Winter 2021 Executive Meeting
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Contents
General
The Executive team, made up of the Officers and Directors, meet four times a year to check in as a full group, review our progress together and make some strategic decisions. Sometimes we come up with big changes, and sometimes they are smaller changes to make people's lives easier. Sometimes there are no changes at all!
The Winter 2021 Executive meeting was held on January 16. The members of the Executive team in attendance were:
- Serinia Edoras, the Amyrlin Seat
- Mieriana Souvra, the Keeper of the Chronicles
- Melisande Arneil as Director of Events and Conferences
- Erin al'Denael as Director of Community Outreach
- Ilverin Matriam as Director of Research and Records
- Cassie Dainar as Shatayan
- Toral Delvar as Archivist
- Alenya Al'Roran as Director of Marketing
- Sa'areah Britthorn as Director of Membership
- Deoan Kakarot as Director of Technology
Announcements
- The Keeper Awards are to be moved to February for Awards Season, since Amyrlin Awards will be in the Fall going forward to be presented at Anni parties.
- Director of Membership resignation - thank you, Sa'areah Britthorn!
2020 Recap
Annual report update
The Annual Report is long, complicated, and basically just repeats a lot of the information already found in the Library. It takes so long to put together because it requires looking up a lot of information about what happened over the past year, and that can be difficult for everyone to manage.
We will be revising the format of the Annual Report so that it is much shorter. Much of the information in the report historically is not required for an Annual Report and so much of it is more easily found in the Library. We will be cutting out some of those sections and using the updated version for 2020.
Survey Plan Updates
The Survey is coming in the summer! Department Directors were asked to prepare questions they would like to include in the survey
Proposals
Co-Directors
We have discussed the idea of hiring Co-Directors for some departments, if the Director would like help. The Co-Director is not an assistant, they would be the same Exec level, with the same authority as the Director. They would both be called 'Co-Director' and be equal. The purpose is to make sure both people have the access and authority to handle things.
We would like to have Co-Director as an option for Directors to request if they feel there is a need. We would need to find out if they really need a Co-Director or if there is some other way we can improve things for them before going this route, but if it is approved, we would go ahead and hire a Co-Director for that department.
The two Co-Directors would decide how they will best work together. Maybe they post 'I got this one' to each other, or have a thread of updates that they check to get messages/updates on their initiatives. If they disagree on something, they could consult with their team for feedback and if they still disagree, the Keeper would be the tie-breaker.
Continuation of Virtual Events after the pandemic
It was decided that the Virtual Events will fall under the Department of Community Outreach’s planning instead of the Department of Events and Conferences. The virtual events will continue being held post pandemic, some of them planned by the Game Masters.
Forum Change Proposals
- Book Discsussion forums rename - Re-name WoT 1-8 to "First Time reads - Spoiler Free" and WoT 1-14 to "ReReads - Spoilers Here"
A decision was made that for first time readers a forum will be created where the spoilers should technically be non-existent and the discussion will not be only between book 1 to 8, but for all the books.
New rules for the spoiler free forum will be needed, e.g. - threads should have clear guidelines to clarify spoilers up to which book, thread titles themselves should not have any spoilers.
- Hosting a WoT Reread will be held in the Book Discussion forum as prep for the TV show
- General Discussion forums rename: The topic of having too many forums was introduced in the 'Family Discussion' thread, so we discussed that during our meeting. We reviewed the activity of the Discussion forums and do think we can condense a few. Our proposal is to broaden the scope of the topics that are discussed so we can combine a couple of forums.
- Combine Sports & Entertainment - The discussions in the Sports forum is about sports fandom rather than playing sports. We can also include Fantasy sports discussions. Entertainment includes TV, Movies, Music, etc.
- Rename Gaming Discussion forum to 'Video & Board Games' - This will make it clear that it's for discussion of these types of games, not for playing games (like the Mafia forum). If there is not enough activity in this forum, it could be folded into the Entertainment board in the future as well
- Expand 'Tech Talk' to include all Science & Technology - This will broaden the discussion topics allowed in here, and hopefully generate more conversations in that forum.
- Combine 'Handcrafts' and 'Fine Arts & Literary Pursuits' into one forum with a broader topic of Creativity - We recognize that Handcrafts are different from Fine Arts & Literary Pursuits, but there's not enough action in the Fine Arts forum. Bringing it out to this broader topic allows us to combine the discussions into one spot.
- Combine 'Education & Employment' with the proposed 'Family Discussion' forum under a broader topic of Life Advice' - The threads found in Education & Employment often seem to be advice-based. People looking for thoughts, etc. We will likely need disclaimer clarifying that this is just personal opinions and no one is certified to provide professional guidance in this forum. We do not think it is feasible to put the Family Discussion forum behind a privacy wall. We understand the reasons this would be helpful, but don't think it is the right way to go for this. If you don't feel comfortable sharing photos of your children on the Internet, we would rather you didn't share them. The opt-in privacy wall may give some people a false sense of security. It is still the Internet, and things can still happen. If you have personal issues you want to discuss with someone in private, you can always make a generic post like 'I'm looking for someone to talk to about X, please PM me'; and take the more private conversations into PM threads.
- Rename 'Mafia' to 'Forum Games' - Expanding the Mafia forum to include more games than just Mafia will allow the Game Masters to run more types of games similar to Mafia that may need a couple of threads. The Mafia forum is consistently used, but it is not so active that adding a few more games would push the Mafia games off the first page. This would go along with the Mafia Admins expanded role as Game Masters. Their role expanded to more games, so the forum would expand to include those games. This gives a little more variety for people to have more activities to participate in.
