Burlington Writers Workshop 02/12/23 Leadership Team Meeting Minutes

approved 03-12-23

To-do commitments are bolded and underlined.

Attendance: Janet Mckeehan-Medina (Co-Chair), Katie Lazarus (Co-Chair), Dick Matheson (Treasurer), Millie Eidson (Secretary), Sam Fenner (Managing Director), Jon Fenner (Comms Team), Skip Keith (member), Jane Nevins (Fundraising), Julie Hay, Sunayna Pal, Margo Mertz (Comms Team)

Meeting convened at 6:30 p.m.

• Minutes from the previous meeting approved.

Admin (Sam)

• Zoom licenses:
  • Coming up Feb. 25—will switch to retail price if we don’t renew and pay for current ones, 5 workshops asked for a license
  • can add additional ones later if necessary
• COI recommendation approvals
  • Postponed for next meeting
• 2 new workshops starting in both March and April, another in May
  • Haiku ended, but morphed into Haiku writing group
  • Poetry prompt workshop postponed but several others in planning process

Funding Group Update (Jane)

• met Jan. 29, thank you letters went out
• appeal letters planned
• potential grants for Zoom licenses and replacing EventBrite

Communications (Jon)

• Website – problems with Host Gator giving errors when logging in
  • Already paid for 3 year contract (cheap–$3/month, but problematic)
  • Consider new host like AWS (potentially $30/month)
• Web usage
  • 1,067 unique website visitors (80%) from U.S., (doesn’t include meetings)
  • Most new members coming directly to website, closely followed by use of search engines; a few through referrals, social media, or emails
  • Put together targeted outreach to new members to get more information
  • Texas is leading state currently, even more than Vermont
  • 2022: 33 CMs who are donors; 2023: 51 donors (thru 2/12)
  • 2022: 591 unique attendees through EventBrite; 2023: 208 unique attendees (thru 2/12) 
  • 807 current members: 17% VT; 58% US; 25% outside US
  • Proposed data breakdowns: Separate out LT attendees, hosts and volunteers vs. participants
  • Given the interest outside of VT, may need to consider other time zones in planning workshops

MSR Update (Janet)

• Feedback requests and manuscript reviews open
• New issue coming up
• Looking for a new managing editor to run website

BWW Visioning (Dick)

• Goal ladder and example reviewed: self-directed, like getting a degree
  • Could help us learn what members need; keep them coming to BWW rather than elsewhere
  • Help them reach their unique goals, although goals could change over time
  • Challenging to put in place—what workshops are available, how will they progress if we don’t have workshops they want;
  • Do we need a leader to coordinate so people are in agreement before starting?
  • Start off with panel discussion to gauge interest; perhaps have an ongoing workshop where participants talk about steps to reach goal
  • Could help focus website changes and future focus group questions
  • Start with 3 goals/paths (e.g., to publishing, writing a memoir, getting started from wanting to write to writing); could be better than starting with a lot of unique paths
  • Allow self-administered program and BWW doesn’t have to respond to all the requests, but could use the requests (if numerous similar ones come in) to search for new hosts
  • It’s not an individual path that BWW would service, but instead provide a tool and BWW may have offerings that fill in some of the pieces (members will need to search out when and how to fulfill the goals)
  • Include info that majority of classes are for all levels of writing experience, to reduce intimidation
  • Committee could bog things down, so just offer the template on website and arrange a kickoff meeting for those who’d like to do it
  • Narrow down to show paths to reach certain goals, based on workshops we currently have
  • Julie at end of March/April can help in planning some of the website updates to assist in addressing the issues

Calendar Switch (Sam and Sunayna)

• Click on class, multiple steps to signup through EventBrite
• Change: go from calendar directly into EventBrite (less clicks) but skips membership step
• For security reasons, workshop hosts can’t look up whether someone is a member
• Will look at other technical solutions

Plan format, Agenda, required notice for Annual Meeting (Dick)

• May 21 is placeholder on EventBrite; confirmed for 6:30 pm
• Notify members 8 weeks before (March 26) about nominations and agenda items
• Sam will send out save-the-date notice
• 3 board seats open: Dick, Millie, and Julie are running for board seats again; send bios to Sam

Adjourned 7:37 pm