Participation Committee Meeting

July 2, 2007

Approved by Board on July 5th, 2007

In Attendance:

Barb Winko Hector G.

Melanie G. Meike G.

Elaine D. Ann S.

Our meeting was called to order at 10:10 a.m. in Bayview Park.

We had two new applicants and one add a product.

Jan and Ida Bigler applied to make cheese nachos.

They were advised of the process they need to go through. They will contact DBPR and follow their regulations to get licenses. They will make their cart and return to us for cart approval. They were advised to keep in contact with us and if they need more than thirty days they need to ask for an extension. They were approved for their product pending final approval and licensing. They paid their $20.00 jury fee in cash.

Dennis Ditello (partners Timothy Howard and Doug Fyle) applied to make and sell coconut sail boats. They make the items from coconut, palm leafs and found objects. They will also bundle them into kits for those that want to make them at home. They cut out the coconut and boil it to get the oil and meat out of them. They were approved by unanimous vote. They paid their $20.00 jury fee in cash.

Hector Godoy applied for an add a product. No fee was collected.

Hector wants to sell shells, glass and rocks that he sandblasts to make designs or writing on. He will be home juried by Barb and Melanie today at 4:30 p.m. He was approved by majority vote pending the home jury process.

After our process we had a meeting to discuss many items that have been arising.

First we needed to elect a new chairman as Mike L. has quit PC. There were no volunteers and Ann S. nominated Barb, seconded by Elaine. Barb abstained from voting. Passed unanimously. Barb will continue to take care of the paper work and applications and do the minutes.

Next we discussed the "caps". After much discussion it was decided that all caps are off with the exception of jewelry. The Board had previously advised that there was too much local painting and scenery on the pier and the PC had limited artists to only painting other things. The Board has since decided that we cannot limit what people paint. It is their artistic right to paint whatever they want. This brought us to discussion why we could limit jewelry people to one type of jewelry. Is this not the same thing, artistic expression, as that of a painter? The majority believe that it is the same. Even if someone juries in with a "unique" product, can we keep them from changing when styles change? We don’t believe so. We will handle all applications for all types of art in this way. The outcome was to lift all caps with the exception of jewelry. There are at least 12 to 17 jewelry artists each night setting up. That represents 1/3 to ½ of all participants being jewelry. In order to keep the pier diverse in products the jewelry cap was left intact.

A couple of Board members asked the PC to review an ongoing problem regarding Antonio and Sarah’s children and the way they set up to sell their art. There have been many complaints about them encroaching into others spaces and blocking other vendors from selling their product.

The PC agreed that there is a problem and decided to ask the Board to address this by limiting the children to setting up in their parent’s space along with them. Since they do not have a tax number, nor do they pay a fee for a space this is deemed to be the easiest and fairest way to handle the situation. No one wants to limit the children from participating and delving into the arts but at the same time we cannot allow them to encroach on other artist and their spaces.

I have handled all of the applications and paper work that I have been getting for PC. I believe that everything is in order now and all applications have been answered.

I do not have minutes for the last PC meeting (June18th) as I was absent. I believe that no one showed up at 10:00 a.m. and the meeting was adjourned by the chairman.

$40.00 cash was turned over to the Pier Manager for fees and a receipt will be issued to Barb.

Hector was home juried and after the jury the PC decided we had issues with the process he was currently using to make his items. He has been advised that he was turned down for the products the way they are being made at this time. He has stated he will return to PC with a different process at the next scheduled meeting.