6/23/24 Leadership Team Meeting Minutes
*approved: (7/14/24)
Key action items bolded and underlined.
Meeting convened: 6:38 pm
Attendance: Samantha Fenner (Exe. Dir.); Janet McKeehan-Medina (Chair); Fabian Aruquipa (Secretary); Jane Nevins (Board); Julie Hay (Board).Suzanne Guess, Monte Mann and Jon Fenner will be absent from this meeting due to reasons duly communicated in advance.Â
Convened: June 23rd, 7:00pm
- Review and approve minutes from last meeting – Janet: minutes from last LT meeting were shared; no comments were made; the minutes are accepted as they are unanimously.
- MSR Update – Read by Samanta in light of Suzanne’s being absent: the senior and copy editor positions for MSR have been successfully filled; two non-fiction readers have been added also; MSR is looking for a poetry reader; MSR is looking for a social media manager as well; Katie is looking at social media manager for BWW and helping Jon with email campaigns ; This bimonthly issue was late due to staff absence. The last one was due to internet connection issues because of storms; this is the last bimonthly publication; when submissions are open again on July 1st, the next issue will be on September 20th; more slots for Submittable have been acquired in order for participants not to pay for submitting;
- Calendar of Events – Samantha: Scheduling of activities: lots of activities take place in March and April, making notification hard. A proposal is made to move events around so each event has more focus and elicits more interest, in order for activities not to concentrate in Spring only; poetry path is ok in April as April is poetry month; Green Mount Book Festival will take place in April; the BWW annual meeting also takes place in April; etc.; the proposal is made to move annual meeting forward; Monte is getting the budget ready towards this proposal; if implemented, this change could be effective as of March 2025; three and a half months available for CLA submissions is too long; the proposal is made to make it shorter; adding more volunteers is needed; they are always necessary; Submission could be sent weekly to CLA readers .
- Executive Director Report – Sam: Program Team update: Ryan Mangan’s master class was completed on June 10; five people bought tickets; he was happy and excited; the audience was small but allowed a connection with people; small groups are ok sometimes for Master Classes as they help reach our members; another master class is being planned with Nancy Stone on self-care / art / haiku; Janet will look at the proposal this week; it may be held in the Fall; Rebecca Wallick joined the programs team for retreats; David Sokol has also joined programs team; author pages on the BWW website are proposed; Rebecca will volunteer to do that; Poetry path: the BWW has been invited back to Interbell center; 35 authors sent 64 poems; this is a big increase over last year; CLA update: the book lunch will be held next Sunday; it will be a hybrid event; 120 books have been sold; 156 have been ordered; event starts at 6:30 EST; Volunteers: more volunteers are always welcome and necessary; Member comments: Nancy Kilgore, facilitator of writing with spirit workshop, congratulates the work done so far; she was a previous chair; Debbie Costello checked the website and congratulated it; it’s user friendly and organized; Next Steps: Finish role documentation for task leaders;; we need something to replace Eventbrite; Eventbrite is causing trouble for attendees; Samantha is looking for help to find this alternative platform; Janet and Sam need to update code of conduct and policy page on the website; July Hay will help.
- Next LT meeting: July 14th at 19:00, with coffee break at 18:45
The LT Meeting was adjourned at 19:30
