The following post was written by the OTW Board
The OTW Board of Directors had a very productive meeting in Berkeley, California, the first weekend of November. The meeting was a welcome opportunity to finally meet our colleagues in person and to be able to put faces to names. It’s fair to say that we were all surprised and pleased at how much more productive we were when sitting in one room facing each other across a conference table, rather than through a chatroom client.
The full minutes from our two and a half days of meeting sessions is available on the OTW website.
We were also able to meet with other fans at the Meetup of Our Own on the afternoon of Sunday, November 3! The meetup was a welcome chance for Board members to relax after a rather exhausting weekend, and for everyone who attended to hang out, talk fannish things for a while, and eat some delicious cupcakes. Thanks to the generosity of attendees, we even made a net profit in donations to the OTW!
The OTW Board at the Meetup of Our Own. From the top left going clockwise are Cat Meier, Kristen Murphy, Franzeska Dickson, Andrea Horbinski, Nikisha Sanders, Ira Gladkova, and Eylul Dogruel.
All in all, we had a wonderful time meeting with each other in person, and the Board is definitely planning to make some kind of in-person meeting an annual practice—perhaps including chairs or designated representatives from committees, perhaps moving to a different time of the year, almost certainly moving to a different location depending on Board member locations and availabilities. We’ll keep OTW staff, volunteers, and members updated on these plans as they evolve in 2014.
Financial Cost of Board Annual Meeting:
Travel $3069.11
Lodging $1613.64
Per Diem $2481.65
Supplies $27.79
Meetup $193.42
Income $330.00
Travel costs were for flights for five Board members to Berkeley, including the fees for a flight change due to illness for one director. Lodging covered three rooms, each for five nights, for the five of us who flew in. A daily per diem was issued to cover meals and ground transportation as needed, for a total of $300 for each of seven Board members, via prepaid cards, each with a $5.95 activation fee. Also included in the per diem cost was an opening dinner as a group at a local cafe. Supplies included a PayPal Here device, notebooks, and markers.
The costs of the Meetup covered snacks and soft drinks, and the income from the event came to $330, with a net profit of $146.58.