Members:
Jaime Theler –Chair
Ranee S. Clark – Chair Elect
Loralee Evans – Out-going Secretary
Cindy Bennett–Finance Chair
*Jessica Thompson–Assistant to the Finance Chair
Karen Hoover — Membership Chair
Jessica Kendall — Conference Chair
Emily Huey — Conference Co-Chair
*T.J. Bronley–Conference Finance*
Annette Lyon — Communications Chair
Marla Buttars — SKC Conference Chair
–At Large Representative
Taryn Skipper — Whitney Awards President
*Tiana Smith— Website Coordinator
*Non-voting members
Absent:
Jessica Thompson motions to approve last minutes, Ranee seconds. Minutes from November approved.
Follow Up from previous meeting:
- Storymakers Ink – check on what they’re doing & who is in charge – Jessica Kendall
New Items to discuss
Chair (Jaime)
- Thank you to Cindy, Loralee, & Jerry
- BOD vacancies: At-large reps (2) & secretary
- Membership items
- Dues renewal (Update from Jessica T. & Karen)
- Protocol when someone’s membership lapses
- *VOTE* Amending bylaws (membership section)
- Copy of Bylaws (2023) – Article III Membership section
- Process for removing a member?
- *VOTE* Process for new applicants
- For new applicants
- Idea 1: Share names who applied for membership every month in the BOD meeting – not as a vote
- Idea 2: Membership chair vets applicants and posts in FB group to message if there’s an issue
- Idea 3: Continue to have BOD vote on applicants (for professional tier only?)
- Vote via email **try out for the next few months
- For new applicants
- Finance items
- Bank accounts
- NEW Finance policy – SM Finance Policy v. 1
- NEW Expense management system
- Storymentors
- BOD conference discount clarification
Chair Elect (Ranee)
- Guild committee
Secretary (Loralee)
- Not much to add, but thanks so much for the last two years!
Treasurer/Finance (Jessica T)
- Audit plan
- Explain Big Membership Spreadsheet? Maybe screen share? Who wants access?
- My stuff is mostly covered by Jaime’s stuff 😉
- Next steps – working on budget for 2024, audit, and sending out 1099s
- Bank accounts have been cleaned up. We’ll be using a new expense management system.
Membership (Karen)
- Big Membership Spreadsheet, updated 1/6/24
- Jaime’s got it covered on BOD voting for new members
- Vote (if necessary) on new applicants. Different applicants, whether Professional or Associate would have different steps.
- Three ideas to move them along:
- Have the BOD vote.
- Post in facebook group.
- Bring it to the call.
Conference (Jessica K & Emily)
- Emily will present name of the next conference co-chair for approval.
- We wanted to nominate a new co-chair for Board approval. We’d like to vote on Tiana.
- Emily motions to approve, Taryn seconds. Voting is unanimous, and Tiana is approved.
- Registration for conference this week.
Whitneys (Taryn)
- Taryn will present the name of the new Whitney president for approval.
- The next president Taryn has picked, is Julie Whipple. This year she’s the judging coordinator, and has done great. She’s had great ideas, and is already a guild member.
- Taryn motions to nominated Julie Whipple. Emily seconded. Voting passes, and Julie Whipple will be next Whitneys president.
- Taryn thinks it would be a good bonus to give sponsors the opportunity to advertise during Whitneys as well. Options are slides or printed program adds. Some vendors may be interested in sponsoring scholarship tickets.
- We’d need to figure out the logistics of how they would pay for these things. Vendor payments are going through square right now.
- We have to be careful in the wording to make sure we’re clear about where money is going, scholarships, etc.
Communications (Annette)
- Support Partner Cece for Literacy: Member Kaela Rivera’s proposal. Can her organization use LDStorymakers’ logo? If it is one person’s book launch, or is it about literacy? We’d need to look at it more, to be able to make a decision yes or no.
- Registration is on the 26th. Members who have paid dues need to have their discount codes right away, and told if they haven’t gotten their codes, to message Jessica Thompson.
- Whitney Awards: Past finalists no longer listed. Is this an oversight? Can they be put back? We’ve been emailed about readers trying to find them.
- Whitney Awards Suggestion: “How It Began” to include info about how the awards were founded by Robison Wells, etc. List of past presidents and committees would be an appreciated nod for those who worked in the past to get it where it is.
- Call for newsletter content/announcements.
SM-KC Conference (Marla)
At Large (?)
- Jerry has to step down, because of commitments that conflict with BOD meetings.
Website (Tiana)
- Did you ever decide if you’d make the website position an official member of the BOD? (Not for voting rights, but just to allow them into the guild FB group, etc? It’s often difficult to know everything that’s going on for all the groups, to know when meetings are, to help coordinate everything for the website when I only know what’s happening with the conference. I brought this up once but never heard back. So, bringing it up again since I won’t be the website person after this conference and whoever replaces me will face the same issue).
- Also, there will be a vacancy for the website person – the skill set necessary has evolved past what it used to require ever since we combined everything under one umbrella. Knowledge of WordPress alone will not be enough. (This probably will be more of an agenda point for the Conference Committee? But just in case you wanted to know or knew of anyone good).
- Tiana’s tenure will be finished in June.
Action Items
- Syncing about new applicant logistics (is it working like it should?) – Karen, Tiana, Jessica, Jaime, Ranee
- Storymentors discussion – FB group
- Finance policy discussion – via email
- Send more info about Cece for Literacy so we can make a decision – Annette
- Discuss audit – Exec Committee
Items of business for next BOD meeting
- Jaime – Guild doc storage
- Official docs, process docs, membership spreadsheet
- Jaime – BOD/Exec Committee bylaws review
- Jaime – Dues wording on site (Professional in Jan, Associate in July)
Jessica Thomson motions to adjourn, Jaime seconds. Meeting adjourned.
Members:
*Jaime Theler –Chair
*Ranee S. Clark – Chair Elect
*Need to fill in Feb – Secretary
*Jessica Thompson– Treasurer
*Karen Hoover — Membership Chair
*Annette Lyon — Communications Chair
*Need to fill – At Large Representative
*Need to fill – At Large Representative
*Taryn Skipper — Whitney Awards President
*Jessica Kendall — Conference Chair
Emily Huey — Conference Co-Chair
Marla Buttars — SM-KC Conference Chair
T.J. Bronley–Conference Finance
Tiana Smith— Website Coordinator
*Voting members (Conference gets 1 vote)