Winter 2023 Executive Meeting

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General

The Executive team, made up of the Officers and Directors, meet four times a year to check in as a full group, review our progress together, and make some strategic decisions.

The Directors and Officers met on January 21 for our quarterly (Winter) strategic update meeting of 2023.

The members of the Executive team in attendance were:

Notes

Amyrlin Seat

We are going to be reviewing policies already in place to ensure that accusations of bullying are handled appropriately. This will include review and update to the Accountability Guide and Code of Conduct where necessary to add specific, detailed definitions for bullying and verifying the existing process to ensure it is robust enough to include all members regardless of rank or position. In addition, I am working with the Board of Directors to develop an improved policy for how accusations of bullying against an officer will be handled. These actions should be completed by March.

We are also going to be working on changing the membership titles by changing "Junior" Members to simply Members. This has been requested due to negative and infantilizing connotations of the title. The site structure will be as follows:

  • Guests - Individuals who have made an account but have not joined as citizens.
  • Members - Citizens, Resident Citizens, Novices, Accepted, Recruits, and Soldiers.
  • Senior Members - Aes Sedai and Gaidin including unaffiliated.

This is expected to require a significant amount of documentation to be revised. These revisions will be performed as time allows and should not be expected to complete in the near future.

Keeper

The Annual Report for 2021 is almost complete and data for the 2022 Annual Report has been submitted and will be compiled once the 2021 report is published. Next up is the Membership Survey.

Additional discussion was held regarding communication with the site. We continue to utilize the anonymous suggestion box and community feedback forums for suggestions from members. Happy Hours with the Cordamora and Office Hours with the Amyrlin (bring yarn) are scheduled or being planned for more real time discussions. The Calendar of events exists and will be made more visible, population of events is still in progress.

Finally, a new post will be going up today in Site Announcements Hiring subforum. This stickied post will be updated by Directors and Officers to include information for all volunteer opportunities that don't have regular hiring posts (example: library editors).

Cordamora

Changes are in the works for the Mediator/Moderator structure. The current plan is for these two groups to be separated with both reporting directly to the Cordamora, expect to see these structural changes in the coming months and completing by May 2023.

Updates and revisions are being worked on for the Accountability Guide. Some examples are an updated and specific of Definitions and adjustments to the Membership Review Committee structure. These changes aim to ensure potential violations of the Code of Conduct are investigated and adjudicated fairly and with clear lines of appeal.

Additionally, membership representation was discussed and a plan developed for the creation of an Advisory Council (name subject to input and change) that will include the members of the Hall. The goal here is to expand member representation by adding seats for all non-Senior Member groups and will also expand the duties of this Council to include bringing forward suggestions and concerns from membership groups for debate of merit and implementation. Votes on raising will still be conducted by the Hall, which shall exist as a sub forum within the Advisory Council. The goal for implementation of these changes is to occur with the next Hall rotation in April.

Finally, if you haven't seen them announced already, Tree will be holding Happy Hours twice monthly and scheduled to enable maximum participation.

Archivist

Platinum merits are coming. At present the plan is for multiple gold merits for the same item over time (example: 4 Gold Membership Merits) will roll into a single platinum merit. Once a platinum has been reached, that activity will not longer be tracked for additional merits for that member. At present there is no additional rewards for achieving a platinum merit. This may be revisited in the future.

Events and Conferences

Final numbers for Anni were determined. We essentially broke even on the event with an overall loss of $12 total due to ticket refunds. There were no bids for the 2023 Euro event so the events staff is currently working on identifying a location and dates.

  • Spring Fling dates and hotel are nearing a signed contract. We expect this event will occur during the weekend of May 5 but this date cannot be confirmed until the contract is signed.

Finally, the focus group is in the very final stages of wrapping up. All recommendations and suggestions will be evaluated by the events team over the next few weeks.

  • Amyrlin's note: Spring Fling information is subject to change. The events team had hotel information and dates locked in but ran into a complication with the hotel they had selected requiring them to change the venue. Events is working through this challenge and will provide additional information one it is available.

Membership

A new initiative will be rolled out soon to provide pairings between citizens and senior members for activities and challenges. This is expected to be a fun way to help citizens get to know more people on the site.

Online Events

(covered by the Cordamora)

Some minor restructuring changes are in the works for this team. Most of the changes involve adjusting titles and internal structure and roles. This is not a major redesign.

Plans are ongoing for Bel Tine which is expected to be a cross-group event. This event will be based on members who sign up being assigned to teams as opposed to teams based on membership group.

Finally, the Guilds are coming! Currently looking for any members who are interested in serving as coordinators and already have a great idea for a guild to allow for some testing of the processes.

Outreach

The fundraiser managed to bring in just over $1800 unlocking all the awards and activities except crafting with the Amyrlin. The next operational fundraiser is expected to occur in the fall more in line with our previous dates. Additionally, Outreach plans to facilitate outward facing fundraisers. The first charity organization and timeline should be announced soon.

The Robert Jordan Memorial Scholarship will begin taking applications in March. We already have plans to share information with other groups in the WoT Fandom, but if anyone knows of a group that might like to know about the scholarship, please let Cassie or Fae know so one of us can reach out.

Finally, we have set up a Patreon for TarValon.Net and it is currently being tested by the executive team. As soon as we have made sure there are no problems it will be shared with the wider tower population.

Research and Records

Planning is ongoing for classes related to exec roles and for department roles. Additional suggestions for classroom activities or how to improve participation are welcome.

Technology

A Mediawiki upgrade is expected to happen during February.