BRATTLEBORO, Vt. — Seven new members for its board of directors and the hiring of an interim executive director and an operations director were part of the latest chapter in the saga engulfing the New England Center for Circus Arts and its founders and artistic directors Elsie Smith and Serenity Smith Forchion during the last two weeks.
One of the first steps the board took was to rescinded the termination letters sent to Smith and Smith Forchion, and invite the return of those coaches who resigned in protest recently.
“NECCA’s coaches are central to its mission,” new board president, Elizabeth Wohl said in a press release. “We are so fortunate that their commitment to their students runs so deep. We are also deeply grateful for the service and commitment shown by all past board members. They have built NECCA a building that all of Brattleboro can take pride in.”
Beside Wohl, a local attorney, the board includes Martin Langeveld, former publisher of the Brattleboro Reformer and several other regional newspapers; Lisa Sullivan, entrepreneur and owner of Bartleby’s Books; Solveig Gannon-Kurowski, partner and project manager at LogicBranch Productions; Eileen Marie Sheppard, local artist and small business woman; Dr. Kathleen McGraw, chief medical officer at Brattleboro Memorial Hospital; and Kate Law, circus professional and co-artistic director at Bow & Sparrow. Law and Wohl have formerly served on the NECCA board.
At the same time, the three remaining members of the prior board have resigned. They are Mel Martin, Tracy Prentiss, and Linda Shrier Schiffer. And Executive Director Michael Helmstadter also stepped down on Thursday, roughly a week earlier than he had indicated that he would resign.
The board has hired Jeffrey Lewis to serve as interim executive director and Jamie Hodgson to serve as operations director. Lewis is former executive director of Brattleboro Development Credit Corp. He is the chief executive officer of Apetrop USA, an insurance consulting company based in Brattleboro, and has held senior management positions with Massachusetts Mutual, Phoenix Life, and Monster.com.
Hodgson has been with NECCA for 10 years, serving as program director of its Intensive Program and more recently the ProTrack program before resigning last week in protest. Hodgson is also artistic director of the group “Girls on Trapeze,” which performs and offers workshops throughout the United States.
NECCA’s internal strife became quite public when the board of directors of the New England Center for Circus Arts removed Smith and Smith Forchion as artistic directors. What followed included dissent amongst the board, resignation of 16 coaches and where 20 went on strike earlier this week and an outcry amongst supporters and would-be students of the center, founded in 2007, that offers professional circus training program as well as training for students of all ages and abilities in aerials, acrobatics, juggling and more.
“The challenges that face NECCA have not gone away,” Lewis noted. “However, we believe that we have a team in place that can tackle those challenges methodically. This has always been an organization that depends upon community support, and we need that support now more than ever. Please sign up for classes and lessons. Come visit our new building and see our dreams for the future.”
Material from the Brattleboro Reformer was included in this report.