Storymakers Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, 7 September 2021
Present:
Shelly Brown — Chair
Crystal Liechty — Chair-Elect
Lindzee Armstrong — Secretary
Lori Parker — Finance Chair
Emily Huey — Whitney Awards President
Rebecca Carlson — Membership Chair
Cassie Cook — Conference Chair
Wendy Jessen — Conference Co-Chair
Cindy Whitney — Communications Chair
Don Carey — SMIAH Conference Chair/At Large Representative
Chelsea Hale – At Large Representative
Absent:
Paige Edwards — At Large Representative
1—OPENING
Shelly started the recording of the meeting. Rebecca made a motion to approve
the minutes from last meeting and Crystal seconded it.
2—CHAIRMAN, Shelly Brown
The lawyer is working on getting the new EIN.
It was clarified that we wanted to work with WordPress for the website so all of
the volunteers would be able to change things as they needed to. Plus that was the
membership app and security app we were already using. A request for conference,
Whitney’s, and guild to let us know what they need on the website so that we can
communicate that to whoever will design it.
Discussed possibly changing the logo and the possibility of a contest. We could
offer a decent prize.
3—CHAIRMAN ELECT, Crystal Liechty
There was a request that the chairman elect help format the new bylaws.
Conference asked if it was possible for the new website to match in colors to
their color choices (even just their portion.)
The Storymakers Ink retreat was cancelled because of Covid and financial
concerns. They are asking the BOD where they fit in everything. Discussion about
possibility of adding Ink president to the BOD but there is no clear conclusion.
4—SECRETARY, Lindzee Armstrong
Lindzee had nothing to discuss.
5—FINANCE CHAIR, Lori Parker
Discussion of who we could hire and how much is reasonable to pay them. Do
we have enough money to do that? Yes.
6—WHITNEY CHAIR, Emily Huey
Emily went over the guild bylaws and description of duties. For hers, there’s a
place in the bylaws where it says they can have up to 7 members, but in the Whitney
bylaws and in the description it says they can have up to 9 members, which is what they
currently have.
They also recently changed some bylaws with new rules, which is all posted.
They’ve been plugging along since June but finally spent some money. At some
point they had their own account, but they don’t anymore. They just need to know who
to go to with the receipts, which aren’t big.
Last year was the Whitneys cheapest year ever because the conference
center gave that room for free. This year, we aren’t sure if the UVCC will charge us for
use of that room. They are negotiating with the conference center.
Last year, they would have had a little bit to give the Whitney committee a
stipend to help with the cost of travel and staying there, but that might not work every
year, so she’s wondering about that for the future. There is the possibility that if there is
money left from their budget they could offer small stipends to their committee.
The question was also asked if the conference could help with upfront costs and
conference said that they would.
7—MEMBERSHIP CHAIR, Rebecca Carlson
Rebecca had nothing to discuss. There was a request to go through the
membership part in the bylaws to confirm they are correct to what is being done
currently and what we would want in future bylaws. Membership said they could do that.
8—CONFERENCE CHAIR & CO-CHAIR, Cassie Cook & Wendy Jessen
The conference committee was formed and every job is filled now. Class
proposals are being taken until Spe 30th. It’s a tight deadline, and we want to make
sure everyone who wants to propose a class has the opportunity to. They explain that
classes will be offered live, online, and both. It’s all on the class proposal form.
The 2023 bill with UVCC came in and is signed and will be sent in.
They know who they want for the mini keynote on Friday and the BOD approved
their selection, though it was understood that was not necessary, just happened
because they liked the selection.
The conference needs to have a better idea of their financial situation before they
can offer the BOD a special discount to the conference. They will get back to the BOD
on that.
9—COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR, Cindy Whitney
Cindy will be staying until they find a new communications person and she would
be happy to train them. The website is updated and not getting attacked. The newsletter
went out and the Facebook spotlights are still happening.
It was requested that Communications stays until the end of the year and post for
a replacement sometime in the next few months. Communications agreed to do so.
10—SMIAH CONFERENCE CHAIR/AT LARGE CHAIR, Don Carey
The conference went well. They had a good crowd, and they did a lot better on
attendance than they worried about. Right until the day of they were getting online
attendee people. Roughly half of the in-person attendees were first-time attendees, so a
lot of the later outreach made a big difference.
They were able to work through some of the tech challenges they had at
Storymakers and it worked significantly better. They learned some audio things from
May that they got inexpensive equipment to fix and it worked much better.
Traci was looking for a different venue for next year. The quality of instruction
was phenomenal.
When they bought the equipment for the hybrid conference, one of the things is
that other conferences will want to use it and we should be able to rent it to them.
ANWA and the Kanab Writers Conference have both approached him about renting it.
He was asked to create a contract for such rental situations and he said he would
work something up.
11—AT LARGE CHAIRS, Paige Edwards
Paige was not present.
12—AT LARGE CHAIRS, Chelsea Hale
Chelsea was looking at the name badges. A long time ago, people who joined
the guild would get a special name badge sent to them. If you buy in bulk, it has to have
the same name on it, otherwise it’s more expensive. The price for one is around $10 for
decent ones. It was discussed that engraving was a big part of the expense and we may
have had connections in the past to someone who could engrave for the guild.
Nametags was something that had been brought up in the feedback from the
anonymous google form. We would need to confirm pricing before committing.
13—MOTION TO ADJOURN
Shelly made a motion to adjourn the meeting, and Don seconded it. Shelly thanked everyone.