Storymakers Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, 1 June 2021
Present:
Chelsea Hale — Chair
Shelly Brown — Chair-Elect
Lindzee Armstrong — Secretary
Lori Parker — Finance Chair
Kara Reynolds — Outgoing Whitney Awards President
Emily Huey – Incoming Whitney Awards President
Rebecca Carlson — Membership Chair
Melanie Jacobson — Outgoing Conference Chair
Cassie Cook — Incoming Conference Chair
Wendy Jessen – Incoming Conference Co-Chair
Cindy Whitney — Communications Chair
Don Carey — SMIAH Conference Chair/At Large Representative
Paige Edwards — At Large Representative
Absent:
1—OPENING
Chelsea asked for a motion to approve the meetings from the April meeting. Lori
made a motion to approve the minutes from last meeting, and Rebecca seconded it.
2—CHAIRMAN, Chelsea Hale
Chelsea formally thanked Melanie and Kara for all of their work this year. What
an unprecedented year with all the new and different crazy from any other year. Huge
kudos and thanks for all of that.
3—CHAIRMAN ELECT, Shelly Brown
Nothing to report.
4—SECRETARY, Lindzee Armstrong
Nothing to report.
5—FINANCE CHAIR, Lori Parker
There are a lot of outstanding checks from the conference so that number is
probably false, which is why an exact amount wasn’t given. July’s numbers will be much
more accurate.
6—WHITNEY CHAIR, Kara Reynolds
The Whitneys are in the process of transitioning from Kara’s committee to Emily’s
committee. The official turnover date is June 15th. They’re wrapping up loose ends.
There is one big change coming to the Whitneys. The BOD doesn’t have to
approve them, but does have to be notified.
In the finalist round, the academy round, you get to read 5 books for a category.
In the first round of judging, you read all the books that are nominated for your category.
In some categories, that’s 10-15 books, 20 at the most. For the romance and historical
romance, it’s between 40-50 books, and has been for a couple of years.
The Whitney committee came up with a lot of ideas as solutions to ease this
burden. What they settled on was a rule that limits the authors’ entries to one book per
category per author. Kara went back over the two years of data she has access to, and
when they do that, the romance categories go from 40-50 books, to 20-30, which looks
a lot more like the other categories. The other categories are hardly affected at all, and
have maybe a 1-2 book drop-off.
They are going to keep track of the feedback from the judges on this, as well as
the feedback she receives from authors this year. There is an FAQ page on the website
that will explain this change as well.
This will go public on their website very soon, and then the authors will be
informed on June 15th when they get their “you’ve got your 5 nominations email.”
The opinion was stated that it sounds like a great way to go forward and fair way
to handle it. Questions were brought up; does it mean one per pen name, or one per
author? A pen name counts as an author, because most don’t write under their name
and pen name under the same category. Collaborative books, they can have one
collaborative book and one solo title.
Does this affect any books that have previously been nominated for this year,
since it began on Nov 1? Hopefully that clarifies things so if people come to the BOD
with concerns, they can allay it a bit.
7—MEMBERSHIP CHAIR, Rebecca Carlson
We are up to 314 active members. Had a good batch come in after Storymakers,
and they are all added to the Facebook group and emailed to the Whitney awards. It will
be double-checked after the meeting to make sure.
8—CONFERENCE CHAIR, Melanie Jacobson
Cassie is more able to report on numbers, but overall Melanie feels really good
about how the conference came out. Cassie and Wendy can decide what role they want
technology to take next year.
A lot of BIPOC attendees and other marginalizations felt it was a completely
different and positive experience this year. They felt very happy and very connected.
Financially, we stayed in the black.
They’ve been taking applications, and when last checked they were at 86
applicants. It’s been great to look through them and see how much talent and energy
people have to offer. She’s really excited to put the committee together. Applications will
close on the 21st of this month, and once that closes they’ll take a week or two to finalize
the committee and get it all put together.
Chelsea officially welcomed Wendy Jessen, the incoming co-chair.
9—COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR, Cindy Whitney
The newsletter will be going out soon. Cindy reminded everyone to send her an
email or message if someone wants something included.
10—SMIAH CONFERENCE CHAIR/AT LARGE CHAIR, Don Carey
We learned lots from the tech this conference. They had a retrospective to go
through of what they did well with the tech and where they can make improvements.
They have an opportunity with the Midwest conference in August to try out some of
those changes.
They are in the full press of advertising the SMIAH conference. They’re focusing
both on the local Kansas City community as well as the Storymakers community. There
is a focus on advertising to the local community.
11—AT LARGE CHAIRS, Paige Edwards
Nothing to report.
12—MOTION TO ADJOURN
Chelsea made a motion to adjourn the meeting. Lori seconded the motion. Chelsea said our next meeting will the 6th of July.