Here at the OTW, things are gearing up for the beginning of the 2012 term! The interwebs are humming with activity and excitement as we get ready to welcome new staff and start the new year’s work.
The end of December and the beginning of January was our official hiatus, during which most of our staffers and volunteers* took a well-earned rest (at least in theory)! This is also the time when our committees dissolve and reform, and our hard-working Volunteers and Recruitment Committee sort through all the lists of people who are ‘Willing to Serve’. This is the main time for taking on new committee staffers, and is an opportunity for people to step up to new roles (or to step down from old ones). Some people are returning to the committees they have served on before, others are getting ready to try something new, and we have a bunch of new folk joining us! \0/
With the new term, we formally welcome our 2012 Board of Directors: Julia Beck, Francesca Coppa, Ira Gladkova, Kristen Murphy, Naomi Novik, Nikisha Sanders and Jenny Scott-Thompson. We’re excited to have another diverse and dedicated Board.
After three years of formal service, Rachel Barenblat and Sheila Lane have become Emeritus Board Members, as have Hele Braunstein and Allison Morris, who stepped down at the end of last term for personal reasons. We thank them all for their hard work on the Board, and we look forward to working with them in other capacities in the future.
One of the first tasks for the new Board was to select committee chairs for the 2012 term. We’re thrilled to say that all those invited to serve as chairs have accepted: we have some folk returning for another term as chairs, and a few new faces too. Now that the committee chairs have been appointed, they have been sent the lists of people who are interested in joining their committees, and will be reviewing those over the next few days. If you’re a new volunteer for a committee — or if you were a staffer last year and wanted to stay on — you should be hearing from us very soon. If you’re volunteering for a non-committee role (such as tag wrangling or coding) you may wait a little longer to hear from the committee who manages that work, as they will need to get up and running.
We’re very grateful to everyone, both past and present, who donates their time and skills to the Organization for Transformative Works. You make the magic happen!
Without further ado, Board officers and committee chairs for the 2012 OTW Term. Welcome — or welcome back — to:
OTW Board
Kristen Murphy, President
Jenny Scott-Thompson, Secretary
Julia Beck, Vice-Secretary
Nikisha Sanders, Treasurer
Francesca Coppa
Ira Gladkova
Naomi Novik
OTW Committee Chairs
Abuse
Franzeska Dickson
Accessibility, Design, & Technology
Amelia and Elz
Communications
Claudia Rebaza and Lucy Pearson
Content Policy
Rebecca Tushnet
Development & Membership
Kristen Murphy
Financial
Nikisha Sanders
Internationalization & Outreach
Andrea Horbinski
Journal
Karen Hellekson
Legal
Rebecca Tushnet
Open Doors
Heather Cook
Support
Matty Lynne
Systems
Sidra and Arrow
Tag Wrangling
Alison Watson and Xparrot
Translation
Agnieszka Siemienska and Julia Beck
Vidding
Francesca Coppa
Volunteers & Recruiting
via_ostiense
Webmasters
blue_meridian
Wiki
aethel
Let’s get ready to move some more fannish mountains!
* Staffers are the awesome folk who serve on committees and thus make a more formal commitment to the org, which involves working on a fairly consistent basis (at least a couple of hours a week). Volunteers are the awesome folk who also work hard to contribute to the org, but on a more informal basis: they don’t usually have to attend meetings, and it’s easier for them to dip in and out and contribute as much or as little time as they wish. We love them all — different roles just suit different people and different tasks.