Storymakers Board of Directors Meeting Minutes, 1 March 2022
Present:
Shelly Brown — Chair
Crystal Liechty — Chair-Elect
Loralee Evans – Secretary
Cindy Bennett–Finance Co-Chair
Emily Huey — Whitney Awards President
Rebecca Carlson — Membership Chair
Cassie Cook — Conference Chair
Wendy Jessen — Conference Co-Chair
Cindy Whitney — Communications Chair
Tara Allred — At Large Representative
Jerry Borrowman–At Large Representative
Clarissa Kae Wilstead–At Large Representative
Absent:
Lori Parker – Finance Chair
Traci Abramson — SMIAH Conference Chair
1—OPENING
Shelly votes to approve the minutes, Cassie seconds.
2—CHAIRMAN& CHAIRMAN ELECT, Shelly Brown & Crystal Liechty
Guild co-chair and next years BOD co-chair is proposed as Jaime Theler. Unanimous
vote.
3—SECRETARY, Loralee Evans
Nothing to report.
4—FINANCE CHAIR, Cindy Bennett and Lori Parker
A charge came through for dropbox. It was cleared up who had set that up and a receipt
was requested. Any time anyone uses their card, please send Finance their receipts.
There was an old Amazon account. We have a new one now. Ask Finance if you need
access to it.
Pulled up all our numbers today.
If people have paid tax for the scholarship for Storymakers they should not have had to
do that. They should be contacted and asked if they want to donate it. We need to find
out who did pay the sales tax and ask them what they want to be done with it.
(Reimbursed, or donated.)
5—WHITNEY CHAIR, Emily Huey
2 items. Can we approve the chair-elect for the Whitneys? The incoming president for
the Whitneys is voted in unanimously with those in attendance.
We’re doing a sticker for the Whitneys. (Kind of like the Newberrys) Who do I need to
contact to do that? Can we do it on our website somewhere? They think so but they
need to check.
6—MEMBERSHIP CHAIR, Rebecca Carlson
Things have quieted down a bit. New members are getting their dues paid, etc.
Storymentors is the next step. Questionnaires being sent out next week.
7—CONFERENCE CHAIR& CO-CHAIR, Cassie Cook & Wendy Jessen
Getting everything ready for conference. 50 spots left in-person conference. We’ll push
hard for our virtual conference. That will be announced within the next couple of weeks.
Hopefully that will give us a boost for the virtual conference.
We haven’t lost our minds yet. Wait a month! 😉
8—COMMUNICATIONS CHAIR, Cindy Whitney
If anyone has anything to add to the newsletter, let ommunications know, they be
sending that out soon. Email me if you have new releases, etc.
9—SMIAH CONFERENCE CHAIR, Traci Abramson
Not present.
10—AT LARGE CHAIR,Tara Allred
At large update.
What the guild is, and what it means to be an at large member. What is the guild? In the
beginning it helped a lot of LDS authors from being taken advantage of by publishers.
Are we something that others are looking at in a positive way.
It might be good to create smaller groups of how we’re published. That might create
some groups where there is support given to members of these smaller subgroups.
Jerry was on the board years ago. Storymakers was a great group. We’ve produced
one of the finest conferences in the country. The board has been extremely responsive
through the years.
Could we have a general membership vote? Yes, that has been on the schedule for
longer than any of the present At-Larges.
Would like to vote on these 4 things: General membership move to non-profit, name
change, by-laws, and policies and procedures, then give general membership to
approve board for the non-profit.
Google will give survey forms. Would survey monkey do a better list? We’d post it on
Facebook.
At-larges are supposed to be liaisons, listen to the membership and act accordingly.
We want to do stuff in the right time frame, and there are lots of variables here.
Could we have co-finance chairs who work together instead of having the conference
and the guild as opposite entities?
This would be great to talk about in the future.
11—MOTION TO ADJOURN
Shelly moves to adjourn. Cindy W seconds.