2023-07-17 Executive Board Meeting Minutes

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Minutes
WAML Executive Board Meeting 
Monday, July 17, 2023
9:00 am PDT / 12:00 pm EDT

Call meeting to order: 12:04 PM Eastern

Officers in attendance: 

  • Jessica Benner (President)
  • Meg Miller (Vice President)
  • Kat Strickland (Past President)
  • Lena Denis (Secretary)
  • Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)

Absent: 

Other attendees: Evan Thornberry, Chrissy Klenke

Approval of minutes from last meeting:

Officer Reports & Check-In

  • Jessica Benner (President)
    • Working with Evan on the conference and getting us ready for this meeting
  • Meg Miller (Vice President)
    • Nothing to report yet but happy to help the President as needed
  • Kat Strickland (Past President)
    • No updates but happy to support
  • Lena Denis (Secretary)
  • Bruce Godfrey (Treasurer)
    • Working with Phil on scholarship checks, they’re mostly taken care of and deposits will finish this week
    • Wants to coordinate with Jessica, Evan, et al. about the Eventbrite (listed in the agenda)

Actions approved over email by E-Board since June 2023 E-Board meeting

  • None

Appointed Position Reports

  • Chrissy Klenke (IB Editor)
    • New issue coming out at the end of July, it will be her last, but she’s willing to overlap with a new editor to help with transition
    • How to announce? Board agrees that it would be good to send a formal email announcement before the conference, so people can be thinking about if they want to do it and potentially step up during the conference
    • ACTION: Chrissy will draft a formal resignation message email for the E Board to review, then send final version out before the conference

Updates from task forces, committees, etc.

  • None

Old Business

  • Communications Committee (Jessica)
    • Reformed with appointed positions and a few others. Georgia Brown is chairing this year. 
    • Asked to meet a few times each year, probably 3 times around the IB issues, and then give a report to the E Board in February or March each year
    • Idea is that they’re involved in a lot of other business
    • Has been no physical PO Box historically, but Jessica had a conversation about this with Julie Sweetkind-Singer and others at Stanford – formal proposal sent to them in March 2022, and Jessica is following up to either get confirmation it’s in the works or a no; should be somewhere in California since that’s where we’re incorporated (taxes)
  • New Mapping Editor Announcement (Kat/Bruce)
  • From Kat – Message from Mike: Maybe in the announcement state for submissions send them to me, except for the next column.

And in the future, send submissions to me, except for the following states send them to Ken:

Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming. Ken will be doing these states. ken.rockwell@utah.edu

  • Mike has confirmed but Ken Rockwell is doing the work for now. What should we do with the announcement?
  • Ken is continuing to do states of Idaho, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, so he’s still splitting work with Mike when Mike is back – do we split the honoraria?
  • Even if the work is split, it would be ideal to only have one line of communication for contributors to have to send to
  • Ken will be honored with a thank you at the business meeting/conference
  • ACTION: Kat will talk to Mike about continuing to be the point of contact for all submissions – it’s too confusing to split this
  • WAML IB Indexer (Jessica)
    • Previous Conversation 
    • Ken and Chrissy are investigating Reedsy: https://reedsy.com/editing/indexing
    • Want to know what the Board is willing to pay if we find someone. Chrissy: $250 (once a year) for: “Indexing 1 volume (3 issues) and creating a compilation for volumes 46 through current volume as a supplemental index for Information Bulletin”. But may need to pay someone more today.
      • Along with discussions before about indexing software, also possibility of indexing less often, e.g. every 5 years
      • Open-source software options are more difficult
      • $250 is an old figure and needs to be increased for inflation
      • ACTION: Chrissy will check average rates for this kind of indexing work, how many pages recent issues have been, etc.
  • Continuing Education Committee being potentially disbanded
    • Chrissy asks about this, Kat confirms she’s working with them and MAGIRT
    • Jon Jablonski working more with Communications committee now to revive Map Librarian Toolbox etc.
    • ACTION: Chrissy will update the website to reflect changes in committees

New Business

  • WAML Conference Update (Evan/Jessica)
    • Tested the Hybrid set up and it seems great! Mainly via Zoom, no plugs 😀
      • Meg just put together a hybrid conference with Carto and can share tips
      • ACTION: Meg will share a document of tips and tricks and what to do or not do regarding hybrid conference logistics
    • Working on a nice giveaway with logo and sponsors
    • Registration update: 28 in-person, 24 online
      • June Evite Payment – $193
      • Additional options for housing have been sent out
    • 3 student volunteers helping out from UBC and high school
    • 4 sponsors: HIG, East View, ESRI, Simply Analytics
    • Evan has designed a t-Shirt for the conference that we can sell. Bruce can you help him pay for it?
      • Didn’t ask people for t-shirt size at registration so can’t predict that part
      • Were thinking about 30 t-shirts bulking with large/XL sizes; screen printed with design, an 8×5 rectangle
      • Ordering them in Canada and just keeping them in Vancouver so as not to cause overseas sale issues, unless anyone has good reason to do otherwise and it’s not going to cause visa issues – not sure this actually is a big deal since international web sales happen all the time, including for WAML membership? But it’s a US-based non-profit selling something in Canada with no specific license to do so? US-based officers could maybe just bring more shirts back to sell later without Canadian shipping; Jessica points out it could be considered a donation
      • ACTION: Kat will check what they did about shirt sales for the Austin conference – we sold the t-shirts at cost on the registration page 
      • ACTION: Evan will send a summary email after this meeting for options about the t-shirt logistics
  • Preparing for the Business Meeting (Jessica)
    • What projects of the board should we mention?
      • Policies and Procedures
      • Behind the scenes
      • Financial update from Bruce
      • Pretty much everybody gives an update, Chrissy says
    • ACTION: Kat will share the executive summary she’s been working on with Jessica
  • Cadence of these meetings and when we want to meet
    • Has always been a 2-hour meeting every month, now there’s a discussion about having it every other month – what does E Board think?
    • Should we just have it every month but for 1 hour?
    • Could do this asynchronously and just keep the time blocks on our calendars?
    • Decision: keep 2 hours blocked off every month but try to do everything within 1 hour
    • ACTION: Lena will make a poll to decide what day of the week and time in the month during the semester is best (skipping August since we meet at WAML, and sending the poll after that)

Potential Social Media Announcements

  • None

Next Meeting

  • At WAML

Meeting adjourned: 1:28 PM Eastern

Action Items

Kat

  • ACTION: Kat will request a checklist from Amy for the Social Media Manager position and create template checklists for each of the Appointed Positions. She will look into creating a separate shared drive for appointed positions. Also, mention that we’d like to recruit at the conference.
  • ACTION: Kat will share the executive summary she’s been working on with Jessica
  • ACTION: Kat will talk to Mike about continuing to be the point of contact for all submissions

Jessica

  • ACTION: Jessica will touch base with Nick this summer to talk about “membership strategy” for encouraging renewals in 2023-2024.

Evan

  • ACTION: Evan will follow up with Tom Brittnacher and request a list of items in the map collection they are holding on behalf of WAML.
  • ACTION: Evan will meet with President Elect to update them on the plan to migrate the listserv to the new Google Groups platform and ask them to take over as point person.
  • ACTION: Evan will send a summary email after this meeting for options about the t-shirt logistics

Meg

  • ACTION: Meg will share a document of tips and tricks and what to do or not do regarding hybrid conference logistics

Chrissy

  • ACTION: Chrissy will update the website to reflect changes in committees
  • ACTION: Chrissy will draft a formal resignation message email for the E Board to review, then send final version out before the conference
  • ACTION: Chrissy will check average rates for this kind of indexing work, how many pages recent issues have been, etc.

Lena

  • ACTION: Lena will make a poll to decide what day of the week and time in the month during the semester is best (skipping August since we meet at WAML, and sending the poll after that)

Approved by the Executive Board by email on July 31, 2023

Minutes submitted by Lena Denis (Secretary)

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