MeetingMinutes:2018-11

Atlanta OutWorlders Business Meeting Minutes for 2018/11/18

Attendees: Travis W, Travis M, Leah, Robert, Brad, Christian, Bil, Vader, Eric, Paul, Bryan, Ken

11:03 AM - Called to order

Officer Reports:

• President - reports donations collected during November game night, including 2 new memberships
• Vice-president - presents samples of new business cards, designed email template for membership reminders, copied 2003 Meeting Minutes to the wiki, and copied 2018 Roadmap and Milestones doc to the wiki. Still needs to get archives of OutWorlders information, backup Flickr photos, and send out an email soliciting membership renewals. Recommends putting as much information as possible into the wiki.
• Treasurer - reports earnings from Pride Bucket Brigade
• Internet Coordinator - (Vacant, duties performed by Vice President) - reports sending wiki access link to Historian, creating "News" pages for information about elections and other PR stories we want to share, created help@outworlders.org email account, posted new Anti-Harassment Policy and Incident Report form to the website (content is automatically imported from the wiki, and the forms are generated by Cognito Forms), created OutWorlders Cognito Forms account, and created an OutWorlders MailChimp account for email marketing. Still needs to give Historian access to the wiki and create an OutWorlders NameCheap account; also, reports that Website Analytics and tracking are slightly skewed due to extensive testing of new pages and that Facebook remains our number-one source of traffic. Recommends that officers update any email rules for @outworlders.info accounts.
• PR Coordinator - (Vacant, duties performed by Vice President) - reports creating event graphics for movie night; also, reports The Facebook Group has 8 new members (5 during Movie Night Ad Campaign, 1 during Game Night Ad Campaign), 224 active members, and engagement is down 32%. Wednesday and Thursday were our most popular days. The Facebook Page has 14 new followers and 13 new page likes, all organic. Our total reach was 2,441 people. Our Facebook Ad for Game Night had 26 responses from 934 people @ $.77 / response. Total spend was $20. Our Facebook Ad for Movie Night had 18 responses from 671 people @ $.56 / response. Total spend was $10. Recommends increasing engagement by sharing events on personal accounts and by posting content to the group related to gaming and sci-fi news/encourage discussions.

Old Business:

• Treasurer Duties - president is now named on bank account but does not have credentials for web account; treasurer says current bylaws do not specify that the president should have web access and that we should amend the bylaws; treasurer to provide monthly bank statements for other officers to review; Christian suggests creating an elected-officers-only Google Docs account to facilitate this
• Movie Night Recap/Observations - 18 attendees, 4 new to AOW events; they said Fridays were a better day for them to attend; received 1 response to the survey, saying they enjoyed it but did not like that the lights could not be turned off; some people came for just 1 movie, leaving early or arriving late; the branding has been inconsistent on library advertisements, so we need to work with them in that; next movie night at East Atlanta library (on Flat Shoals)
• Game Night Recap/Observations - 48 attendees, 13 first-timers; good northern location that allowed for lots of new faces. An incident occurred prompting the need for an Anti-Harassment Policy (discussed in New Business)
• Picnic - Cancelled
• Budget for 2019 follow-up - treasurer handed out mockup of budget proposal for review; debated expanding our Facebook advertising efforts, which would require an increase in funds for public relations; too soon to extrapolate efficacy of advertising ran so far due to lack of data points
• Follow-up on Digital Payment Apps - treasurer created account on Venmo but is concerned that it is tied to his banking information, rather than the corporation's; need to contact Venmo to set up corporate account
• Election of Vice-president - Christian Hain elected to serve out the rest of the 2018 term

New Business:

• Election Process for 2019 Officers - Robert will be absent from the December Business Meeting; Brad volunteers to count the ballots; the nominees are:
  • President - Travis Woodman
  • Vice-president - Christian Hain
  • Secretary - Leah Frey
  • Treasurer - Wm S Boozer and Bryan Faris
• Anti-Harassment Policy - there was a serious incident at the November Game Night, so a policy has been drafted to deal with future incidents, to be adopted at the December Business Meeting (please see 1st attachment); further, a proposal to amend the bylaws was submitted by the vice-president, which adds language to the section dealing with removal from the membership (please see 2nd attachment); to facilitate the reporting of incidents, a sign will be made for each event, indicating the host and volunteers monitoring the event; also, it is recommended that a brief introduction of officers and host(s) occur at each event (also can help to drum up interest in membership/volunteers)
• 2019 Roadmap, Milestones, and Goals - president proposes January special meeting to discuss goals for the coming year

Open Floor for Topics:

• Requests to join Facebook group - what is our policy? Need to determine who is to accept/refuse requests and whether we still need to ask the questions
• Cross-pollination with other groups - we should look into creating joint ventures with other institutions/groups with similar interests, such as Warp Zone, West Side Gamers, and DragonCon Queerios

12:32 PM - Adjourned