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CALUMET - Among the agenda items discussed at the regular Theatre Board meeting on Oct. 10, was the annual membership drive and the necessity in starting it this month to help recoup some of the financial shortfall created by the COVID-19 shutdown of the theatre.
Board President Dan Jamison told the board members that he would like them to start leaning into the membership renewal project.
"It will be absolutely needed to get us through the balance of the year in terms of cashflow and funding and the like," he said. "So, if we could, I would like us to get that underway later this week, If possible."
Jamison said the board has normalized all the different levels of membership possibilities.
"There's an associate membership, there's a full membership," he said, adding that the details will be decided in the next week or so by Jay Maki, the executive director.
Jamison said he asks people to email Maki so that they can be added to the email list.
"So, even if you don't want to be a member, you'll get copied on meeting minutes, agendas, zoom meetings for upcoming meetings," he said. "We want the community to know, and to that we need to have their email addresses."
Jamison said that Maki has packed the remaining part of 2022.
"So, come out and catch these events," he said. "You don't need to be a member until 2023. We'd appreciate you signing up early so we know who we're working for but come to all the cool stuff that he has up there, check out our website, get a new copy of the schedule for the interesting stuff."
Jamison said in the coming weeks, video and other content will be added to the website for people
Executive Director Maki said he has been working out changes to the membership policies to simplify them so that renewing members and potential new members have a clearer understanding of the benefits they will receive as members.
The Calumet Theatre is one of the few municipal theaters in the United States. When it was opened in 1900, Calumet was a wealthy village with a population of 4,668 and another 30,000 from the surrounding neighborhoods within walking distance and could afford a theater.
Over the years, the theater's popularity faded, due mostly to the decline of the local economy, increasing popularity of movies, and the decline of the area population. By 1920, the population had dropped to 2,390. The theatre was converted to a motion-picture house in the late 1920s, providing movies into the 1950s, which by then the population had dropped to 1,256.
Today, with a population of approximately 600, the village does not have the funds to maintain and operate the theater. The Calumet Theatre Company was organized in 1983 as a nonprofit, and now relies on theater memberships, donations and grants to keep the building in repair and to continue to provide entertainment to the community.