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Mendon Arts Council reborn By
Andrea Nixon MENDON -- Elva Maughan pulls the last stack of agendas off the printer as she glances at the clock. Almost 8 p.m. Should they meet in the kitchen tonight or pull extra chairs into the living room? As she debates, the doorbell rings and the first visitor arrives. Then another, then another, and all of a sudden her living room is full of a dozen chattering women, notebooks and pens in hand. What brings them together? The monthly meeting of the Mendon Arts Council. The arts council met Thursday night to further organize itself and discuss some upcoming events. Since being assembled in October, the council has already accomplished a lot but it still has a few wrinkles to iron out. Maughan, who is serving as chairwoman, is the first to admit she's fairly new to this. "This is how we're starting but hopefully we'll morph into something better," she laughs. "But we're not there yet." While the council isn't completely new to Mendon, the city hasn't had an operating arts council for the past eight years, she says. "Some of us don't even remember Mendon having an arts council. Some of us didn't even live here then." In the fall, Maughan was appointed by the Mendon City Council to take the three-year position as arts council chairperson. The remaining 13 arts council members are volunteers who typically serve for one year. The purpose of the council is to plan community events that will encourage participation in the cultural arts. One of Maughan's main goals in this meeting was to assign committee heads to man the different events the council sponsors throughout the year. Once those are in place, council members can recruit their own volunteers from the community. "We're hoping to get a lot of involvement from a variety of people," she says. "We want big committees, so it's not just us [arts council members]. We want support." They revisited the issue of the calendar fundraiser that was discussed at the last meeting. The council originally planned to sponsor a photography contest and use the winning entries as material for a community calendar. Several members were concerned the cost of producing the calendars would exceed the profit. "There are so many variables," said member Shanna Larsen. "We need to look at all our options." The arts council eventually voted down using the calendar as a fundraiser, but decided to still hold the photo contest in the summer in conjunction with the July 24 celebration. Along with brainstorming about potential future events, the group also discussed the Mendon community newsletter. RoseAnn Brandley reported that the city council had approved of her decision to make the newsletter a bimonthly publication instead of a monthly one. She approached the city council at its March meeting and recommended the change, because publishing the newsletter monthly was too hard. Brandley said it's a very time-consuming process to gather and format all the information in such a short amount of time. "It takes one whole week and that's all I do," she said. "I can't do it anymore." The newsletter, which is distributed to about 475 homes in Mendon City and surrounding areas, is a main advertising source for all city and community events, not only those sponsored by the arts council. Brandley and fellow member Debbie Eskelson create the newsletter, but the city council pays all the printing and mailing costs. Every time the newsletter is produced it costs the city $300. "[Publishing bimonthly] will cut the budget in half," Brandley said. In addition to slicing production costs, a small fee will also be charged for advertisements of goods and services that appear in the newsletter. The council is also seeking sponsorships from community businesses to help with the expense. Developing a yearly budget for the arts council was also discussed. "It's hard to come up with a budget until you've done it before," said Laurie Hardman. "Give it a year and then we'll have a better idea."
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