Synopsis of Zimfest Association meeting minutes
October 13, 2013, 6-8 pm PST
Members present: Tsitsi Hantuba, Paul Mataruse, David Simon, Amy Robinson, Alex Weeks, and MyLinda King (for portion noted below)
Non-voting Zimfest Coordinator present: Claire Jones
Absent: Jennifer Kyker
Meeting discussion:
1) Zimfest 2014 Venue Selection (David, Claire and Paul): Claire and Paul have visited again and sent several emails with photos to the board. Overall they were impressed with the facilities and concert venue. For any 2014 venue, all costs/charges would need to be renegotiated. After much discussion, it was decided that we hold the festival at UPS. Going forward Claire needs to be able to provide a deposit, proof of insurance and documentation of our 501c3 status. Also, ZA is currently registered in Washington State under Julie’s address. This will be changed to Claire’s address.
2) Membership renewal (MyLinda): An annual fundraising drive at the beginning of the year coupled with membership renewal was recommended. Membership will now run from January through December. This change would not likely affect anyone w/ regard to the waiver of Zimfest registration, because no one has joined or renewed after the festival. She volunteered to maintain the membership.
3) MyLinda’s departure from the board (David, MyLinda): David thanked MyLinda for her years of service. We are sorry that she must resign.
4) Summarizing and acting on survey data (Claire): Claire provided many of the comments for review by the board. Many negative comments on the 2013 festival related to PLU: the concert space, organizers, PLU as a permanent site, and lack of organization at registration (esp. time to set up and organize and train people). The Future of the ZA Survey yielded other concerns: we need better communication. We need to consider what membership means; in other words, what does one get by being a member? David suggests we define a process to prioritize action items in an effort to make significant changes. The board will try to communicate the survey results to the community.
5) Zimbabwean Teacher Plaque Project (Tsitsi): We discussed whether we need a board liason and/or US-based project manager. There are a number of tasks such as determining the actual plaque verbage, a budget, and selecting the plaques themselves. Lucky seems to have the time and energy to work on many of these things.
6) Other village meeting topics (Tsitsi): Perhaps 1-2 Zimbabweans could be designated as the elders who could moderate discussion with the board if concerns were raised by the Zimbabweans during the . Unforeseen issues may come up spontaneously after any pre-conference meeting. The board should be willing to listen to any concerns that arise but we may not have time to formulate our response.
Other topics: (Tsitisi) What is the purpose of the Zimbabwean forum? It might be helpful to publicize ahead of time in the Festival Guide so that people know that this will happen. It might also be useful to meet prior to the Village meeting.
Certificate of Appreciation (Claire): We will offer this starting in 2014 but will also acknowledge past years of teaching if requested.
7) Feedback from Gretel on the Google drive cleanup: Claire and Gretel worked out a few bugs—search for the Zimfest folder yielded appropriate results.
8) IT tech team: It was proposed to break the project into 2 groups of tasks: everything related to the annual festival, especially registration; and everything else. It is difficult to do everything well in a timely and reliable manner. David proposes finding other people in the community to take on other tasks so that Alex can focus on making the registration system sustainable. There will be a separate call to discuss goals for registration improvements. Festival management software was discussed. Alex was asked to make a list of requirements for such software. There was discussion about the potential role of a Dev. Manager and about implementation of the blog. David will call a meeting with Alex and Gretel to discuss these issues further.
9) Discussion re: performers who are not teachers: postponed.
10) Additional Board Members (David): Counting Jennifer, we now have 6 board members. The bylaws do not specify the precise number needed, but we agreed to solicit the membership for an additional 1-2 members.
Next meeting November 10, 2013, 6-8 pm PST
