2012 Annual Report

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TarValon.Net

PO Box 12421 Huntsville, AL 35815

2012 Annual Report

TarValon.Net, Inc. Annual Report 2012

Property of TarValon.Net, Incorporated

Compiled and Edited by Anne Vanolli

With Assistance from Jessica Beaushene and Nissa Reichenbach

State of the Tower - Amyrlin / CEO welcome

2012 has been a hectic and tumultuous time at TarValon.Net. The year started with a celebration of who we are and of our founding Amyrlin Seat (now titled the Koyn Amyrlin) Eleyan Teyal al'Landerin Sedai. After more than 10 years of service, she officially passed the torch in our first Amyrlin Investiture Ceremony at the 11th Anniversary Party in Estes Park, Colorado on March 30th. With representatives of every Ajah and company present, Eleyan Sedai symbolically returned the colors of each group that she carried for so long and it was then left to each group to give them into my keeping. The ceremony was beautiful, moving and meaningful (with a bit of foot washing mixed in) and was a wonderful moment in our Community history. I know that we are all grateful that Eleyan Sedai has decided to stay on as a member of our Board of Directors and will continue in her service to this Community in the years going forward. This year also saw the first expansion of our Board of Directors from three members to five. Jaim al'Bearach Gaidin of Dai M'Hael and Caerwyn Jolan Gaidin of San d'ma Shadar were elected to join the ranks in April. These gentlemen are both long term members of excellent standing who also have extensive experience in the business world. We were very excited to welcome them to the team!

The annual Administrative Meeting, which happened after Anni, introduced the latest in a long line of innovations and created the Unofficial Guesting System for Senior Members. It was decided that each Ajah and Company could now choose for themselves if they would like to open their Halls to more than guesting Accepted/Soldiers as well as their bonded Gaidin and Aes Sedai. By the end of the year several groups had elected to take advantage of this opportunity while others decided that it wasn’t something they wished to currently pursue.

The year continued with our dedication to philanthropy and giving back at each event we hosted, and with a successful fundraiser over the summer we were poised to move forward with gusto into 2013. Unfortunately we discovered in October that the man who had been a member among us for over 10 years, had served both on our Board of Directors as well as our second CFO/Shatayan had made the choice to steal from the organization. Upon receiving his confession, the Board immediately accepted his resignation and he was banned from all aspects of Tarvalon.Net, and we began the long process of rebuilding not just our finances, but the trust that had been broken.

To that end, we began by halting all spending, chose to hold off on replacing the CFO/Shatayan, and would not accept any donations (though many, many offers of immediate assistance were given) until we had established new financial tracking policies and set up oversight procedures to ensure that this could not and would not ever happen again. When we felt comfortable that we had been as thorough as we could be, we ran the “Tower Still Stands” fundraiser in late December and I was completely overwhelmed by the trust, love and generosity that everyone showed as they sent us their hard earned money to help us get back on our feet. Here in 2013 we have been able to pay back all outstanding debts save for one and have a plan in place with payments being made to clear this as quickly as possible.

Our goals for 2013 have understandably had to change slightly and as I stated above we are focusing on hiring a new CFO/Shatayan and establishing a procedure for running background/credit checks on all Officers. We intend to pay back our remaining debt as quickly as we can while paying our ongoing expenses, though it may take a couple years. With all of this however, some things don’t change. We are always on the look out for ways to serve our Members better. We look for ways to grow and change, and to keep people involved in all aspects of our Community through collaboration and transparency.

The publication date of January 8, 2013 for A Memory of Light is set and anticipation is high to read a conclusion that has been 20 years in the making, as well as to see what happens to all of the characters who so inspired us to come together and be a part of this Community. To everyone who reached out to the administrative team and to all of you who reached out to me personally during the last very difficult 2 months of 2012, I can only say thank you from the bottom of my heart for your love and support for us. It was (and still is) an unthinkable situation, and it was only through the strength of friendships and your understanding of the fact that we were giving as much information as we possibly could that made it possible to move past it. I think that 2013 will be a year of growth and rebuilding for us, but that we will come out stronger and optimistic for what the following years hold for us. Thank you for being the amazing community that you are.

Vivianna L'antreau
The Watcher of the Seals
The Flame of TarValon.Net
The Amyrlin Seat

Keeper / COO

Annual Overview

As with 2011, this has been another year of transition and growth for the Tower as our founder and Amyrlin, Eleyan al’Landerin, stepped down at our 11th Anniversary party in Denver, Colorado. She now retains the title of Koyn Amyrlin, and leadership of the Tower has transferred to Vivianna L’antreau, formerly of the Blue Ajah and a long standing member of the community.

Departments Overview

Keeping in the spirit of change and growth, our departments saw transition and change as well, with our long standing Director of Technology, Zhareen Narelle, stepping down to be replaced by Erin al'Denael, who has tackled the technology needs of our community with great enthusiasm and skill. Our Director of Community Outreach, Jodea Kegan, also stepped down and was succeeded by Tree al'Rotture, who has settled into her department and gotten our philanthropic efforts up and running smoothly. Our Tower Archivist, Dralyn Montsier, handed her role over into the capable hands of our Director of Membership, Serenla Tamowith, who was then replaced as the Director of Membership by the equally capable Sa'areah Britthorn, who continues to work with her team of community group admins to keep our Tower environment a friendly and welcoming one.

Karassa Souladrin continues to head up our Department of Moderators, and Kytheria al'Shea has our Department of Marketing churning out great ideas for our CafePress shop and our website. Serinia Edoras also retains the helm of our Department of Events and Conferences, seeing to the multiple official events that our Tower community attends annually around the world, and Toral Delvar continues to keep our Library up to immaculate standards as a literary resource that even Brandon Sanderson has relied on as a reference. Ubahsur Kindellaer rounds out our executive department in the Department of Administration, keeping on top of our Membership Survey, Annual Report, Executive Review and the Bullying Survey that helped give the Administration a better insight to the inner interactions of the community.

2012 also saw the shocking revelation that longtime member and Shatayan/CFO Riley Maconnar had allegedly been involved in inappropriate business practices involving Tower funds, and was summarily banned from the site. Our financial matters are currently being managed jointly by our Board of Directors and our Executive team, while a more stringent financial management system can be put into place and a new Shatayan/CFO selected.

Looking forward to 2013

With the unexpected and tumultuous ending to the year, the forward focus will be working towards rebuilding the financial structure of the Tower. The Board and Officers will be combining their efforts on getting a more transparent and regulated system of checks and balances in place, and a new CFO/Shatayan to keep the books clean, neat and accurate. Through this, our motivation to continue working on transparency and availability to our community is reinforced and strengthened for the upcoming year. With the final book coming out at the beginning of the year, we will begin to evaluate what this means for our community overall as well.

Lireina Dormerus t'al'Bearach, on behalf of Leora Oldessroth, Keeper of the Chronicles  

Tower Archivist / Secretary

Overview

This year ended up being a period of transition for the position of Tower Archivist as Dralyn Montsier ended her time of service as an Officer for the Tower and passed along her duties to Serenla Tamowith, who ended her long tenure as Director of Membership. The transition was fairly seamless, and the projects under the Archivist continued to roll along. As with any project, everything under the Archivist is a work-in-progress, which is reflected in this section.

Archives

Archiving of the old forums and relevant threads from the current forums continued, with work on the old forums nearing completion. We expect that project to be completed in 2013, at which point maintenance on current forums will be the main focus.

Merits

As with any new system, the merit system was updated at various points throughout the year, though the bulk of the system remained in place. We streamlined the process by which merits are awarded, though it is by no means perfect yet. Many more merits were awarded, resulting in more perks being allowed to members with the appropriate sets of merits.

Membership Manuals

Due to the ever-changing nature of our organization, the Membership Manuals will never be a finished project, but Dralyn, Serenla, and other contributors worked to keep it as updated as possible.

Legal Status

TarValon.Net, Inc., remains a legally incorporated 501(c)(7) non-profit entity. No changes in its status occurred during 2012 other than the removal of B. Riley Robinson as an Officer and as a Board member and the addition of Joseph Pistritto and James Beattie to the Board.

Other Projects

The Archivist worked closely with the Director of Research and Records and the Tower Historian to ensure that the Who's Who was as complete as possible. The Archivist also took over the Members' Choice Awards for the year; special thanks to Jeffan Caliarthan for his assistance with that project.

What’s Next?

We expect that the next year will be spent updating documents that need to be updated (such as the Membership Manuals), working on the merits system as a whole, awarding new merits, finishing up the archives from the old forums, and any other tasks that pop up. The Archivist will also work closely with the rest of the Executives to ensure that our legal status remains unchanged as a result of the unethical behavior of Riley Robinson.

Serenla Tamowith, Tower Archivist

Shatayan / CFO

The year 2012 saw great highs and great lows with regards to our finances.

We were able to successfully pull off our regular events of Anni, Fall Ball, and Euro. We also successfully funded the Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship of $500 and provided $300 to Ronald McDonald House. Our fundraisers generated a total of $6,670 between the annual operational fundraiser held from June 15 to August 1, 2012 and the Tower Still Stands fundraiser from December 28 to February 15, 2013. An assistant to the CFO was hired, Cassie Dainar.

The biggest news item regarding our finances in 2012 was the discovery of funds being inappropriately allocated by the former Shatayan/CFO Riley Maconnar aka B. Riley Robinson, resulting in his immediate removal from position(s) held, including access to all financial accounts/emails, and banning from the organization. This misconduct resulted in outstanding items at the end of 2012 due to pending reimbursements and loans taken on for operational purposes.

Total income , : $43,778.00
Total Expenses , : $21,331.05
Net Income: $22,446.95
Due to “Rileygate” an exhaustive review of current procedures was performed. New and improved financial policies and procedures were developed, approved, and enacted. The year 2013 will see the Board of Directors and Amyrlin hiring a new Shatayan/CFO, resolve any outstanding reimbursements, and begin the process to pay off loans taken.

Ubahsur Kindellaer, Shatayan

Department of Administration

The year 2012 felt like a banner year. All of our planned projects were achieved allowing the addition of new projects, and the ability to catch up on a long pending project.

The Membership Survey provided a learning curve with regards to use of humor in marketing, as well as using our new software, Lime Survey, for the first time. The results, which represented the ideas, thoughts, concerns, and perspective of 44% of the active Tower membership, were utilized extensively at the Spring Admin Meeting in decision making. Examples of decisions made, based upon the survey results include:

  • The split of Creative Endeavors into two forums.
  • Updating the name of Entertainment to Entertainment & Technology.
  • TarValon.Net fliers made available for members to hand out at conferences.
  • The inception of PSAs to inform the membership about important milestones, processes, and revisiting why certain decisions were made to pass on organizational history.
  • Suggestions on what type of organizations to fundraise for, how often and scope of fundraising were from survey comments.
  • The TVT forum was made public.
  • The Male half of the mentoring system changed from 1:1 to 1:team.
  • A discussion on a strongly suggested parenting forum, which was then decided against.
  • A chat ops manual was created based on request from the survey.
  • Classes will change to allow real life related courses, as well as to run on a quarterly basis with more advertising to notify the membership of upcoming courses.

These examples demonstrate that the Membership Survey is worth the hundreds of hours it takes to; create the survey, the time taken by members to respond, and the analysis of the raw data by the Department of Administration.

Another related triumph is that we were able to provide a comprehensive report this year that shows not only the key data, but also provided examples of comments and showed how the results were used and then compared to previous years.

The Annual Report also saw small changes including easier formatting of appendices so that the lists of volunteers, donors, and winners were easier to read. The new formatting also improved the graphics and images that helped bring to life that which was written about. Our goal is to try to get the Annual Report out between April and July, for which we missed the mark on in 2012. We also had the pleasure of having the 2007 Annual Report completed and published, leaving only the 2008 Annual Report as unfinished.

The additional projects that were produced in 2012 were the first Applicant Tracking report; showing a five year span of applicants and hiring’s to show patterns and answer questions which have long been asked by members. The topic of bullying came to TarValon in 2012 which resulted in a midyear survey which was discussed at length at the