(Note: thank you for your patience and understanding as we continue to update the blog with a backlog of meeting minutes for 2024. Please send any comments to secretary@wpcampus.org.)
Meeting date/time: June 4, 2024 at 4:00 pm Eastern
Attendees: Dash, Kevin G., Ed, Rachel, Danielle, Nathan, Reed
Goals
- Identify action items regarding new standing committees, and assign those action items to committee directors or other individuals.
Agenda
Roll Call
- Note attendees of this meeting (in the Details section above), and list any absences.
- Recognize attendee guests.
Approval of Minutes
- Review, correct, and approve the minutes from the previous meeting.
Reports or Presentations
- Report on the organization’s finances.
- Report on the 2024 annual conference planning.
- Report on the communications committee.
Old Business
- Discuss unresolved action items from the previous meeting.
- Identify action items regarding new standing committees and assign those action items to committee directors or other individuals.
New Business
- Discuss the organization’s work to partner with Human Made.
Private Session
- A private session may be held here if there are matters that only members of the Board of Directors need to discuss at this time.
Action Items
- A list of action items as a result of this meeting
Closing
- Confirm June 18, 2024 for the next meeting.
- Final thoughts, reminders, or general chit-chat.
Minutes
Call to order.
Dash called to order the semi-monthly meeting of the WPCampus Board of Directors at 4:05 pm (Eastern) on 4 June 2024, virtually in Zoom.
Danielle, Ed, Rachel, Kevin G., Dash, Reed, and Nathan were in attendance.
The board approved the minutes.
Report on the organization’s finances.
There was no financial report this meeting.
Discuss the organization’s work to partner with Human Made.
Human Made and WPCampus are in discussions to become strategic partners. One of the elements of our partnership will be co-hosted events and other content. Human Made is hosting the first co-hosted event on 18 July 2024. It will be an online-only event. WPCampus member Steve Ryan will present and Rachel Cherry will host a panel discussion.
Human Made will promote WPCampus and the 2024 conference. The organization will discuss what a partnership between the organization and Human Made would entail. Human Made is willing to do most of the upfront work, since WPCampus is deep in conference planning at this time, and the partnership will be more collaborative post-conference. Once a partnership is agreed upon, WPCampus will add back the Partners page on the website, and list Human Made.
The board discussed a potential plan to draft a proposal for soliciting full-year sponsorships, in addition to the once-yearly conference sponsorships. Having recurring full-year sponsorships would allow the organization to upgrade its Slack instance to a paid account. Depending on the paid plan tiers, there could be limitations on user accounts. Kevin G. asked if Slack counts inactive users as users on the plan; Rachel suggested research to find more information.
Danielle suggested reaching out to Slack about a free plan for non-profit organizations. Ed quickly reviewed Slack’s website for its non-profit plans. For 250 users or fewer, the Pro plan would be free, and for any number of users above 250, there is an 80% discount. If the organization’s Slack instance averages 500 users, the yearly subscription would be approximately $4,000.
Report on the 2024 annual conference planning.
Sending conference session emails to accepted speakers has begun, including asking accepted speakers if they can still attend the conference.
Dash recommended the organization experiment with other online or in-person events, and observed that for many events, attendance has been low since COVID-19 began.
Rachel mentioned her work on reviewing community of practice concepts, and how the organization may adopt those concepts. She inquired about fostering community growth and collaboration, and what technologies may be financially sustainable, including Slack. Other communication tools noted were Discord and website forums. Discord may not be free forever, and the board considered what other tools may be free or open source. Website forums would have the benefit of being archival in ways that Slack or Discord may not provide. Danielle proposed investigating third-party tools that may enable Slack archives. The board also recognized that Slack usage may increase dramatically just before, during, and just after the annual conferences.
Report on the technical committee.
Rachel will post the call for volunteers on the Technical committee, and stated she may do some of the initial committee work herself until the committee is up and running. The board discussed moving the website to Reclaim Hosting because of their focus on higher education; this would not negate the organization’s current discussions with Pagely. Rachel also mentioned there is further research to be completed on customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Report on the communications committee.
Danielle briefly reviewed the marketing plan, and stated she would distribute it to the board before the next meeting. She hoped to connect with individuals or teams at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCU) to invite them into the community and potentially leadership positions. Based on the language in the committee’s charter, the marketing plan would provide information with broad responsibilities, to allow its members to assign and delegate tasks. Danielle recommended a meeting separate from the regular board meetings to discuss this plan.
Closing.
Rachel proposed several small ideas to improve the WPCampus website, including adding an event calendar with more capabilities than only embedding the general Google Calendar; Nathan would support research endeavors for an event calendar.
Another idea would be to partner with an agency to redesign the website. The technical committee would draft a statement of work (SOW) with any technical requirements. Soliciting a new design may or may not include development work.
Ed asked if this could be an example of the type of in-kind donation people would want to provide to us, as it would be mutually beneficial to all parties involved. He also argued the organization separate sponsorships, partnerships, and donations from each other. The board discussed if there would be a maximum amount it would be allowed to accept as a donation in compliance with the organization’s non-profit status, and concluded that it would be best to consult with a lawyer for further clarification. Danielle stated she would connect with her contacts at Black Women Talk Tech, since that organization created a non-profit arm roughly two years ago.
The board confirmed Tuesday 18 June 2024 at 4 pm (Eastern) as the date and time for the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 5:05 pm.