the circuit’s business. I have also fulfilled the role of managing the Human Resources side of our circuit, including the building of our staff, background checks, and any other issues that may arise with the employees of our circuit.
Carrie Smith
I am at a time in my marching arts career where I feel my experience and knowledge would highly benefit the board. My extensive experience as a performer, director, adjudicator, and educator gives me a unique perspective that I believe can help the FFCC continue to grow and offer amazing opportunities to developing performers. I also believe it is time to give back. The FFCC was fundamental in my development as a young instructor and now I would like to share my abilities with others.
As an educational leader in my day to day activities I feel I can best serve in an educational capacity, however, I am also well versed in developing logistical schedules, coordinating with show hosts, and developing partnerships and circuit programs. I am highly flexible and would be more than willing to work where the circuit needed me the most.
Andy Snow
I have served on the board for the past 8 years. During this time, I helped to create the FFCC Merch Brand and to work towards expanding this. I manage the merch employee and inventory currently.
My past experience on the board serve as my experience. I have an undergraduate degree in Music Education and a Masters Degree in Social Work. I have a broad network of community connections throughout the circuit and the country.
