Meeting date/time: Friday, May 19, 2023 at 3:30pm Eastern
Attendees: Danielle Baldwin, Ed Beck, Rachel Cherry, Phil Crumm, Kiera Howe, Dash Kees, Reed Piernock, Eric Sembrat
Guests: Jose Debuchy, Joni Halabi
Invited: L. Danielle Baldwin, Ed Beck, Rachel Cherry, Phil Crumm, Dash Kees, Kiera Howe, Reed Piernock, Eric Sembrat
Goals
Roll Call
Approval of Minutes
Old Business
Reports or Presentations
New Business
Private Session
Action Items
Closing
Eric called to order the monthly meeting of the WPCampus Board of Directors at 3:37pm (Eastern) on 21 April 2023, virtually in Zoom.
Rachel, Phil, Kiera, Reed, and Eric were in attendance. Danielle, Dash, and Ed joined at 4pm.
The Board approved the minutes of the April and March meeting.
Review action items from the previous meeting.
Eric reminded the Board of the #board-announce channel in the WPCampus Slack, private to the Board.
Rachel will create action items for updating the Board of Directors documents with the state of Alabama.
The Board will discuss how to amend the bylaws, from proposal to vote, at the next meeting.
Reed will create documents for officers to create a running list of duties and responsibilities that will assist in hand-off at Board officer turnover.
Rachel and Kiera will have a working session for the hand-off of financial duties from Rachel to Kiera (and eventually, the next Treasurer).
Update on the 2023 conference planning progress.
Two months until the next conference!
Anna Cook confirmed her acceptance to be the keynote speaker. The conference committee will announce this shortly.
Registration is lower than usual, at approximately 100 registrants so far.
Conference engagement overall is down, a possible COVID side effect. The planning committee will discuss these challenges and how to increase engagement for the conference.
The committee is still waiting on donations from some of the sponsors. Platform.sh has withdrawn sponsorship.
The after-party planning is nearly complete. There will be a jazz band, with dinner and karaoke.
The full conference schedule is posted.
On-campus housing is approximately half-full. There are not many bookings at the conference hotel.
The site visit at the venue on campus went well, as did Ryan’s tech test. There is adequate equipment for presenting both in-person and online. For online presentations, there will be Zoom-to-YouTube streaming.
Captioners are still to be finalized.
Rachel needs to confirm group signage around the Tulane University campus.
Phil asked if the conference is still in a good position even with withdrawn sponsorship. Rachel confirmed yes, as there is a good cushion, and at worst, the conference will break even.
Danielle asked if the Board or the planning committee is required to communicate with attendees if sponsorship is withdrawn. Rachel confirmed that there is no need if the organization’s sponsorship has not been announced; if it has been, the organization will receive little to no rebate.
Further discuss options for opening meetings to the public.
Phil has a Zoom contact and will try to get information on non-profit offerings.
The Board affirmed its trust of the community if anyone attends public meetings; Ed recommends that the Board should only consider moderating options if there is a need for it.
Danielle reviewed her research for Zoom’s non-profit information. Eric mentioned that he has webinar features if the Board or the organization requires use of it.
Danielle and Phil will coordinate on further research.
Consider how and when to publish meetings’ minutes to the public.
The Board discussed recording meetings; if the Board records any meeting, it would be private to the Board, although the minutes will be made publicly available. There was unanimous agreement on this vote.
Review the Conflict of Interest draft.
Kiera recommends reviewing other organization’s Conflict of Interest policies as inspiration for one for the Board. The Board postponed a vote on this until the June meeting.
Questions included what to include in the Conflict of Interest policy, if it should be financial or personal. If a personal connection is involved in any consideration, that Board member would abstain on decision-making. The Board expressed interest in having the Conflict of Interest policy sound as least legalese as possible.
Closing.
The Board confirmed Friday 16 June 2023 at 3:30pm (Eastern) as the date and time for the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 5:01pm.
This content was originally published here.