ORGANIZATION FOR TRANSFORMATIVE WORKS
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
MINUTES OF THE REGULAR MEETING
27 July 2013, 19:00 UTC
PRESENT: Andrea Horbinski, Eylul Dogruel, Kristen Murphy (non-quorate)
GUESTS: Curtis Jefferson, Lady Oscar
ABSENT: Franzeska Dickson, Ira Gladkova, Cat Meier, Nikisha Sanders
DECISIONS TAKEN SINCE THE LAST MEETING
None.
OPEN SESSION
1. Finance update (see chart below). sanders reported via e-mail that she has received the ordering info for the server in Phase 1 (see minutes of 20 July) and will be dealing with that between now and Monday.
| 20-Jul | 27-Jul | ||
| BoA | 135121.60 | 135080.70 | (40.90) |
| PayPal | 12034.00 | 12305.58 | 271.58 |
| CD | 10100.22 | 10103.54 | 3.32 |
| Total | 157255.82 | 157489.82 | 234.00 |
2. Update from Volunteers & Recruiting:
a) We’ve recently finished inducting the applicants for the latest round of targeted Tag Wrangling recruiting. We inducted 40+ new wranglers to the volunteer pool this round; staff and volunteers may see them around in Public Discussion and Water Cooler as they start their training. Feel free to say hello and introduce yourself!
b) We’re continuing the policy of opening three roles at the beginning of each week. If chairs or leads have questions about the process or requirements, please e-mail us and we’d be happy to assist in any way we can.
3. Update from Tag Wrangling: There are many new wranglers, and many of the ones from the last round of recruiting have stuck around, so the pool is getting pretty healthily sized.
4. Update from Strategic Planning: Strategic Planning is interviewing Support and is currently thinking they will be able to complete their mission by the end of this term if they continue on their current pace. They’re beginning to think about long-term planning for future cycles.
5. Update from Internationalization & Outreach: I&O finally completed interviews and is preparing to add four new staffers, who should be coming up for Board approval shortly.
6. Update from Journal: Karen and Kristina’s fan studies reader is on track for an early 2014 release from University of Iowa Press. Karen is negotiating with the press in an attempt to get the intro and section headnotes into the public domain. Royalties for the book will go to the OTW, which paid for the article reprint fees.
7. Update from Development & Membership: DevMem has started working on the October drive. We’ve been discussing dates and themes and figuring out what premiums to offer. We’re also creating a training plan, which is a necessary step toward recruiting additional members, and doing some other assorted documentation work. Also, Heidi sent a report about the Comic-Con event which Kristen forwarded to the Board.
8. Update from Systems: Systems has been working on planning updates for our underlying server structure. They have recently completed a proposal, of which Phase 1 was approved by the Board last week.
9. Update from Elections: Eylul has met with the Web staffers who will be working on rebuilding the elections website. Anyone who wants to help out with elections (betaing posts, etc.) should contact Eylul. There is a very early draft of the timeline up in the Election Workgroup section of Basecamp.
10. Discussion of a suggestion that the length of service requirement for Board candidacy be reduced to six months. (The requirement was originally one year; it was later changed to include staffers who had been inducted at the beginning of the term in which the election was being held, which in practice meant 9-10 months of service.) The reduction was suggested because since recruitment was closed for part of last year, there have not been many fresh additions to the list of staffers who qualify for candidacy. It was pointed out that even if the current service requirement is maintained, we will still need to reword the eligibility requirements to account for the fact that recruitment is now year-round rather than term-based. The Board members in attendance decided to create a writeboard to solicit staff opinions on the issue of whether or not to reduce the service requirement. The deadline for comments will be August 9 so that the Board can vote at the August 10 meeting.
11. Discussion of potential dates for the August org-wide meeting. It will be a question-and-answer session about elections and Board service.
12. A staff member suggested that it would be useful to do some “day in the life of a Board member” posts, similar to the Board posts from 2012
and the “Day in the Life of a Support Staffer” post from 2011. The Board members in attendance thought this was a good idea.
CLOSED SESSION
1. Discussion of plans for the in-person Board retreat.
2. Discussion of a confidential staffing issue.
3. Suggestion: Perhaps we should talk to Volunteers & Recruiting about outlining some kind of “chair expectations” document that we would ask new chairs to read and sign — just something like “I will keep in touch with Board, I will proactively notify Board if I think I will be unable to fulfill my duties, I agree that there will be certain consequences if I do not fulfill these expectations.” Some committees have written these types of expectations into their job descriptions.
4. Brainstorming about what to include in the Board’s report for the next internal newsletter.
The meeting was adjourned at 21:00 UTC.
Minutes approved by the Board on 12 October 2013.