(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: May 21, 2024 at 4:00 pm Eastern
Attendees: L. Danielle Baldwin, Ed Beck, Rachel Cherry, Dash Kees, Reed Piernock, Nathan Wallace
Goals
- Report on the 2024 annual conference planning.
- 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.
Old Business
- Discuss unresolved action items from the previous meeting.
New Business
- Identify action items regarding new standing committees, and assign those action items to committee directors or other individuals.
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 4, 2024 for the next meeting.
- Final thoughts, reminders, or general chit-chat.
Minutes
Call to order.
Dash called to order the monthly meeting of the WPCampus Board of Directors at 4:06 pm (Eastern) on 21 May 2024, virtually in Zoom.
Danielle, Ed, Rachel, Dash, Reed, and Nathan were in attendance.
Ed moved to approve the minutes from the 19 April 2024 meeting; Dash seconded the motion. The board approved the minutes.
The board then reviewed the minutes from the meeting on 7 May 2024. Reed was not in attendance at that meeting, and had a few questions on recording the minutes based on notes that other board members had written. Comments on the minutes were resolved and the record updated. Ed moved to approve the amended minutes; Dash seconded the motion. The board approved the minutes.
As the regularly scheduled board meetings were rescheduled from once per month to twice per month, the board discussed if there were more efficient ways to record the minutes. Conversation on this topic will be moved to Slack.
Report on the 2024 annual conference planning.
Nathan will update the website to switch the early-bird pricing to the regular pricing for the conference tickets. Submissions for speaker proposals closed, and the form will be disabled. Rachel recommended hiding the form instead, in case there were any others who requested late submissions, and disabling it at another time.
Nathan will send Dash a list of contacts for Washington DC universities who may be interested in the conference.
Rachel will update the proposal review forms and provide access to the speaker selection committee. At the time of the meeting, there were approximately 50 submissions. Registration is low so far, but the conference committee noted that the community often waits until closer to the conference to register.
Ed asked about free or discounted tickets for committee members or speakers. Rachel confirmed that in the past, the organization has provided no-cost attendance for speakers. As many conference committee members were in attendance at the board meeting, a vote for providing no-cost attendance to speakers was taken and approved. Rachel will create coupon codes for accepted speakers.
Nathan will follow up with Lucy via email regarding room reservations.
Report on the organization’s finances.
Ed proposed updating the organization’s PayPal account with business debit cards, and using the account as a “petty cash” fund with a low balance. PayPal will allow the organization to hold both physical and virtual debit cards that can be used by three or four people. Dash agreed and suggested that physical debit cards would be beneficial to some. Rachel also agreed, stating that it should be a straightforward task to create virtual debit cards for people to add to Google Pay, Apple Pay, or other similar accounts. The board approved the proposal, with the understanding that if the idea did not work well for the organization, the board would consider other options.
Identify action items regarding new standing committees, and assign those action items to committee directors or other individuals.
The board decided to add dates or deadlines to standing committee action items, to ensure that tasks were completed in a timely manner.
Rachel drafted a job posting calling for volunteers on the Technical committee and will post it to the blog when the post is live. Dash created other drafts for the remaining committees.
Danielle briefly discussed the progress of the communications committee plan and stated it would be available for review before the June meeting. Ed asked for clarification on the work Danielle was doing for the committee, clarifying that a full plan was not needed at this time, and a full plan would be drafted by the committee members. Danielle thanked the board for the clarification, as she missed the previous meeting, and indicated that her draft so far would be a good starting point to hand off to the committee when it commenced.
Dash will reach out to several people they know who may be interested in joining the Librarians, and follow up with Reed after. They also mentioned waiting to post the call for Librarian committee volunteers until the Technical committee was posted.
The board discussed the waiting period between volunteer posts, so that the community is not inundated or overwhelmed with posts. The board finalized the following schedule:
- Technical committee on 22 May 2024;
- Communications committee on 5 June 2024;
- Librarian committee on 19 June 2024; and
- Membership committee on 8 July 2024.
Rachel asked Dash if they found their notes regarding HighEdWeb’s list of finalists when researching customer relationship management (CRM) software; the research identified HelpScout and FreshDesk as the top finalists.
The board discussed finding a more effective workflow for checking email and assigning tasks to board members, as currently all website contact goes through Rachel. Nathan suggested categorizing the various types of questions and comments the organization receives, and matching the categories with different people who would be responsible for responding. Reed mentioned that there could be integration with ClickUp to assign emails as tasks, and connecting with Slack to notify people; these features are good candidates for the board’s requirements with a CRM.
Closing.
The board confirmed Tuesday 4 June 2024 at 4 pm (Eastern) as the date and time for the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 5:00 pm.