2011 Admin Meeting

From Tar Valon Library
Jump to: navigation, search

<< Previous Year / Next Year >>

The 2011 Admin Meeting was held the Thursday before the Anniversary party.

The following changes were decided upon

Executive

Current Organisation Chart to be amended to reflect that Assistants to Officers are not Directors but are Staff.

A formal policy is to be instated that TarValon.Net official emails (like amyrlin@tarvalon or keeper@tarvalon) are property of TarValon.Net and not the individual and official email should be used for official Tower business only.

Members will not be allowed to "opt out" of the merit recognition. Merits will be recorded on member's Who's Who page with larger merits announced in Site Announcements. However, it is not required to put badges in sigs, wear pins, or otherwise be involved unless the member wants to.

Administration

Has had a successful year. Nothing in the way of big changes expected for 2011.

Community Development

The Department of Community Development was created to fulfil a specific purpose, which it has achieved. The projects currently in the Department of Commmunity Development will be moved to departments where they are already most involved rather than centralized in their own department. The Department of Philanthropy will also be undergoing a transition and becoming the Department of Community Outreach. The Online Events Team will now be under the Department of Community Outreach as Outreach Activities Team and the "TVT" will now be under the Marketing Department. This process was completed on May 23

At the end of the current term, the Guild forums will be moved into new sub-forums. They will be moderated by the Department of Moderators and once their current term is up, the moderators of these new forums will no longer be an Admin role. See below for more information.

Events and Conferences

Da'Covale Auctions

There will be a move from the traditional slave auction to a system where members may auction their services, but under terms that the volunteer dictates. Rather than having the bidding be about the people, it will be bidding on the service they have chosen to donate. Examples include:

  • A 30 minute back massage
  • 2 hours of fetching your drinks
  • Bringing you breakfast in the mornings at an event
  • Writing and performing a song about your charm and good looks
  • Making you a custom Avatar

A volunteer may still chose to volunteer themselves for "eh, whatever" if they like, but this will not be the default. The Auction will continue to be live, but it will be focusing on services donated.

Europarties

Summer Euro and Winter Euro do not necessarily take place in the Winter, Summer, or on mainland Europe. New names will be created for these events that are less specific.

Marketing

Director will be reviewing current structure given upcoming changes to admin organization, and may possibly look to expand staff.

Membership

Database

The Department has been given the go-ahead to look for and implement a soft-ware solution to manage membership data as the community's size has rendered excel spreadsheets unwieldly and unsuitable.

Ajah and Company "Slush Funds"

TarValon.Net's 501(c)7 status allows us some leeway with Ajah slush funds. Membership groups may maintain separate bank or paypal accounts that are used for various things such as sending birthday cards to members or creating shawls for new Aes Sedai, etc. For legal reasons, official policy is that fundraising or requests for donations to these accounts may not be done anywhere on TVT's official channels. They cannot be mentioned in forums, via PMs, in our chat rooms or via @tarvalon.net email addresses. Requests for donations for these types of activities must be done via non-TarValon.Net methods. Something along the lines of “If you want to know how to contribute to our Shawl Fund, email me at my personal address” is fine.

Guests in forums

Current policy is that only the following people are allowed in the membership groups’ private forums:

  • Senior Member of that group
  • Persons currently Bonded to Senior Members of that group
  • Aspirants of that group
  • Junior members who are visiting the group as part of our formal Guesting process for Accepted and Soldiers.
  • Executives and Officers who have access to all site forums

This will be reviewed at the next Admin meeting.

Moderators

Department will develop a training manual for Chat Operators

Festival chat events will be held in #oldewarderandhen

Director's current moderation rights were reviewed and it was determined that current permissions are sufficient.

Special Interest forums

New public forums will be created. All visitors to the site will be able to view and post in these forums. The exception will be Current Events.

The Special Interest forums will be composed of the following:

  • Current Events (to move to this group from its current location)
  • Entertainment (includes current Technology and Media Forum and will expand to add games and gaming)
  • Home & Garden (will cover cooking, gardening, entertaining, pets, home improvement, etc)
  • Creative Endeavors (will cover topics currently handled in Tailors, Artisans, and Gleemen and will also include writing, fine and performing arts as well as similar type discussions)
  • Education & Employment (will cover topics currently handled in Professors Guild & Job Hunters Forum)
  • Health & Fitness (self explanatory)
  • Sports Fanatics (self explanatory)

Research

The Department's name will be changed to "Department of Research and Records" to reflect the fact that the department has the added mission of keeping our communities official historical records.

Philanthropy

The Department's name will be changed to "Community Outreach" and will focus on activities by and for members, recognizing the good works done by our members, and helping members in need.

Online Events is going to be renamed to the Outreach Activities Team in order to help differentiate it from our Department of Events & Conferences and to better reflect its updated mission of promoting not only the Wheel of Time themed festivals but also holidays and our philanthropic activities.

In the past, very short term small emergency loans have been available to members in need. Given TarValon.Net's 501(c)7 status, structure and membership size, this will not be done in the future. Members in need will be referred, instead, to our "Helping Hands" program.

Technology

No changes or notes.