2007 Admin Meeting

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The 2007 Administrative Meeting was held June 9th.

Admin Meeting - Part 1

The Assistant Editor to the Tar Valon Times is now considered and Admin position and will have a name change. Karalyne will retain this position through its change.

The Department of Membership Services will have a name change to "The Department of Community Development" in an attempt to clarify it's new purpose since it was split.

Execs will now meet twice a month in IRC to have a real-time chat about ongoing community and site issues.

Members of the Hall present at Real Life Functions will have a brief, real life meeting to go over performance issues, as well as to look at any last minute real life raising questions that may (and often do) come up at these events (though we still stress the two week prior deadline for submissions except in exceptional cases).

Director of Real Life Services will be making quarterly reports to Exec rather than Monthly, due to the nature of that department's work.

In an attempt to make job requirements more even across the board, we have solidified some basic requirements we will list when accepting applications for the following positions. They are:

• Amyrlin
  • Senior member, 3 years good standing
  • Prior experience as an Admin or in the Department of Membership for at least 1 year
• Keeper
  • Have been an Admin for at least 6 months
  • Senior member, 2 years good standing
• Execs
  • Needs to have served in their department OR have RL experience
  • Senior member with a history of 1 year good standing
  • Currently a Senior Member
• Admins
  • For the Dept. of Membership – a Senior Member of THEIR group for at least 6 months
  • For other departments, ANY level of membership for at least 6 months
  • Mayor is the only Community Admin who can be at Citizen level
• Staff
  • No experience needed

Solidified policy regarding gifts celebrating birth and offering condolances on the death of an immediate family member, and restricted "official" recognition of both events (meaning that they are purchased with official funds, and are not a member-driven effort) to members of the Tower. Has also been given a price cap. Policy to be revisited in the future to see financial impact as Tower grows.

The position of "Tower Voice" has been retired. Announcements will be made and moderated by Execs.

The Executive Assistant will be moved from the Dept. of Administration to the Executive Department, and will assist all Execs (not just the CEO).

Admin Meeting - Part 2 - Membership Stuff

Citizens

- Making a 48-hour turn around time from application to approval of citizenship a high priority. IT to get involved in improving system. Procedure put in place to ensure a schedule of checking and processing.

- Understanding that some people chose to remain citizens and do not wish to get more involved in the community (but still enjoy a sense of community), long term citizens (6 months or longer) will get access to a forum just for long term citizens and Sr. Members. Yup. We're bringing back the apartments.

- We will be deleting the Courtyards, and attempt to create more threads in the Olde Warder and Hen that do not focus simply on tables and drinking roleplay. These two forums are too similar in function, currently. As always, will revisit forum structures in one year.

Jr. Tower Members

The Test for Sr. Membership will be switched to test on site knowledge rather than an additional test on WoT (which you've already proven you've read by this time). The test will not be archaic trivia about the site, but rather will include important information that every Sr. Member needs to know. Sr. Members will be asked to take this test before it is released to Jr. Members. Sr. Members who do well will recieve a special badge they may wear in their sig. Those who need improvement will be directed to the correct answers. Classes and mentorship will be provided to help make sure Jr. Members are prepared for this test. Same rules applied as to the first test: You can fail twice, the third time we'll give you an alternative method to test (verbal, essay, etc.).

We will be vastly improving the information and customizable content on the pages we specifically have for each Ajah and Company on tarvalon.net (the ones that currently link to outside maintained sites). Members will be polled on ideas for content and options they would like to see, and we'll be developing them over the next year.

Sr. Members taking a voluntary demotion will be clearly informed that, while they have the curtesy of not having to once again prove contribution, they are, in fact, back at the level of Solider and Accepted. We will also be clear that, as they have a history with the site, the process may take longer than it did the first time around as their peers adjust to their new choices.

We will now allow Accepted and Soldiers to aspire to the Ajah or Company of their choice at 6 weeks, if they so chose (that is a month shorter than the current wait time).

Mentors will be matched by interest (rather than first come first serve). Survey will be developed to assist in this.

The MoN and Capt. positions will now be split in order to deal with overwhelming workloads on these positions. We will be adding the Mistress of Accepted, and we have to still find a new title for the person caring for the Soldiers. These will be community Admins. Current assistants may be considered for these if applicable before we chose to open them up to outside applications.

We will look to replace the current flash map of Tar Valon with an avatar-based real time chat. This means we create the environment (as in an MMO), you pick an avatar, and you get to walk around and talk to people. First location to be created will be the Olde Warder and Hen pub.

Guilds will not be getting homepages. However, we will create a page on our site where each guild may have a mission statement posted, as well as some other additional info (contact info, guild roster possibly).

The Scholars Guild has been approved, but we're calling it the "Professors Guild." We will look for a new guild leader after Darim has the concept fully developed.

Joseph has retired as Art Curator. The position will revert back to being a staff position. Applications will be accepted soon.

We will be offering 1 scholarship per year this year (there were no winter applications). Any undergraduate in any country is eligible. It is essay based, and will be for $150. This will be awarded in August.

IT will now be the "Department of Technology"

We will be trying out a new system for our "Local Events" message boards in the hopes of making the search for/planning of such events easier (the forum is quite full right now). We will divide the world (yes, the real world), into sections based on actual member population. (this would mean that one forum might cover all of the Pacific Rim and Africa, while another section might only cover the American south west.... population based, see? ). Each of these sections will be given their own forum for planning local events. Our hope is to, more or less, evenly divide that one forum into several forums with equal traffic loads.

Each forum/section of the world will be given a WoT country name to represent it, because we think that's fun. ("oooo! So THATS what that question was for!"). We'll pick a moderator every so often who will also serve to encourage and help plan local events for that forum (and they will get the title of "Ambassador" while they hold the position). These may be switched out every 6 months or every year (that's still up in the air).

If the demographics shift so that a population base grows substantially more than it is right now, we have the option of "Rezoning" and creating more "countries." Frankly, we stole the system quite brazenly from how the SCA divides up their real-life regions. We're going to try it for a year, and see how it works.

Fall Ball will be out of California, likely the Port of Los Angeles. This was decided for many reasons, among them:

• It's hurricane season on the east coast during Fall Ball.... we're safer cruising on the west coast.
• It has been many years since we had a full west coast celebration (we have an annual event in Georgia, our last Fall Ball was in Toronto, etc.).

We know we want a disney event in the next few years. The group voted, unequivicolly, that they preferred disneyworld to disneyland.

Anni 2008 will be, for likely the last time in a long time, in Colorado. (No guarentee, but it is our hope to try some different YMCAs around the country). But we will be in a different park in a location that can allow for more people and will put all of us in the same lodge. In the end, we went with this because we were given a good offer, and we have less than a year before this event. This past event showed us that, especially when we're taking care of so much ourselves, we have to have something booked 12 months in advance. Which brings us to...

Bids for Tower parties will now be due a little more than a year in advance.

• There will be a clear policy for waiting lists and payment which will be developed by the Keeper. This will be clearly understood before we start the reservation process for 7th Anni.

• Members chosing to pay for event tickets and shared rooms using paypal (rather than using checks or money orders) will need to add on enough to cover paypal's fees so that TarValon.Net gets the correct amount.

• The Servant of All competition will have a point system implimented, with annual winners in Individual, Group, and Local Area.

• Combat Marshalls for real events will need to go through a brief combat safety class.

Both of the raising tests will become timed (yes, really and truly). However, they will be OPEN BOOK. So, it is totally and completely legit to quickly look something up during the test. However, we think the timer will make it so that you really are using it mostly to jog your memory on one or two items, and that you know where to find the answers.

European members will be asked to vote on amount and the timing of their "Official" events

Membership manuals are going along well, and will continue to be developed.

Members will vote on whether or not we create a new designation for citizens who want to stay around a long time, but never want to join the tower or receive the benefits of that level of membership.

We will create a way for members to update their own "real life photo" on the whos who.

Make the who's who searchable

We will be developing annual job reviews for all Execs and Admins

Library Wiki has been released successfully. Will work with Director of Research on ways to increase accessability and continue to be a leader in original Wheel of Time research.

Eniara has retired as Treasurer ( Hug @ Eni). The Keeper will take over finances for the remainder of 2007, and will use this opportunity to set up a superlative system for keeping track of our accounts and budgeting.

Z will create a tool that will allow us to request funds, and track those requests, reimbursements etc. through this website.