Board Meeting Minutes February 2021

Location: The Society Discord Group

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

Guests:  BNB, DU, G, HB, JN, J, LR, PS

Meeting Items:

  1. Call to Order 4:10  pm
  2. Quorum Check – Yes
  3. Ombudsman’s Concerns – 
    1. none
    2. Treasurer Report
      1.   January 1 bank balance: $ 7,431.34
      2.  INCOME
      3. GoFundMe Donations               $  612.61
      4. Website Income:                  $  751.99
      5.  (events, Membership, Donations)
      6. Other Donations:                 $2,313.00
      7.  (Check from EmeraldAsh given in
      8.   December but not deposited until Jan) 
      9. Total Income:                     $3,677.60 
      10. EXPENSES:
      11. Rent (half rent):                $2,158.00
      12. Water:                           $   28.69 
      13. Credit Card Details:
      14.  Pmts Made from Bank Account:    $  602.00
      15.  New Charges to credit card:     $  245.73
      16.   Interest Charged:              $  138.98
      17. Total Expenses:                   $3,173.40
      18. OUTSTANDING DEBT:
      19. Back Rent Owed:                  $3,419.88
      20. Credit Card Balance as of 1/31/21:             $7,504.35
      21. Credit Card Balance as of 2/21/21   $7,237.70
      22. Total Outstanding Debt:          $10,924.23
      23. CURRENTLY IN BANK:
      24.  Balance as of 1/31/21            $8,320.25
      25. Balance as of 2/21/21             $6,362.59
      26. Detailed reports of expenditures are available for review upon request.
  1. Old Business 
    1.  Discord Hate Speech And Bullying Policy
      1. Discord Hate Speech and Bullying Policy

What is hate speech?: Any kind of communication in speech, writing or behavior that attacks or uses pejorative or discriminatory language with reference to a person or a group on the basis of who they are, in other words, based on the religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, color, descent, gender, kink preference, or other identity factor that may demean or disparage those individuals or groups either intentionally or unintentionally. 

  1. Bullying is defined as the repeated and intentional use by one or more people of written, oral or electronic communication, directed at or referring to another person,such as cyberbullying, racial slurs, or character assassination, that causes them emotional harm, places them in a reasonable fear of harm, creates a hostile environment, or infringes on their rights.
  2. Discipline escalation steps
  3. 1st Step: quick re-education with a possible probationary period. 
  4. 2nd Step: 1 month suspension from the Discord Server With a probationary period following their return
  5. 3rd Step: Permanent removal from the Discord server 
  6. *Members who act out on the discord server may still be reported to the IRT if their actions warrant their involvement even if they were disciplined on Discord. The party responsible for making that report is the offended party.
  7. Definition of Re-education: Re-education is the attempt to help a person who is making problematic statements or actions aware of the offensive nature of their statements. Re-education may be done by the community at the time of offence or by the moderators during their review of the incident, or both. 
  8. It is encouraged that individuals who are having an in-channel disagreement take the discussion to a DM rather than remain in channel. If the disagreement becomes too heated, members of the channel may ask them to take the conversation in private or contact a moderator who will look at the channel logs and may instruct the individuals to do so..
  9. When a person begins engaging in hate speech and ignores the requests of people to desist continues, a report should be made to the moderators. When making reports to the moderator, screenshots/witnesses are encouraged for the first and second steps and mandatory for a third step. If the problem occurs in a voice channel, please provide a list of people who were witness to the incident to be questioned by the mods.
  10. When the mods take an action, based on the educational value to the server, they will update a public log with the date of the action and the action taken but without the person being named. 
  11. Ie. 2/14/21 – User was suspended for 1 month for excessive of valentine’s sent 
  12. A person who rejects the correction or continues to be aggressive may be removed from the server permanently during the first contact by the moderators
  13. If a conversation violates our hate speech policy, people may invoke Rule 13 and the conversation should end at that point. A report may be made to the Mods for further investigation regardless of if the conversation stops or not.
  1. Discussion about Policy above
    1. Facilitator:  we are coming up with this policy to help us deal with future dealings with issues on discord with hate speech and bullying.  Bringing this up now because we just finalized it on Thursday and not all board may have seen it.
    2. There was a discussion about whether or not “bullying” would be defined as specifically as “Hate Speech was defined in the policy.
    3. It was pointed out that Bullying is defined in  the policy, with some specific examples named, but not meant to be all inclusive, but for clarification it was asked what specifically was missing from the definition given.
    4. It was mentioned that it should include something that specifies that it can happen over multiple areas and with fake profiles or by encouraging others to join in.  Fetlife was used as an example. 
    5. It was pointed out that this is meant to be our discord policy and that we have very little control over what happens on fetlife.
    6. Facilitator:  fetlife issues can be handled by Fetlife and by removing them from our group, and if the affected parties wishes, they can be referred to our IRT.  
    7. Right now we are focused on getting a policy up for discord and the stuff that we can control.
    8. If someone is bullying or creating sock puppet accounts,or  making statements, we document them and bounce them back out.  Bullying and hate speech in any venue is not something that we support.
    9. On Discord we have a lot more power and authority to do such things, where we dont on Fetlife.
  2. MOTION MADE:
    1. Motion that we bring the Discord Hate Speech and Bullying Policy to the membership for a vote
    2.  Movant:  Dasade
    3. Second:  SdParent1
    4. All in favor:   All ayes except one abstention
    5. Motion Carries
  1. New Business
    1. Space and What we need should the vote state that we need closure
      1. Co-Faciliator:  We did go up this saturday and start to do an assessment.  Did break down some equipment because it had to be broken down and reassembled anyway, and made an assessment about what can be saved
      2. If this vote carries we are going to have people going up a few nights this week to start boxing up items in preparation for a move on Saturday.
      3. Operations chair has done the legwork to get prices for moving truck and storage unit and will secure it for Saturday depending on how the vote goes
      4. First wave items:  things we absolutely need to preserve
      5. Second:  if we can fit them 
      6. Third wave: squeeze them in or find alternative storage
    2. Truck and storage unit:  Storage unit range from $300 mark depending on place and size.  10×30 size.  Archivist has offered to pay for it every month.  
    3. Treasurer:  i am not comfortable with anyone outside of the Society taking on that responsibility.
    4. If we keep going with out square income and how low our expenses will be we are doing good.
    5. There will be some items that will not make any of the other cuts and we cant store and take with us and might consider putting up in an auction or for sale.
    6. Cost of the truck:  fluctuates.  tax, insurance, mileage – around about $150
    7. Co-Fac: i would be willing to donate the moving truck cost
    8. Facilitator:
      1. Motion:  I motion that we authorize the operations chair to make any necessary purchases and rentals in association with moving costs pending the outcome of the vote for closure.
      2. Movant:  Facilitator
      3. Second:  Secretary
      4. All in Favor:  All Ayes
      5. Motion Carries
    9. Motion:  Motion to allow the Chairs and Board members to accept reasonable offers on equipment that is marked as low priority on our inventory list after Tuesday at 8pm pending a vote of closure.
      1. Movant:  Dasade
      2. Seconded:  Co:facilitator
      3. All in Favor:  all ayes
      4. Motion Carries
  1. Equipment (after the vote)
    1. Discussion ensued about how to decide what to do with stuff.  It was decided to have people go through the list that EmeraldAsh created and have people have input on what stays and what can be sold
    2. Facilitator:  i would be most comfortable with a board member or a chair making the decision about what to accept as an offer.  Offer should be sent by text and there should be a half hour window for the board to have input.
    3. Motion added above.
    4. There is also some flexibility as to items that is not on the list to use in a judgement call.  The list is pending any damage to the item.
    5. Papergoods:  will also be going home with volunteers.
    6. SHould go home with people doing the work or donated to those in need
    7. Dolores Umbridge suggested that stuff get donated to the Hartford Gay and Lesbian Health Collective
  1. Motion to Adjourn: Dasade
    1. Second: Secretary
    2. all in favor: all in favor
    3. motion carries
    4. Meeting ended at 5:50  pm
  2. Next Meeting Date:  March 14th

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