Board Meeting Minutes 01-20-21

The Society

Board Meeting Minutes

January 10. 2021

Time: 4:00 PM

Location: The Society Discord Group

Attendance: Board: Facilitator, Secretary, Member at large, Archivist, Co-faciliitator, Ombudsman, Treasurer

Guests: K, d, bnb, p, f, hb, du,

Meeting Items:

Call to Order 4:10pm
Quorum Check – yes
Ombudsman’s Concerns
1. Executive Session
  1. START EXECUTIVE SESSION: 4:13
  2. END EXECUTIVE SESSION 4:47

Treasurer Report
1. December 1 bank balance: $8,230.52
2. December income: $2,102.51
3. December Expenses $ -2,901.69 (paying half the rent)
4. December Credit Card Balance: $7,821.64
5. December31st bank amount: $7,431.34
6. Gofundme: $24,005 in total, only $704 this month plus an additional $180 on website
7. Interest in December: $ 124.74
8. Detailed reports of expenditures are available upon request.

Old Business
1. Agenda and Financials postings
  1. Mechanisms for making sure that the information gets out to our members sooner.
  2. Our treasurer’s report has one level, and our detailed report has a second level. How can we keep that information in house for members only is what we are going to discuss.
  3. Last month we discussed that we have been deficient in following our bylaws in getting financial information out earlier to people, so what we are going to try to do…
  4. There are two topics: Agenda and financials
  5. Need to finalize the agenda a week before the meeting
  6. Minutes and agenda with financials on the website for members only, and redacted agenda for non-members.
  7. Facilitator: we need to make sure with our webadmin that we can make them members only.
  8. Need financials sooner – secretary to reach out to blue on the first of the month to remind her, and to board for agenda.
  9. Ombudsman: that detailed report was handed out at the town meeting. Having that available in the members only section would be good to do.
  10. Facilitator: is it details of the balances.
  11. Secretary to put items into the google doc from the spreadsheet
  12. DU: When I was ombudsman we always posted the agenda on fet, but never posted financials
  13. K: leave the financials to request only
  14. D: @K Bylaws require a Financial report posted 3 days before the monthly Town Meeting from the Treasurer(edited). Information needs to be available to members in advance from last month and financials as of the 1st of the month. Financials technical are not agenda items outside of a listing as Treasurer’s report item (no specifics). Should be 4 seperate documents Board Meeting Minutes, Town Meeting Minutes, Financial Statement and Meeting Agenda.
  15. K: what caused that bylaw to come about? 3 days isn’t enough to do anything more than hearing it day of the meeting.
  16. D: It’s to make it available to members to review in advance of the meeting so they can raise concerns as needed. Based on my experience detailed means income in and out (Door, Go FundMe, Memberships, Classes) and then each area of expense like Kitchen, Facilities, Website. Just basic general not full details

New Business
1. Discord Policy updates
  1. Facilitator: we had a group of people who put together a document based on a meeting that they had, discussing a policy for what to do in regards to behaviors and consequences (suspension, ban, etc), and how we address issues on the server.
  2. Ombudsman: As a result of our public meeting on the concerns raised, and how we can do better, it was suggested that some of the people in the meeting get together and craft a policy since there is no specific policy at the moment. So what happened is that people volunteered to be a part of that panel, and they took it upon themselves to take it to a private server and came up with great ideas but it was exclusionary because some that wanted to be a part of it couldn’t be, and we are going to have a more detailed discussion so that everyone can attend and use their stuff that they came up as a great starting tool.
  3. Facilitator: what i want to assure people is that oftentimes what we do on the board, we are very open, but we are also almost in constant communication with each other, what’s going on, etc, and try to be on top of them. Some things can be handled easily and quickly and some things need to be more thought out to make sure that the actions we take are appropriate and looking to the future, what is going to be the best way to operate the society. Some things look like “why can’t you do the thing right now” and were the society set up to not allow member input we could react immediately (like a single owner club) but as a board we have to go to the members to get their input. We had a group of people who were extremely helpful in starting that process, and we had a channel on the server set up and Dahlia announced it immediately. We are also looking to implement is to be able to allow people who are hosting the discussion groups to be able to remove people from those channels like we do at events that we host at the space to give people more authority over the channels that they are running.
  4. Co-Fac: hold on we need to address something in chat. Immediately after the meeting the Board had a meeting and the discord chair was given permission to set up a channel to have that meeting in and it was set up within a half hour after the Ombudsman’s meeting.
  5. It was put out in the announcement channel when it was set up.
  6. DISCUSSION followed back and forth about whether or not the meeting that occurred off channel did so before or after a channel was set up in our server for that purpose. Several people commented that they had no idea another meeting was happening.
  7. It was agreed to set up another meeting on our server to discuss the policy further.

Motion to Adjourn: Facilitator
1. Second: CO-facilitator
2. all in favor: everyone
3. motion carries
4. Meeting ended at: 5:50pm
Next Meeting Date: February 14th

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