Town Meeting March 2021

Location: The Society – On Discord

Board in Attendance:  Dasade 

Ombudsman: Bendy4u

Facilitator: Dasade

Co-Facilitator: EmeraldAsh

Treasurer: BlueKinkDot

Archivist: XMeghan

Meeting Items:

  1. Call to Order – Facilitator  7:08 PM
  2. Quorum Check – yes
  3. Minutes
    1. Vote – Approve February Board Meeting Minutes
      1.   “To approve the February Board Meeting minutes except where noted by member concerns.”

Movant: Dasade

Second:  Co-Facilitator

Approved:  15  approved, 0  unapproved,  2  abstention

  1. Vote – Accept February Town Meeting Minutes
    1. “To accept the February Town Meeting minutes except where noted by member concerns.”

Movant: Dasade

Second:  Co-Facilitator

Approved:   15  approved,  0  unapproved, 1 abstention

  1. Treasurer Report
    1.  February 1 bank balance: $  $ 8,320.25
    2. INCOME
    3. GoFundMe Donations               $  726.46
    4. Website Income:                  $  751.99
    5.  (events, Membership, Donations)
    6. Total Income:                     $  1,478.45
    7. EXPENSES:
    8. Rent (half rent):                $ 2,158.00
    9. Water:                           $   28.69
    10. Credit Card Details:
    11.  Pmts Made from Bank Account:    $  613.00
    12.  New Charges to credit card:     $  671.52
    13.   Interest Charged:              $  118.94
    14. Total Expenses:                   $  3,590.15
    15. OUTSTANDING DEBT:
    16. Back Rent Owed:                  $ 3, 419.88
    17. Credit Card Balance as of 2/28/21:             $ 7,681.81
    18. Credit Card Balance as of 3/14/21   $ 
    19. Total Outstanding Debt:          $ 11,101.69
    20. CURRENTLY IN BANK:
    21.  Balance as of 2/28/21            $ 7,171.12
    22. Balance as of 3/14/21  $ $37, 690.63 
  1. This money is something that we are going to try to arrange so that we have a long term future rather than our past practice of going month to month.  SHout out to our treasurer and member at large who have been working with the insurance company to make this happen.
  2. Q:  Have we heard anything from the Landlord?
    1. We have not heard anything from them since our last communication about the past rent.   When the insurance company came out they estimated $60-70K in damage.  SInce this check showed up we are going to be creating a financial policy on how it is going to be used, and will allow us to grow.
    2. Q:   i hope that is not what we are on the hook for, lol.  
    3. Facilitator: no, but any time there is that many digits involved, the insurances companies may battle, landlord could come after back rent, etc. so we are going to hold on to it
    4. Hopefully once we have a reduced amount of debt (ie credit cards paid off and no rent) we can grow the money that we do have, with the help of fundraising and events, etc.  Other than the fact that we have this check, we are going to be moving forward with the caution that we may not have this money in case something comes up.
    5. Q: :  Have you consulted with a lawyer?
      1. Fac:  we will be discussing all of that under new business.
    6. Q:   is that $60,000 something we have in writing?
      1. Treasurer:  yes, and it is divided by rooms, very detailed.  Largest number is $69,900
  1. Ombudsman’s Concerns
    1. My only concern is that we should bring paying off the credit cards to the membership for a vote.  
    2. Fac:  we will be talking about that in new business.
  1. Old Business
    1. Discord Policy
      1. As we will be going over shortly, the board has been very busy over the last month trying to get our Operating Procedures down and we are not done with that yet.  We are trying to adopt our bylaws into an Operating procedure that can closely mirror our bylaws as possible without being exclusive of our online presence.  During the Board meeting some members brought up concerns we still need to address as well as finishing going through all of the rest of the bylaws.  But part of the thing with the discord policy that i want to bring up is that some people brought up concerns that this would not be used as a tool to backdoor get rid of people that they didn’t like without a procedure for doing that so we will be tying this policy into our bylaws to put safeguards in place so that we can address all of the concerns. 
    2. Comment:   it is more about hate speech and not bullying
    3. Facilitator:  it defines both bullying and hate speech
    4. Coment:  Hate speech is fairly easy (race, gender, etc).  Unfortunately the price  of freedom comes at the cost of people being able to talk shit.
    5. Facilitator;  by definition of Hate speech, bullying, etc, when it comes to organizations attacking a group is different than attacking a person individually and unfortunately there is nothing we can do about it.  This policy does not preclude an individual who is being attacked from going to the IRT.
    6. Proposing that we may want to come up with a tribunal to review board decisions.  SO the mods can react quickly if necessary, and then a review be done by the tribunal.
  1. New Business
    1. online Operating  Procedures
      1. We have been working on going through our current bylaws and adapting them to what we can to our Temporary Covid Operating Procedures so that long standing protections can still be in place while ensuring that we can continue to move forward
      2. some changes:
        1. Added a category of member:
          1. Online Virtual Associate – allow them to get discounts in educational events and so forth and would allow them to participate to offer special things that may be virtual and member only events, as well as opening us up worldwide
        2. Voted to okay the webmaster to upgrade our website
        3. We have added categories for eligibility for membership for things on discord
          1. SOmeone has to not be barred from the server in order to be able to join
          2. To become a virtual Online member:
            1. Individual Shall be Verified to be at least 18 years of age through the established Discord verification process
            2. Individual shall agree to be bound by and behave in accordance with: The By-laws, All Posted Rules, All Posted Policies, the Code of Ethics, and the rules and policies of the Society Discord Server while using the Society Discord Server
            3. Individual shall pay annual dues as established by The Society
            4. Individual is not currently barred from the Discord Server
        4. Question:   going back to the Code of Ethics – i remember seeing something that says that no one can speak bad about The Society.  
        5. Facilitator;  I thought that was addressed.  On the website it still has the old verbiage so it will need tofixed. We will look up the exact verbiage.
        6. Other changes to the Bylaws:
          1. Online Virtual Associates can not vote.
            1. there was concern raised in the board meeting about that so we are going to look to see if there is a way to possibly do that while keeping safeguards in place
          2. In Compensatory Member or Life member:  in the bylaws it is spelled out specifically that they had their membership comped and then there was a separate comp policy in place that boards are supposed to review each year when they take office.  The way it is originally stated, if they got their membership comped there was a discount at the door, not an automatic fee waive.  
          3. Nothing much was changed about voting and how that works.
          4. One big thing that did change was in regards to elections and we recognize it is controversial which is why we want to put this out for comment:
            1. based on the idea that we are probably going to be out of a physical space for at least a year, one of the suggestions made by one of the board members is to hold off on elections until we are in a physical space.  In the very first meeting after we open will be a nomination meeting of members whose term expired and then the very next meeting would be elections to fill those positions.  This is what we had done before when we closed.
            2. Q:  how would holding elections until after we are back in a physical space impact the bylaws regarding yearly term limits?
              1. No one currently on the board would be past their two term limits until 2022 when our treasurer and Archivist would not be eligible for re-election.
              2. There is something in the bylaws that does speak to filling empty positions for those that get burnt out.
              3. Ombudsman:  what happens if in the time we get back all of the terms expired.  Does that mean we would have  a whole new board when we re-open?
              4. Facilitator:  that could happen.  IT should not be such an abrupt thing.
              5. At some point we have to trust the members to make good decisions.
              6. Co-Fac:  we understand that this is a controversial topic.  I have hope we won’t be without a physical space for two years.
              7. Fac: and we are not going to use this to try to circumvent our 2 two year terms and that wont happen for anyone until 2022 and if that time comes up we can revisit it and figure out what we need to do.  
            3. Meetings are going to remain the same.
            4. The portions of the bylaws that provide for the removal of a board member will still be in place.
            5. Also, the ability to replace people who quit will stay in place.
            6. We did add a thing to the conclusion of the term of people who have volunteered.  Currently they are required to turn over materials that were essential for their job (materials, passwords, accounts, etc).  We added that failure to turn over property will result in them being held financially responsible for the cost of the recovery.
  1. Basically, we are trying to keep things as similar as they were before, just accounting for online stuff
  1. Financial Plan
    1.   As stated, we have a lot of money now which is a good thing, but we need to talk to a financial advisor to discuss what to do with that money.
    2. Currently, when we pay off our credit card debt, our expenses will be roughly $1000 a month.
    3. Co-fac:  even before we got the money, we have been looking at re-working our budget in a way that had  a long term potential.  Virtually, our current budget comes to about $1000 a month after we pay off credit cards.  Our plan would be to keep 3 months bills in our account $3000 at all times.  The rest would go into two plans
      1. Prudent reserve account:  Again, another 3 months in reserve, rolling fund that we can touch in the case of an emergency,
      2. Capital investment account for the rest – only can spend for re-opening
    4. Will need to talk to both a financial advisor and a specialist to make sure that we can still go from a Workers to a Co-op to an educational Non Profit organization.,  We need to seek professionals to make sure that we make the right decisions
    5. Also want to put in safeguards so that future boards can’t just pull money out of that capital investment account without member approval.  
    6. We want to set ourselves up to be able to survive a future catastrophic event should we have to do that.
    7. Motion: To pay the entire credit card balance to allow our current income to cover our operating expenses.
      1. Movant: DaSade
      2. second:  Co-Facilitator
      3. 15 ayes, 2  nays, 1  Abstentions
      4. Motion Carries
    8. Bartleby had concerns about paying off the credit card debt in case we end up in court over this $30,000.  If we do end up in court I think we look better if we don’t touch that money.  
    9. Co-fac:  we won’t be touching much of it.  We will be touching approximately $500.  the rest will be available, just in separate accounts.  
    10. Bartleby:  we might not be able to not touch it.  Better court wise it would look better if we never touched it.
    11. Fac:  the courts don’t really care what happens to it aside from saying, You have to pay this much money and as long as we pay that amount of money they don’t care where it came from.
    12. Shout out to our education Chair for her hard work booking our education events and to build our online classes.
  2. Keep an eye out for special/emergency meetings while we pull together our Covid Operating Guidelines.
  1. Query of members wishing to have items added to the next month’s agenda.
  2. Education Chair:
    1. Next Saturday we have cellophane suspension with Steve and Bendy4u
    2. That Sunday:  Clothing Optional Yoga
    3. Saturday after that:  Rough Body play 101 by Andrew
    4. March 26th:  Celebrate birthdays for March
    5. The April calendar is still being worked out.
  3. Motion to Adjourn: 8:28  pm
    1. Movant: dasade
    2. Second:  Secretary
    3. all in favor: all in favor
    4. motion passes
    5. Meeting ended at: 9:26  pm
  4. Next Meeting Date:  April  11th

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