Puppets of America festival meeting

Puppeteers of America –

National meeting July 13, 2011

Puppeteers gathered for a national meeting on the second afternoon of the festival in Atlanta, Ga., on the campus of Georgia Tech.

President Anna Vargas reported that the P of A currently has 1,418 members.

(Note that the Wisconsin Puppetry Guild’s Pam Corcoran is a new board member. Yay, Pam! But she was not able to attend the festival.)

Anna said the organization is in a transition period especially in regard to its website, which she said is undergoing a major upgrade. (www.puppeteers.org)

The P of A Facebook page has 3,200 people (friends?) and 1,600 check the page every week.

There are 36 active guilds within the organization.

The Northeast Region had a “spy” at the Great Lakes Region’s annual potlatch in November. Sharon Peck took copious notes and even gave a workshop. The upshot is that they will host a similar event in Sept. of 2012.

The Big News

Barriers have been lifted to forming a new guild (and to keeping a floundering one going).A guild need only have 3 members of the P of A and need only meet once per year.

Focus groups

Anna broke up the attendees into smaller focus groups, with a board member at the helm of each. The task was to do a spot analysis of the organization, to list strengths and weaknesses, threats and opportunities.

Here’s some of what our group came up with:

Strengths:

• Festivals – seeing strong performances, eating together and sharing ideas
• The number of young people in attendance
• The insurance program
• P of A consultants
• The online bookstore and lending library

Weaknesses/threats

• Lack of programming for teachers who attend the festivals.
• The exclusivity of festivals – that they are not open to the public
• The workshops – not many are advanced
• The invisibility of the P of A
• Puppeteers are spread out and isolated by long distances

Opportunities

• Strengthen the smaller organizations (guilds? Regions?) by organizing round robin tours of puppet theaters
• Push for more Day of Puppetry emphasis
• During festivals, have some performances puppeteers-only and some that repeat for the public.
• Puppet slams
• Technology
• Use the Puppetry Journal to provide more how-to and technical info
• Reach out to colleges
• Put something about puppetry into Broadway’s Playbill (in late of all the puppetry in the theater these days)
• Expand the bibliography (bookstore? Lending? Website?) for beginners and advanced

Vargas is interested in input from members. She welcomes you to send your ideas to her at annadpuppet@yahoo.com