November 2022 Board Meeting Minutes

Nicole Locker – President
Michelle McCraw – VP of Programs
Tara Lynn Baisden – Incoming VP of Workshops
Cheryl Barton – Secretary
Katrina Marie – VP of Communications
Stephanie Derbas - Treasurer

○ Meeting minutes from the last quarterly meeting are in the chat. Motion to approve the minutes was moved by Katrina and seconded by Michelle. No one opposed. Minutes were approved.

• President’s Report – Nicole
  • Nicole filed the 990 and loaded it to the Google Drive. This is the non-profit tax document that has to be submitted every year. It’s for our non-profit status so that we do not owe any taxes.
  • There is a novel celebration going on that went out in the last newsletter. We have already received several submissions, which is exciting.
  • Board elections: We welcome the incoming board for next year. Everyone is repeating their role except for Jennifer, VP of Workshops. Tara Lynn Baisden will be the new VP of Workshops.
  • Nicole would like for us all to go back and take another look at the bylaws. The attorney sent through a revised version. Everyone’s feedback is requested by November 30, 2022.
    • Term Limits:
      • It’s getting harder to find volunteers so we need to rethink the current term limits. Do we want to lengthen the term limit? The overall limit is 6 years, with only 2 years in one position.
      • The position of President would need to be someone already on the board and has served at least one year already. We will need a new President for next year. Everyone was asked to think about where they would like to serve next year and consider adding their names in for new positions when their two years are up.
      • Next year, it looks like we will need to fill 5 positions since everyone came in new for 2022.
      • We want to be sure the organization is taken care of for each position.

• Treasurer’s Report – Stephanie
  • The total in our PNC bank account is $27,184.12
  • The current total in our PayPal account is $19,853.70
  • Stephanie will send over the year-to-date report to Nicole later tonight. These balances are as of the morning of 11/13/22.
  • Nicole will transfer the PayPal balance over to the bank account. She noted that the October instructors still need to be paid.
  • We need to prepare for the audit. There was a volunteer for this year, but the audit wasn’t done. Nicole will reach back to that volunteer to do the audit in early 2023. Nicole noted that there wasn’t good direction on what the audit should look like; there is confusion around the process. We need to get this done in order to have good financial practices and to be sure we are following them.

• Secretary’s Report – Cheryl
  • Current membership sits at 345 members.
  • Cheryl cleaned up FB by removing members whose memberships have expired.
  • Do we survey those who didn’t renew to ask why?
  • Katrina noted that Melanie had a document from a previous survey that may be on the Google Drive.
  • Nicole will look into adding something automated to go out asking those who left if they are considering coming back. She stated it’s an involved process. She will look into it.

• VP of Program’s Report – Michelle
  • We had 2 retreats this year and we lost money on both. There were about 6 people at each. She believes the people who did attend enjoyed themselves. We need to poll the membership for next year’s retreats. We need to not spend so much money upfront until people are actually registered and paid. Perhaps find a writing space at a free place, like a library for the write-ins.
  • Michelle stated that there was a lot of interest in having a retreat in Texas. Our membership in Texas is large. Nicole noted if we wanted to book in Texas next year, she would be able to find a free space that would accommodate everyone.
  • The issue regarding attendance this year may be because the retreats were close together as far as timing. For next year, consider two different times of the year to spread the out.
  • There is a meeting later today to discuss the summer virtual conference. Michelle hopes to get roles established and reach out at that point. We still need to decide on the date for the conference. She will post a meeting reminder on FB and in Slack.

• VP of Workshops Report – Jennifer
  • Jennifer submitted her report ahead of time since she couldn’t attend today’s meeting.
    • Workshops Report 3rd Quarter 2022
    • Profits from Workshops
    • August $245.00
    • September $1655.00
    • October $60.00
    • I have the majority of the 2023 calendar filled. I am still looking for a few workshops to finish out the calendar.
  • Nicole suggested adding in Terry Wilson. She had a huge turnout for her Hallmark presentation. Michelle suggested asking her to do a holiday romance writing class.

• VP of Communications Report – Katrina
  • The clubhouse idea will be scrapped. 3 people volunteered. She emailed them and no one responded back.
  • Nanowri
    • She’s working to engage with posts. People are interacting with each other on Nano, Slack and FB.
  • There have been some email issues with Gmail. Everything was going to spam. Stephanie believes the issue has been fixed as emails are once again coming through.
  • Town Halls
    • Not much happening with town halls. As we are getting larger as an organization, we need to work on ways we can increase communication. All of our ways to communicate are on the events calendar and in the newsletter.
    • Cheryl recommended posting more of the ways we communicate behind the CRW wall (website) where members only can access. We can post that link on our various platforms. Nonmembers can’t access unless they subscribe.
  • Workshop communications
    • Katrina will promote workshops starting in January when the event dates/times/subjects are available. We don’t schedule workshops in December.
  • Sprints
    • Nicole moved her sprints to early Thursday mornings. Evenings were not working out. She could add in another morning or two in November if we want more writing times.
    • Cheryl will start a sprint on Wednesdays at 5:30am – 6:30am ET starting this week.
    • Michelle had been doing one, but only one other person joined.

• Business Matters and other updates – Nicole
  • Tara should get with Jennifer this month to work on the transition of the position of VP of Workshops.
  • Discord as a means of communication
    • Nicole stated that when we first started building our own membership after separating from RWA, we asked the membership which method of interacting they preferred. We went with Facebook and Slack. Discord was an option but didn’t get a lot of votes. Nicole suggested we ask the membership again about considering using Discord.