Burlington Writers Workshop Leadership Team Meeting Minutes, 8/13/23*

*Approved: 9/11/2023

Key action items bolded and underlined.

Meeting convened at 6:33 PM

Attendees: Janet Mckeehan-Medina (Co-Chair), Katie Lazarus (Co-Chair), Dick Matheson (Treasurer), Millie Eidson (Secretary), Sam Fenner (Managing Director), Jon Fenner (Comms Team), Jane Nevins (Fundraising), Ashley Hajimirsadeghi (MSR), Gloria Cooksey (Fundraising team)

General: Review minutes of 5/7/23 and 7/16/23 meetings. Minutes approved.

MSR (Ashley)

• New Co-editor in Chief: Suzanne Guess; Rebecca staying on as consulting editor
• New Managing editor Shalom Kasim
• New issue on Aug. 20
• Move MSR website to same site as BWW website around Aug. 28.

Fundraising (Jane)

• Autumn Fundraiser—Halloween-themed short story writing contest (refine theme more?)
  • Hotel Vermont door entry fee: $5? (suggested by hotel) but could discourage participants; instead have a donation box and raffle tickets near entrance
  • Submission fee when story submitted online: $5
  • 3-5 pages long (change to 500 word limit to be more specific)
  • Remote submissions
  • Reviewed by committee to choose 1st, 2nd, 3rd place; 25%, 15%, 10% of submission fees (respectively) will be the prizes; Announced after reading, at end of night
  • Microphone at event for top 10 to read their short stories (those attending remotely could have someone in person read for them)
  • Raffle with $2-3 per ticket; 50/50 between winner and BWW
  • 9 people are signed up as readers for BWW short story contests. Will postpone this contest in favor of fundraising one. 7 of the readers have agreed to do micro-story fundraiser, instead. So readers are already in place for fundraising contest.
  • Finalize these details and send out announcement
• Send out thank you letters to those donating at the end of Jan. to give acknowledgement for IRS purposes of their donations in previous year; required for donations of $250 or more with statement that no gifts or services were provided in exchange for funds
• Send funding request by end of year to broad BWW member community; tie it in with Giving Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
• Need funding manager (had one for a short time); someone with experience
  • Find an additional member; then see which person could probably take on that additional role
  • Jane can stay as Chair of Fundraising Team
  • Jane can help coordinate and communicate with Programs Team; but she’s not a member of it
  • Jon handles IT
  • Gloria contributes through writing proposals
  • Develop the reasons why BWW is fundraising to use in the campaigns.

Conflict of Interest Committee (Sam)

• Two items proposed by committee for vote: Both items passed.
  • Defines who may give Master Classes and Retreats (edited to change “Program’s” to “Program”)
  • Clarifies who can submit reviews of books and have announcements of published books.
• Finish process: signing conflict of interest agreements.

BWW Books (Sam)

• 135 books with sticker dropped off to Hotel Vermont.
• At least one person clicked on QR code after one week.
• Free little libraries: do the same, but different with QR code to track.
• WooCommerce bookstore platform: sell CLA and MSR copies
  • 2015 editions: some available for sale and some for donation
  • Later editions all for sale
  • Consider package: Possible examples—giving 2015 if someone’s total purchase exceeds a certain size, or 10 books for price of 7
  • Promote sale in Oct./Nov.
  • 2023 – $12 regular price; promote the reduced prices below for earlier years as discounts/sale prices
  • 2022 – $8
  • 2021 – 2013 – $4 (each)
  • MSR #2 and #3 – $4 each (no current print ones, only ebooks)
  • Add to announcements the tables of contents with titles and author names—might inspire someone to buy
  • Shipping $3.92 charged to purchaser; if having to pay shipping as a separate cost, could consider absorbing into a higher price (which may also discourage purchases)

Ethics Committee (Janet, Sam)

• Developed draft code of conduct based on other writing group
• Language about “Ethics Committee has right to skip step 3 (instead of skip to step 3)”: Sam will look at it and clarify.
• The trained committee members will do initial review of complaints/concerns and report/consult with LT about all of them without names.
• Appeals will be reviewed by the “Board” in Executive Session (make this amendment, not the LT)
• Must send an email in 14 days to ? (Clarify if this is Katie, if she’s in agreement; or Sam as backup).
• 5th bullet under Participation section: change “host” to “hosts”
• Where will this be posted? Put a brief summary or question under FAQ, then a link to the longer document, with a link to complete the form for complaints/concerns.
• How do we expect that everyone has read it? Announced in a note to membership at large.
• Include as checkoff on member registration page? Could be nuisance barrier to signup. Decided to provide a link for awareness. If someone disagrees with code of conduct, then they’re not a fit for BWW.
• Send note to hosts asking them to make workshops members aware of code of conduct.
• For each LT meeting, provide an update on complaints/concerns to LT (without names to keep confidentiality).
  • Issue: strides were made to fix what was upsetting.
  • Issue: made anonymous report to make BWW aware but no complaint.
  • Issue: under current review by Ethics Committee.
• Create specific area on webpage for all the reference articles related to the code of conduct.
• Proposing BWW address at Staples (Janet, Jon)
• Virtual Mailing Address Plans and Pricing from $9.99/month (ipostal1.com)
• Have four people on account and they are emailed about what comes in
• Can use as physical address; closest one is South Burlington (Main St. at I-89)
• Reduces risk from business standpoint, in case of sudden turnover of Treasurer; makes it easier to update central address in multiple places
• Cost: $10/month ($99/year), but there are extra costs if don’t pick up mail monthly, need mail scanned, etc.
• CLA purchases were a surge of checks above normal, which is normally low.
• US Post Office doesn’t allow a physical address.
• Could do test run for a couple of months.
• Even if Treasurer didn’t pick up mail, consolidating and sending unpicked up mail may be a small extra cost.
• Finance Committee person should back up the Treasurer with pickups, so they can process any checks and record them. Probably 20 checks by mail in last 12 months.
• A much greater risk is how dependent BWW is on Sam, Jon, and Dick, and if something should suddenly happen and they weren’t with us any more, BWW would be floundering for many months. Building active, trained redundancy in each of their positions should be a very high priority.
• Jon will work up possible budget proposal and team will identify who on Finance Committee could be Dick’s backup.
• Dick will find out from bank who can make what kind of deposits and how, and about dual-signatures for writing checks.
• Other ethics/security issues to be resolved related to financial functions
  • Need additional members of finance committee to provide more separation and oversight of financial tasks: same person shouldn’t be able to initiate, approve, pay, report, and balance; schedule a time to discuss more fully, including checks and balancees.
  • Dick will send Jon monthly bank statement and record-keeping that goes into bookkeeping spreadsheet, so there’s a backup set of eyes.
  • For transition planning, will need to identify someone to take over as Treasurer. A CPA/bookkeeper/accountant would be an excellent replacement even if they come from outside of BWW.
  • However, BWW already has a paid outside CPA bookkeeper. He gets all statements monthly and bookkeeping spreadsheet monthly. He’s working as a bookkeeper, not functioning as an accountant, although he’d likely report any problems he might see.
  • Continue discussion by adding to next month’s agenda.

Adjourned:    Date for next LT meeting: September 11, 2023 at 7:00 PM