Burlington Writers Workshop Leadership Team Meeting, 7/10/22 (approved 8/14/22)

(Specific to-do items underlined and bolded.)

Attendance: Janet Mckeehan-Medina and Katherine Lazarus (Co-Chairs), Dick Matheson (Treasurer), Millie Eidson (Secretary), Sam Fenner (Managing Director), Jon Fenner (IT Support), Jane Nevins, Rebecca O’Bern (Ex-Officio, MSR)

Meeting begun at 6:04 pm.

Review and approve minutes from the June meeting. Approved.

MSR (Rebecca)

• New issue #62 came out June 20, screenshared
• Poetry still popular, quality maintained of writing, art work quality improving
• Manuscript reviews: closed end of June
• Got 5 full length submissions, more anticipated in fall
• Wanted to do open house to orient LT on MSR, schedule in fall when less busy

Financial (Dick)

• Zoom vs Meet for hosts:
  • Elizabeth needed Zoom for paid class but didn’t have one available
  • Bought one more Zoom Pro license for her (now have three total); can transfer it to Diane for her workshop when Elizabeth done
  • Motion: Reimburse Riki for her prior purchase of an annual and Nancy K for her payments for monthly Zoom pro licenses the use for hosting workshops, plus purchase new annual licensed for Nancy: Approved
  • If purchase five more licenses, can get one free, prorated to end of current licenses, but that many not currently needed
  • Songwriting, Writingscapes, Romance/Element of Eloquence, Read like a Writer and Writing with Spirit are the current workshops for which BWW has paid for Zoom licenses
• Do we need an extra Zoom we can make available for MCs and Paid Host Classes?
  • Songwriting host will hold off on providing a link to participants until 2-3 days before Songwriting workshop; so BWW can use that  license for other needs
• Google meet:
  • Millie revised guidelines to help her understand them, and will try them with Romance
  • Share them and train new workshop hosts like Short Story including on EventBrite
• Some confusion of participants by saving old links and asking for passwords
• Training for Board / LT members
  • Make sure they are familiar with bylaws and state responsibilities: Dick will send to Sam for distribution to LT
• Retreat proposed for Nancy Kilgore’s workshop
  • Would require BWW using its million dollar insurance policy to name venue as Additional Insured for Day of Retreat
  • Proposed that it would follow paid classes rule of 50/50, splitting net income 3 ways by having Janet join as cohost
  • Proposed that it would use both BWW and Nancy’s mailing list for invitations
  • $75/person; 24 people max
  • But current bylaws (section 1.3) and IRS approval of nonprofits prohibit inurement as well as private benefit
• Attorney reviewed issues about paying MSR reviewers, paid classes, splitting income, and retreat proposal; the proposed Retreat would seem to violate IRS guidelines
• BWW should not and does not approve the Retreat as proposed, will not provide insurance, and the Retreat may not use BWW’s member mailing list to promote the Retreat.
  • Concern about private benefit including access to mailing list by some individuals
  • Attorney sent new template that includes IRS checks on Conflict of Interest Policy; Dick will develop draft to share with LT for review
  • Have procedure so disinterested people can make judgment if it’s in best interest of BWW and doesn’t provide unusual private benefit
  • Having current and recent Board co-presidents be beneficiaries is the worst possible case
  • We pay $535 for the annual premium for our business owner’s policy that provides requisite coverage
  • For specific short events like 48 hours, we could add extra coverage at a cost of $350. But policies would have to be developed in general for events in the future, not for a specific event.
  • BWW policy doesn’t allow us to advertise or share information on paid events that aren’t BWW sponsored.
  • Those wanting to do the retreat can only implement if they find their own insurance for the venue and advertise it themselves, not through BWW or using their contact lists
  • Would it be worth changing to B corp to allow more freedom than that allowed by nonprofit? Too many negatives and challenges
  • Others have also expressed interest in holding retreats, so this is a general issue of interest
  • Also address the remuneration for a member offering a paid class if it’s out of proportion for amount paid to outside guests
  • Elizabeth’s paid class for Wed. can go forward. 19 people registered at $10/each: $190 income; her portion will be $95. We pay masterclass presenters $125 so this should be considered in alignment (not a special benefit to a BWW member).
  • As soon as we have a Conflict of Interest policy in place, we should evaluate the guidelines for Paid Classes by Hosts or other BWW members

Grant Funding Research Group Idea (Jane)

• Start a group to look at fundraising and grant applications
• Fundraising can include in-house (members) and others
• Writing grants that BWW could apply for
• Define needs
  • Funding for specific interests, like a poetry manuscript
• Make sure grant is to BWW and not one person or group of members
  • Could share info about grant opportunities with members and they could apply themselves, if BWW doesn’t want to apply
• Vermont Arts Council is one possibility
• Also focus on bringing in new members
• Jon has volunteereed to assist
• BCA grant: received final payment of the total $1500 thanks to Jane and Katie for final report
• Jane will send email to determine interest in this committee
• Lots of ideas including raffles, Dick is familiar with what’s been done in the past

Contributing Members

• What webpages do we want to start with?
  • Jon could train others to help post and edit
  • Can start with Word document of links and short descriptions of them
  • Add slowly to notify CM about new material: drip campaign
  • Separate section under Members for Contributing Members, and only those would be able to see it (don’t need separate password)
  • Recommend variety of different resource links to increase interest; different niches
  • Could add possibility for rating the links on their value to members
  • Could consider blogs or podcasts as ways to bring people into these discussions, but require work and uncertain about yield
  • Millie will pick one topic and send it in as the proof of concept to Jon, Sam and cochairs
• Donations: $6/month; $72/year: members will get immediately access with 3 month minimum commitment
  • Include specific benefits, including resources and master class discounts
• Bigger goal: donation of time to increase connection; require 3 months of contribution
  • Have job board on what’s needed and the amount of time required
  • Library sale at book festival is a good example
  • Jon will research way to do this
  • Challenging to supervise and train volunteers so they feel effective and are effective
  • Still need help with WordPress as an example volunteer job, and some financial tasks
  • When meeting in person, had paper form they would fill out to express interest in committees; currently using a survey to new members
  • Recruit someone with teaching experience on subjects of interest from survey
  • Currently have videos from master classes as a CM benefit
  • List the discounts to master classes
  • Quarterly: Sam, Dick, and Millie review list of CM; computer will allow faster enabling for financial donation members
  • For requirement of three months of contributory service, could make exceptions if huge contribution under shorter period
  • Mention once a month highlights of what those who aren’t CM are missing
• Need policies in place to notify the CMs that they qualify and what they qualify for
  • Send out animated card to CMs to let them know; could email them if they haven’t picked up the card; ask for permission to put their name on website and newsletter or anonymous
• Make sure that discount is listed for master class
• Sam will summarize list of CM benefits and sent to LT for final input
• Jon will work on where to put CM enrollment.

Management Update (Sam)

• New workshop survey results shared before meeting and during meeting through share screen
• New Short Story workshop (including microfiction) every 1^st and 3rd Monday afternoon 1-3 pm starting Aug. 1; Sam will assist in getting it set up and promoted
• Need a plan to find hosts, and maybe it would be short-term commitments
• Millie will follow-up on possible host for an additional poetry workshop because there was a lot of interest
• Sam will send out information to current hosts and membership in general about need for and methods for becoming new hosts
• Some contacts in the survey were interested in providing paid masterclasses
• Put narrower list on job board, like four items
• Consider other sites for sharing info about which hosts we’re looking for
• Poetry Path is going and getting good feedback; map is on webpage

Comms Update (Jon)

• Hosting site expiring end of August, payment being worked out for new site: changing from AWS to HostGator Cloud Base
• To streamline, MSR is moving off their current paid HostGator Sharing platform to HostGator Cloud base

Adjourned 8:06 pm. Next LT meeting: Aug 14, 6-8 PM