BWW Leadership Team Meeting Minutes, 11/19/23*

*Approved: 1/14/2024

Key action items bolded and underlined.

Meeting convened at 6: 30 PM

General: Review minutes of 10/08/23 meeting. Minutes approved.

Attendees: Janet Mckeehan-Medina (Co-Chair); Sam Fenner (Managing Director); Dick Matheson (Treasurer); Millie Eidson (Secretary); Jon Fenner (Comms); Gloria Cooksey (Fundraising); Monte Mann (Treasurer-in-training); Katherine Lazarus (Co-Chair); Julie Hay (Board Member): Kathleen Bachus (Conflict of Interest); Suzanne Guess (MSR) 

Increasing Board to 8 Members

• What’s the role of an extra seat? It would be a generic 8^th seat because Dick would like to remain as a Board member while also adding Monte to Board as Treasurer. Bylaws allow Board to appoint additional Board members. Responsibilities? Can’t have two treasurers. Some concern about adding a seat without a defined role. Is generic seat the same as a Board member at-large, which we currently have with generic roles? These are the same.
• Language of bylaws appears to be clear that the Board (group decision) can increase the number of seats, not the decision of a single member.
• Motion: Anonymous poll of Board members. Motion made and seconded: Raise board seats from 7 to 8. Vote: Yes–4; No–3. Now there will be three at-large seats.
• Motion: Nominate Monte as Treasurer. Seconded and passed.
• Motion: Monte is the agent for payment. Seconded and passed. 

MSR (Suzanne)

• On schedule for Dec. release
• Many feedback requests; still need poetry readers, maybe 5 poems in each of 2 submissions; Katie can do it in Dec. and Dick could do one in the next couple of weeks

Funding (Sam)

• Halloween Fundraiser, 30 submissions, earned $500; employee and Ben & Jerry’s both donated $110; generated several new members; winning entry has joined Poetry workshop
•  Donation letter to be sent to membership for Giving Tuesday
• $6000 of free advertising with Google; got ~140 new hits to website

Management (Sam)

• To review videos of meeting, currently we need specific reason and chair approval; now that there is an Ethics Committee and Conflict of Interest (COI) Committee, we should amend that these committees can have access to the recordings; Passed. 
• EventBrite: will put together team to find a new platform; problems: put up links and they disappear; trolls 
• Make website changes:
  • ‘Leadership team’ folder now has agenda, works in progress, and archived meeting minutes
  • ‘About’ folder: DEI statement, place for code of conduct and content advisory, will add section of policies 
• Change wording so those who signup for events have agreed to code of conduct
• Pets for Patriots; would like us to do writeups and interview those who have adopted pets; organization helps match patriots with shelter animals; would like to promote to members through newsletter
• Birthday cards: begin limiting to contributing members and those who signed up for at least one event (900 cards sent previously a year; so this will drop to 200/year which is doable); good for building membership and community; renewal will come up in January
• Annual meeting bios, bylaws, financial records are still up; take down now; automatically take down 2 weeks after
• Program team contacted about several new options; two workshops ended recently

Comms Team (Jon)

• Mailing/physical address changed with post office
• Getting permissions transferred related to Treasurer
• Security updates, including replacement of personal email accounts with BWW email accounts

New Items (Katie) 

• Getting to Know One Another at BWW
  • At the beginning of every Leadership Team meeting, take 10 mins (everyone gets 1 minute) to share a small update on what they’ve been up to (if someone took a vacation or celebrated a birthday) since the last meeting, including where we’re at with our writing (if we’re writing, editing, submitting or even promoting a published book).
  • Perhaps consider for end of meeting because some meetings are long and full with primary business, but could be tired; or log on 15 minutes early to do that if they want to participate—everyone agrees
• When LT and Board votes should be anonymous vs. show of hands—clarify
  • Nothing in bylaws currently
  • Transparency can be valuable, but some sensitive issues perhaps should require anonymous votes, and votes could be driven by seeing how others are voting if using show of hands
  • Should be chairperson discretion
  • Can anonymous votes be shared later? Person releasing the poll’s vote isn’t automatically added in, so has to be added; but can save as a record
• Secretary: Millie would like to step down no later than May meeting from Sec. and Board position
  • Recruit new Secretary, and those currently participating in LT should consider it
  • Main duties: take LT meeting notes, clean them up to make as clear and succinct as possible (not word for word), send to attendees for edits and make edits, send again before next meeting for vote; post final approved minutes on google drive available for website 
  • Jon’s OtterPilot is available to help summarize and help with note-taking

Meeting adjourned at 7:32 PM

Date for next LT meeting: Jan. 14, 2024, 6:30 PM; social intros at 6:15