Members:
Crystal Liechty — Chair
Jaime Theler –Chair-Elect, Guild Committee President
Lindzee Armstrong–Co-Chair Chair to the Guild
Loralee Evans – Secretary
Lori Parker – Finance Chair
Cindy Bennett–Finance Co-Chair
Rebecca Carlson — Membership Chair
Wendy Jessen — Conference Chair
Jessica Kendall — Conference Co-Chair
*T.J. Bronley–Conference Finance*
Annette Lyon — Communications Chair
*Jessica Thompson–Assistant to the Communications Chair*
Traci Abramson — SMIAH Conference Chair
Jerry Borrowman–At Large Representative
Jennie Bennett–At Large Representative
Taryn Skipper — Whitney Awards President
*Non-voting members
Absent:
Lori Parker
Rebecca Carlson
Tracy Abramson
Jennie Bennett
Jessica Thompson
1—OPENING
Chair motions to approve the minutes, At Large Rep. seconds. Minutes are approved.
2—CHAIRMAN & CHAIRMAN ELECT, Crystal Liechty & Jamie Theler
Chairman elect would like to talk about the new words written recognition program. We need to clarify who is in charge of posting. If it is coming from the BOD, Communications Chair would post. But if it’s for the Guild, then the At Larges should be in charge of posting. It is agreed that it makes sense that the At Large members of the BOD should post for the Guild.
3—SECRETARY, Loralee Evans
Nothing new to report.
4—FINANCE CHAIR, Cindy Bennett and Lori Parker
The Finance Chair says we don’t have a lot of money in the checking after SMIAH. We need to make sure there’s money available before we start to spend it. We need to have a full year’s worth of buffer. There has to be money built up for monthly bills, emergencies, etc.
We’re increasing the price of the conference this year. The keynote will not be as expensive this year as it was last year. We’re doing everything this year to keep costs in the green.
We need to be careful this year. The Conference Finance assistant did put in as much cushion as we could to protect the budget for the conference.
We are going to use a mail service instead of a P.O. Box, and it will be less expensive.
5—WHITNEY CHAIR, Taryn Skipper
Whitney Chair asked about her committee getting honorariums, so the Conference Finance assistant will need to send them W9s. The Whitney Chair asked if the budgets need to be proposed and voted on, and by who.
Taryn needs to send it to the two chairs, secretary, and treasurer.
6—MEMBERSHIP CHAIR, Rebecca Carlson
Rebecca is absent.
7—CONFERENCE CHAIR & CO-CHAIR, Wendy Jessen, Jessica Kendall
We need to get the Storymakers Conference funds transferred into the checking account so the Conference Finance assistant can pay bills as they come up.
We also need to find the best, most efficient way to send money electronically. We have one agent who can’t float the cost of a plane ticket all the way until reimbursements in May and can’t be paid by check. I don’t know if a bank transfer would be best or possibly reestablishing a Paypal account for one-off situations like this or going with some other service.
Things are going well. Registration opens January 20th.
The cost of the conference will be going up to reflect inflation. We’ve raised both the in person registration and virtual registration.
8—COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR, Annette Lyon, Jessica Thompson
Did Storymakers decide to partner with SMIAH? We did decide to do the registration for SMIAH through the same platform that Storymakers uses.
The Chair for SMIAH is trying to get registration set up for next year for SMIAH. We’ll put SMIAH in touch with the CVent reps for the same platform that is connected to ours.
Communications Chair will remind SMIAH Chair that we need to discuss whether we’re bringing SMIAH under our umbrella. Now that we are non-profit, we would need to bring them under our umbrella if we’re helping them financial.
Legally, we need a physical address, so currently, it is the Finance Co-chair’s address.
People have asked about Kindle Vella. Would that be a good Storymaker University class? We haven’t done a Storymaker’s U for a long time. Annette does have the go ahead to arrange something for Storymaker’s U.
Annette needs information from Cindy for the Newsletter.
9—SMIAH CONFERENCE CHAIR, Traci Abramson
Not present.
10—AT LARGE CHAIR, Jerry Borrowman, Jennie Bennett
Nothing new to add.
11—MOTION TO ADJOURN
It is motioned to adjourn the meeting, and seconded