At this meeting was DM – David K. Montoya . SB – Stephanie J. Bardy . AR – Alan Russo . KA – Kevin Adams . KH – Kristofor Harris . WE – Walter G. Esselman . JS – Joe M. Sparks . EA – Eddie Aguirre . JK – John Kotsis . RI – Rebecca Ilich . SD – Sarah Douthat

Jayzomon/DarkMyth Board Meeting

September 5, 2021


12:05 PST

Stephanie opens meeting in David’s absence.



Stephanie reads Mission Statement


Attendance:


David – Absent

Alan – Late but present

Walter – Present

Joe – Present

Eddie – Present

John – John

Sarah – Absent

Rebecca – Present

Kris – Late but present

Stephanie - Present


Treasurer’s Report

Starting Total -

Money in -

Money Out -

Balance -


Abridged version. Full audio is available upon request. Dave was absent during this meeting was not available to deny nor confirm the information.


Board is concerned about the amount of money that David has to pay for ScareFaire. Steph lays out the discrepancies in the amounts that Eddie was giving us the last three months and asks for an accounting of why they have changed so drastically.


The Board members pose questions to Eddie on how we can recoup some of the amounts and what he is doing to lower that cost. Concern is expressed at how far over budget he was, and Eddie admits that neither he nor Dave were actually paying attention to the cost of things when they were booking them. Eddie also admits to not keeping track of expenses and how far over budget he was getting. That the numbers he was giving us were just estimations. Steph apologizes for sounding aggressive. The numbers are laid out and Eddie is asked to explain why things were left out. He is made aware that he has stripped the budget money from all other departments. Eddie points out that Lisa Wilcox wasn’t in the earlier budget that made it go up, and the banners, made the budget jump. Kris jumps in with a couple of questions, about were there any discussion of the amount we were paying for the celebrities. Eddie states that the entertainment that he brought in didn’t have per diem or flights, it was the celebrities Dave brought in that brought up the cost of our entertainment. He says he was not part of the Joe Bob Briggs discussion, nor was he part of the Lisa Wilcox discussion, that was Dave. Eddie says he backed out of the Lisa Wilcox deal with her manager, and Dave brought her back in. Kris focuses back on what we are paying for, he wants to know why the flights, per diem, and hotels blew the budget. Eddie makes it clear that he isn’t paying out of the budget for flights, which confused a lot of the Board. Walter says maybe we bit off more than we could chew. Steph explains that the main idea was that Joe Bob was our headliner. Alan says that Joe Bob was a a gift to him from Dave for putting on the event, and that Dave was paying for it out of his pocket. Rebecca points out that even with out Joe Bob the entertainment was more than the budget. It was suggested and voted on that no more money would be spent on ScareFaire and that all our efforts would now go into selling tickets. Walter asks Eddie for the actual paperwork, like contracts, and agreements between entertainment, vendors, and expenses. Rebecca asks Eddie about the amount of vendors vs. the amount of money. Eddie points out that Stephanie, Walter, and Myth Mart have free booths. Steph reiterates that we need to see all the contracts. Eddie is asked to explain his numbers in the email he sent Steph and Dave. Eddie explains that the numbers he gets, come from Dave. Steph gives Eddie 7 (seven) days to get all the paperwork to her. So that she can do the bookwork to enable Dave to do the business taxes.


Concern is expressed over the amount of people Eddie is bringing into the building, due to Fire Code restrictions. The more people in the building during the full time, is deducted from max capacity and gives us an amount of tickets we can sell. Eddie says he was given different numbers from the fairegrounds, the rental company, and the fire department. He is told to use the number from the fire department.


Eddie says he is trying to control how many people the vendors are bringing and that he is trying to eliminate chairs to bring down cost.


Eddie didn’t have exact vendor numbers.


Eddie says because of the budget, and the discussions he had with Dave, and says that he was able to go back to the fairgrounds and he sold a spot outside for more vendors. He is trying to bring in more vendors.


Steph puts forth the motion that we do not spend another dime on this event, and Alan seconds that.


Eddie also states that Darcy is being paid out of Dave’s pocket.


Rebecca says she is going to do the billboard advertising.


Steph reiterates the motion that it is from this point on, from the end of the meeting on, that everything we do is out of our own pocket or free. Eddie again interrupts with another bit of info about more entertainers for free.


Steph also puts forth the motion that we do not add any more people, acts or entertainment, and the entire board agrees.


It is decided that from this point it is all about the ticket sales. John is going to do whatever he can to promote and advertise.





Secretary’s Report – Apologizes for minutes being late and submits them for approval. Accepted.


Business arising from the minutes – Business arising will be discussed during Treasurer’s report.



Department Reports


Myth Mart – Down side is our sales are down since we started. He suggests more advertising, pre-sold Red Hills Green Vines, Liberty’s Run is on track for launch, Walter asks for link to book once Alan has it so he can promote it. Need to bump up Myth Mart. Email campaign will be starting. Alan wants to get the idea of buy one get one free. Discussion starts on how to do that, and what is the cheapest best mode for the company.


Advertising – Steph is still pushing the ad space and banners, looking for outside advertising. Joe will be launching Dawn’s into rotation. Working up an ad campaign for Liberty’s Run. Walter is going to do his own audio plugs and video commercials. A link to Walter’s book blurb will be placed in the Board chat for everyone to share. Eddie is getting advertising out for ScareFaire via flyer and by going to events. Advertising has been going well at each event, he has handed out 800 flyers at one event. Vendors who will be at ScareFaire are putting our flyers into their bags at other events. Rebecca has been doing the campaign ads on Facebook. Tickets are being sold at various locations for ScareFaire. Mega Toms and Comic Cult hasn’t sold any tickets yet. Tattooed Image is passing out our flyers and have tickets for sale. Steph mentioned that she noticed that a lot of our vendors that said they would advertise and none have. Steph suggests for Eddie to reach out to our guests and vendor’s to bump up our ads on their page.

Banners look great.


Circulation Department/Social Media – Submissions call for Zombie Works is now closed. Keys to MythBits Kingdom have now been handed over to Joe and Jenna. They will be handling all MythBits social media. Will be ramping up advertising for our 100th issue.


Magazine – Gearing up for 100th issue on September. Putting a call out to the Board members to put out a call to anyone they know who might be interested in being in the 100th issue.


Dark Myth Publications

  1. Editor in Chief Report – Moving into October, calendars will be ready to submit to Dave for publishing. Finished with Liberty’s Run, going to be writing to finish book for December.


  1. Publisher Report – No publishers report except for Green Hills, Red Vines, and Dried Monkey Meat for Dinner has been launched, and Liberty’s Run will be launching. Dave wants to propose that we pay authors their first 250 book royalty up front. Then we don’t have to worry about keeping track of quarterly payments. They are guaranteed that royalty. Board voted and passed. Products must be finished two weeks before publishing date because of Amazon’s two week wait rule. Everything must be submitted to Amazon two weeks before we want to launch.


Dark Myth Comics – Comics are doing well, Dave and Kris have been working to list the comics. Comixology is rumored to be disappearing. Kris suggests doing something different such as PDF’s. Has received pitches for the Luchador comic. The guidelines will go out and hoping by Halloween to have who is going in the book. Kris wants to bring in help for the judging. Dave would like Kris to choose a managing editor. Start date for Chronicles for the Unknown and a breakdown for what we want. Kris wants unique diverse stories.


PCE/ScareFaire – Darcy the Mail Room Girl has been added, a couple of vendors have been added to bring in more money. Has been able to lower some of the budget numbers. Working on getting volunteers, also going to advertise for volunteers. He is talking to a security guide for Walmart, and wants to pay him to create a team for security. The fairgrounds is allowing us to have our maze. If we give them a number of how many people we are expecting and they will provide extra security for free. Steph suggests we utilize the fairground security for the entire event to save money. Eddie says it’s guaranteed free security. Steph says we don’t need the paid guard, and Eddie wants to use both. Steph expresses a concern about spending more money when it isn’t needed. Kris points out that he understands the benefit of extra security, but is concerned with the extra charge if we don’t have the money or the need. Eddie says he is expressed that the people coming to see the bands they could get rowdy. Joe expresses a concern for armed patrons. He says Victorville isn’t the safest area. Eddie pipes in and emphases that it’s really bad around the fairground. Eddie backtracks and says that they aren’t the type of people who would cause a problem but he wants to prevent it from happening. Steph points out that we aren’t holding a rock concert and reiterates what Kris said, and asks do we really need to pay for extra. Rebecca suggests we wait and see how the ticket sales go for the band before we pay for extra security. Walter wants to make sure that the volunteers know what they are getting into. Steph says that we need to make perfectly clear at the beginning of the concert that no violence will be tolerated. Steph expresses again that she doesn’t feel we need to pay for security. Eddie back tracks again and says he is going to go with the fairgrounds. Steph gets him to say definitively that he is NOT going to be spending money on security. It was decided that we would wait and see how many concert tickets are sold and then revisit the security cost. Eddie did an event and sold raffle tickets said we made 140.00 and he is going to another event. Said we got a big response. Eddie thinks the flyers make a bigger impact on advertising. Steph makes sure Eddie is paying for all of the events he is doing is out of his own pocket.


JayZoModcast – Joe say things are smooth sailing as per usual, some missed dates but things happen. He has the new advertisements rolling, he is just finishing up the new MythBits podcast. Things are golden. For My Public Life, Joe has been putting a bit of zazzle to it, but he wants to start pushing the video’s more and get the interviews more exposure.


OCC – The final two contestants have been chosen, waiting on manuscripts from them. The finalists are told that the winner will be announced at ScareFaire. The finalists were told on MythBits. – Walter will choose the theme for the OCCAE. That will start in October.



JPWI – No report


Old Business

OCCAE

Catelogue update –


Welcome package piece needs Kris’s piece. Steph will rewrite the ones that have come in to flow nicely into a package.


Template for meetings, which everyone forgot.


Budget was covered in treasurer’s report.







New Business –


Buy company stock. (which it was later revealed that Steph had it wrong)

Dave wants to know overall how we feel the company meetings are going.

Steph says that she thinks we have done a lot of good as a company and as a board and that we all shoulder the decisions for the company, and that we are all just as passionate and invested as Dave is. There is a lot of nodding in agreement.

Come up with ideas to increase sales.


Next meeting: Oct. 10th, 2021, 12pm PST.