February 12, 2023 ZA Board Meeting Minutes

Members in Attendance: Daniel Lockley, Mandy Walker-LaFollette, Alex Weeks, Janis Weeks, Tendai Muparutsa, Heather Steele, Maria Minnaar Bailey, Jacqueline Fallon
Members Absent: Chris Halaska, Cloud Petayi
Non-voting members in attendance: Claire Jones, Trent Fallon-Muparutsa

Review Agenda (All)

December Synopsis (All)

Approved.

January Minutes/Synopsis (All)

Approved.

Finalize Gary Spalter’s Financial Contract (All)

Board has approved hiring Gary Spalter as an independent contractor. Start date: February 1st, 2023.

QuickBooks Transfer to Gary (Cloud)

Cloud is not present, but Alex is working with him to transfer QuickBooks to Gary.

ZA Tech Committee Report (Janis)

  • Upgrading of website hosting has been finalized.
  • Data tables have been switched to a subdomain of our WordPress site instead of using Nora Holmquist’s website.
  • Backups – discussing options.
  • Increasing security standards for people who can access our WordPress site.

Financial Tasks (Alex)

We need to purchase and/or extend D&O insurance by 4/15. Janis has done this in the past, and is willing to do it this year again.

2023 Policy Review (All)

The board reviewed and approved or updated our existing policies. Changes or discussions of note:

Code of Conduct

  • Claire updates each year with local festival information (location, age of consent state law)
  • Maria will replace Janis as a person to report complaints to

Zimbabwean Guest Travel Policy

  • Clarify that reimbursement (aside from fellowships) is only up to the stated cap.
  • Increase reimbursement cap back to $650

Zimbabwean Teacher Fellowship

(Hope First donation of $2225.99 is to be used for this purpose.) The Board added a category “Discretionary Fellowship.” If funds allow and the OC wants to bring additional qualifying Zimbabwean teacher(s) beyond those receiving the Veteran and New Teacher Fellowships, they may do so.

COVID Safety Policy for 2023 (All)

  • What should we do this year?
    • Janis (previously head of Covid Safety Committee) suggests not requiring vaccines, but again strongly recommending masking.
    • Maria recommends a statement strongly recommending the vaccine (and current booster).
    • General agreement that we should allow teachers to require masking in their workshops. Alex is willing to be the person, should this come up, to require someone to leave a workshop if they are not following the teacher’s wishes.
  • We MUST make some sort of statement on the blog asap before applications close Feb 28 – applicants want to know what to expect
  • Maria will draft language that we can publish. Janis will send Maria the url to the 2022 Covid Safety policy.

Zimfest 2023 Update (Claire)

  • Applications going very s.l.o.w.l.y – fewer at this point than other years.
  • OSU negotiations
    • It looks like School of Visual, Performing, and Design Arts (SVPDA) will be the OSU sponsor enabling us to work with the University Events Coordinator, get OSU rates on services and classrooms and allow Int’l Services to co-sign invitation letters for B visas. Events Coordinator is working on a MOA which will outline responsibilities.
    • Housing and Dining (UHDS)
      • We are assigned to McNary Dorm, in which we will be able to use lounges for workshops, ground floor for registration, 2nd floor rooms for storage.
      • Add’l workshops to be in Memorial Union (and hopefully Community Hall in music building – under SVPDA). Fees unknown at this point.
      • Village Meeting: Hoping to use cafeteria in Dining Center. Alternatives would be to rent a large room in the Memorial Union or make it virtual.
      • Requested use of one of the dorm lounges for late night parties, but curfew has to be midnight. (Outdoor concert curfew is 11 PM.)
      • UHDS to send agreement in writing in “the coming weeks” i.e. March?
    • We have not yet asked about possible camping and/or RVing on campus. Would likely involve another permit, more $ and dedicated volunteer help.
  • Sound permit for outdoor concerts at McNary Field has been approved, Thaddeus/Sprout City Studios has been lined up to do sound, and concert producer Chris Halaska working on staging infrastructure, bids from vendors, etc.
  • We are pursuing using the Corvallis Methodist Church north of McNary Field for one or more workshop rooms. Jaiaen Beck/Ancient Ways used to teach there and is heading negotiations with a student who is a church member and can get member rates. Doors have to remain locked and we would need volunteer help to be there at all times workshops are happening. Total costs unknown as of yet. Requires a signed contract and certificate of insurance.

Food for Thought/Discussion (Claire)

Our present work model means topics are brought up one month and discussion and/or action is usually not taken until at least a month later. Things are not getting done in a timely manner. How can we improve this?

  • Meet more often? Potentially meet 2x/month for a shorter amount of time?
  • Commit to doing work between meetings
  • Commit to taking care of action items as soon as they are assigned
  • Sending out minutes and synopsis soon after the meeting, and board members commit to respond in a timely manner to approve.
  • Alex may send out an email gathering opinions for what to do.

Next Meeting

Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 6:30pm Pacific Time on Zoom.

3 Comments on “February 12, 2023 ZA Board Meeting Minutes

  1. John Hatten says:

    The practice of approving and publishing minutes one month after each board meeting has always been frustrating to me because the membership is then over a month behind on the actions and ideas that were fresh at the time. For the board to approve the minutes in an efficient process over email or some other timely means would be great for Zimfest Association members as well as board members. Thank you for moving this idea forward!

  2. Adrienne Stewart says:

    Hi John. I completely understand it’s hard to be a month behind especially when life moves so quickly these days. When nonprofit boards meet, minutes must be taken. It usually requires a little extra time for the note taker to tidy up those minutes prior to submitting them to the board for required approval. Boards typically approve minutes at the following regularly scheduled board meeting. To get them out any sooner would require an additional board meeting which has its own logistics in terms of notifying board members, scheduling, additional time commitments, etc. I hope this helps. Call me if you’d like ideas on how you might possibly get information sooner.

    • Claire Jones says:

      John, Adrienne and all,
      John, thanks for keeping on top of ZA Board functions and rightfully encouraging the timely posting of minutes. Adrienne, thank you for sharing your insight into typical board functions (and attempting to excuse us!). It is totally true that the ZA Board as a body has a history of being delinquent on posting of minutes, which we know is not helpful in keeping the membership abreast of activities. We are currently going through changes in the board officers as Jacqueline, now mother of two, has realized she needs to step back from secretarial duties. As of February we had decided we should approve all minutes via email as soon as they are available. We were able to do that promptly, but the step of sending the minutes to our webmaster for posting was missed, hence February minutes were late (sorry!). I think you will see the minutes from the March 12 meeting posted very soon.
      Claire, Festival Coordinator and non-voting ZA Board member