Buttonwood Tree Board Of Directors

First, we’d like to thank outgoing Board President John Bell, Secretary Sheila McKinley-Bell, Barry Chernoff, and President Emeritus John Basinger for their years of dedication to The Buttonwood Tree (TBT).

We are sad to see them go and are very grateful for how much of their time and effort they volunteered to keep TBT afloat, especially during the last two difficult years. We held a memorable retirement party for John Basinger on May 10th on the Community Health Center rooftop. It was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate such an extraordinary man, and we’d like to thank all who volunteered to make the event so lovely, especially Anne-Marie, without whom it could not have happened. Thank you to Mark Masselli for allowing us to hold this event at such a special spot.

Next, we’d like to welcome our new Board members! Please join us in congratulating Colleen Hudson, Nanette Fresher, and Kelly Dougherty for being voted to serve on the Board of Directors at our June annual meeting. They each bring a unique set of skills that will help our Board navigate the coming years. Please see our website to learn more about each of them.

The new slate will serve a term of two years, from 2022 - 2024:

Amy Albert, Board President
Ken Burtis, Vice President
Kapil Singh, Treasurer
Colleen Hudson, Secretary

Our new team is motivated, energized, and ready to continue the work of building a sustainable organization. This work includes growing our membership, recruiting new sponsors, and reviewing our programming to ensure that The Buttonwood Tree is a source of high-quality artistic and cultural performing arts that will uplift, inspire, and enrich lives while supporting emerging and established artists.

To that end, we have already begun to use our Network for Good account to manage membership and donation data to increase revenue and better understand our community of supporters. We will continue to explore new features of this software and are anticipating it will streamline and automate processes from now on.

Our first focus is to continue to strengthen our Board of Directors. Board recruitment will continue until we have a full 12 members. Please let us know if you are interested in serving on the Board and your areas of expertise.

Thank you for supporting The Buttonwood Tree, and we hope you’ll enjoy the journey we take together into our next chapter.

The new Board of Directors, back row from left to right are Kelly Dougherty, Nanette Fresher, Ken Burtis, Amy Albert, Colleen Hudson, and Kapil Singh. Seated are outgoing President and Secretary John Bell and Sheila McKinley Bell.