Organization for Transformative Works – Board of Directors
Minutes of the meeting: 25 September 2022, 19:00 UTC
Present
- Antonius Melisse
- Alex Tischer
- E. Anna Szegedi
- Jess White
- Rebecca Sentance
Guests
- aeremaee
- Alex.
- bjorn
- Brhi
- C-chan
- CannibalDadsona
- capi
- cinnamon
- cirelle
- Claire
- Cloysterband
- condnsdmlk
- coprime
- Cyn
- Dasha
- Dre
- eak_a_mouse
- EchoEkhi
- Eskici
- handdrawnisopach
- Heather M
- herothief
- hookedonthesky
- james_
- JamieVamp
- Ladylark
- Lulu
- lydia-theda
- Marion McG
- Michelle Schroeder
- musika
- Natalia Gruber
- Nrandom
- OakSLbb
- pitytheviolins
- punk
- Ranelle
- satbiym
- SpectralJo
- That’s a Nice One!
- Thunderfox
- whetherwoman
- yachtzee
- Yellow
- yoldine
- ZG
- Zixin
Open Session
Decisions taken since last Meeting
- approved minutes of last meeting
- approved order of new donation thank-you gifts
- approved shipping and new network cards for Systems committee
- approved payment for password management tool
- approved state filing fees
- approved legal statement about Bridgerton musical
- approved Board message to OTW volunteers about hostility and racism in social media discussion of 2022 OTW elections
- ongoing communications/answering questions
Questions:
- A guest asked whether the statement Legal wrote for TechCrunch about the Bridgerton musical is publicly available. While the full statement doesn’t seem to be, the relevant article can be read on “Netflix’s lawsuit against the ‘Bridgerton Musical’ could change online fandom”.
- Another guest asked whether the statement sent to volunteers regarding racism against a candidate in the 2022 OTW Elections was publicly available, and the statement was shared in the meeting
Welcoming and saying goodbye to Directors
Welcome our new Board members, Heather McGuire and Michelle Schroeder and re-welcome Nat Gruber
And thanks to Rebecca Sentance, Kirsten Wright and E. Anna Szegedi for having served on the Board
Election of Officers
- For Treasurer, Finance chair Yuechiang Luo to continue in her role. – unanimously approved
- For Secretary, Alex Tischer – unanimously approved, one abstention
- For President, Kari Dayton – unanimously approved
Approval of Wrangling chair
- Brhi to become Tag Wrangling co-chair – unanimously approved
AOB
Questions:
what is the process for fans to propose projects with the OTW (for example to assist with Open Door’s project to preserve at-risk fanzines)?
Related (?): Is it at all feasible to wonder if Open Doors can do anything in regards to FF.net?
Answered by Open Doors chair Eskici:
regarding helpers for the newly announced fanzine project, we’re currently internally testing the procedures we’ve drafted already and plan to roll them out first to our current volunteers and then to new volunteers whom we hope to recruit in a few months. meanwhile, the FFN mods surfaced on Twitter several days ago and posted a roadmap of their goals for the next few months, so hopefully the site isn’t going anywhere, but we don’t currently have any plans to import it. as Nat said, we can only import sites with the consent of their moderators – the mods haven’t reached out to us, and we’re not proactively doing outreach to mods of archives with >1000 works at the moment due to the backlog our technical volunteers are already working on
Just for the record, will the board consider a change of the candidate qualification policy in light of the recent events involving Tiffany G?
Answered by Elections chair Marion:
Elections has no current plans to make changes to our eligibility criteria. We want our elections to remain as inclusive as possible, and we believe it’s the role of the OTW’s membership to determine who is suitable to serve their interests on the OTW Board of Directors. During our election process, anyone who wants to can ask candidates questions, and this allows our members to make an informed decision when they go to cast their ballots.
Just to clarify, eligibility criteria is set directly by Elections and is not written into the bylaws?
Answered by Elections chair Marion:
I just want to point out that we co-own some of our eligibility criteria with other committees. Elections and the Volunteering & Recruiting Committee are both responsible for the volunteer service requirement and either of us can propose changes. The membership criteria is also co-owned with the Development & Membership Committee. So we often consult with other committees before making changes. And any change would require Board approval.
Closed Session
No items
The meeting was adjourned at 20:16 UTC
Minutes approved by the Board on ’17/10/2022′