2014 Annual Report
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A PDF format is available.
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TarValon.Net
413 Graycroft Drive, Huntsville, AL 35815
TarValon.Net, Inc. Annual Report 2013
Property of TarValon.Net, Incorporated
Compiled and edited by Anne Vanolli
With Assistance from Nissa Reichenbach, Christopher Berger, and Ashley Morgan
Contents
State of the Tower - Amyrlin/CEO Welcome
As with every year, 2014 brought some major changes to TV.net. We saw leadership changes and policy changes.
The biggest leadership change began in June, when {{Viv} tendered her resignation as Amyrlin Seat to the Board of Directors. Over the next few months, the Board solicited applications, conducted interviews, and in October, asked me, Rhed al’Tere of the Red Ajah, to take on the role of Amyrlin/CEO. I accepted; effective immediately upon acceptance, I stepped down from the Board of Directors. As I was Chairman when I stepped down, Dralyn Montsier was selected to replace me as Chairman of the Board, and on October 5 she announced to the community that I was the Amyrlin-Elect. The official investiture ceremony will take place at our Fourteenth Anniversary party in March 2015.
The largest policy change of 2014 was the decision to implement gender Integration—allowing men to be Aes Sedai and women to be Gaidin. At the Spring Admin Meeting, the Officers and Executives talked over the broad outlines of how Integration would look. A focus group consisting of the Spring Hall of the Tower and representatives from each of the Junior Member groups spent a lot of time and effort coming up with and discussing ideas for what Integration would look like when implemented. The Executives, Officers, and Board were also actively engaged in this discussion and settled the details of Integration at the Fall Admin Meeting. Before discussion even began, it was decided that any Senior Member who demoted in January 2015 and chose the opposite path (former Aes Sedai to Gaidin and vice versa) would not need to pass through the Hall to be raised; they’d simply need Head of Ajah or Company Commander and Director of Membership approval.
Out of the ideas from the discussion group, three major ideas were put into action. Tower Junior Member admins will eventually be reduced to one per level. The mentor system got an overhaul—each Tower Junior Member will have an Aes Sedai mentor and a Gaidin mentor. The Tower Junior Members got a new forum, the Abandoned Corridor, which is Tower JM–access only.
Looking forward to 2015, I’m very excited about what we as a community have coming up. A re-readalong of the Wheel of Time series, the books that drew us together to begin with, is planned, at a pace of one chapter per day. We’ve got some exciting events in the works: Anni in Atlanta, Ga.; Euro Party in Dublin; and Fall Ball in Duluth, Minn.; not to mention JordanCon, also in Atlanta, which always has a strong Tower presence. I’m personally looking forward to the start of the Servant of All forum, where members will be able to share how they’re embodying the spirit of being Aes Sedai (or Servant of All for our non–Aes Sedai members) and share ideas about how we as a community or individuals can improve the world around us. We plan on broadly advertising our scholarship to other Wheel of Time communities to give the Hall as hard a choice as possible. I hope you are as excited about the coming year as I am. I’m thrilled, and admittedly a little intimidated, to step up as Amyrlin/CEO, but I think the coming years will hold great things for TV.net.
Yours in the Light,
Rhed al’Tere, Amyrlin-Elect
Statement from the Board of Directors
This year was an eventful year for the Board. At our annual meeting in April, Joseph Pistritto gave way to Ashley Morgan as our Chairman. Ashley took over with great enthusiasm, working with the Board and Officers to continue getting the Tower back on its feet.
In June, the Board received Kristen Bowersox’s resignation as CEO/Amyrlin Seat, so the summer was spent choosing her replacement. In the fall, the Board selected Ashley Morgan as the next CEO and began training her. She immediately resigned from the Board as a whole, leaving the Board with only four members at the end of the year. Amanda Keen was chosen as her replacement as Chairman of the Board, and she will serve out the remainder of Ashley’s term until the next annual Board meeting.
Replacing the Chairman of the Board twice and the CEO once in the same year kept the Board fairly busy, as did other duties along with our regular duties. On the whole, though, the changes have been positive, and we are excited to see what happens in 2015 with a new CEO.
Amanda M. Keen, Chairman of the Board of Directors
Keeper/COO
Annual Overview
2014 has followed in the footsteps of preceding years at TV.net, bringing some of the most sweeping changes to both our Administrative team and to the overall outlook of the community and its membership structure, from the very top on down.
Departments Overview
The Administration experienced an infusion of new faces to its roster, beginning at the helm of our Community Outreach department as our long-standing Director, Tree al’Rotture, stepped down and was replaced by Aryawnah Federov. Aryawnah has brought a great deal of enthusiasm and activity to the Community Outreach department, diving right into her new role and continuing to work to find fun and exciting ways for the TV.net membership to get involved both on the site and in their local communities.
Our Director of Events and Conferences, Sonea Illandred, also retired. She is succeeded by Naomi al’Moranwin, a newcomer to the Events and Conferences department, but not by any means to TV.net. Naomi has already made great strides in terms of evaluating the overall structure and organization of our Events and Conferences department and processes, and we’re looking forward to seeing the great results of all of her efforts to date at our upcoming events.
Calypsa al’Nicolai celebrated her first year in April as Director in our Administration department, continuing to assess and update the many moving parts of what keeps the organization running efficiently behind the scenes. Our Director of Technology, Erin al’Denael, has definitely had a busy year keeping our ‘home away from home’ running at its best, despite a valiant effort at moving the site to the newer vB5 platform, and her dedicated team of techies worked hard to get everything running smoothly again. Our Director of Membership, Sa’areah Britthorn, has completed another great year in her role working alongside her team of membership administrators, and she has been gearing up for the changes that our Integration process will bring. Our Director of Moderators and Operators, Kelgan al’Moranwin, has also completed his first year in August in his role with a good deal of thoughtful evaluation and refinement in his department. Our third ‘new’ Director from last year, Arie Davion, has rounded out her first year in the Department of Marketing with a continued enthusiasm for all things graphics related to the Tower, most notably working with her department and the community to get our Company and Ajah logos refreshed. Rounding out our Administration team is our Head Librarian, Toral Delvar, whose steadfast presence in the team and dedication to keeping our ever-growing collection of knowledge for both community and WoT information organized and accessible is greatly appreciated. Looking Forward to 2015
The single biggest change we'll see moving into 2015 is the beginning implementation of our Integration process. Initial review of the process will take place early in the year, and we will follow up with membership later to get a feel for how everyone sees it progressing. We will continually evaluate ways to make the site a better looking and feeling environment, from both technical and graphical perspectives, and we will continue exploring ways to keep growing our community over the next year.
Lireina Dormerus t'al`Bearach, Keeper of the Chronicles
