August 4, 2024 ZA Board Meeting Minutes

Members in Attendance: Daniel Lockley, Mandy Walker-LaFollette, Heather Steele, Alex Weeks, Adrienne Stewart
Members Absent: Tendai Muparutsa, Maria Minnaar Bailey, Michael Sibanda
Non-voting members in attendance: Claire Jones
Meeting lead: Alex
Notes taker: Mandy
Was a quorum of Board members present?: Yes

July Notes/Minutes

Approved

Check-Ins from Last Month (All)

Duplicate membership issues (Daniel)

• Daniel is moving forward with Jake Roberts and Larry Israel to resolve the issue, it is almost taken care of.

Alyson resignation (All)

• Alyson let us know via email that she needs to resign from the board, effective immediately.

Trademark Matter (All)

An application for a US trademark for the term “Zimfest” was made in December 2023 by a UK entity, and was denied in July 2024.

Zimfest has obtained legal guidance from an attorney, and is monitoring the situation. If necessary, Zimfest will defend our right to continue using the Zimfest mark in the US.

Board Presidency (All)

System of rotating presidency will start in October 2024 (provided there are no issues with rotating presidency per WA state guidelines). Maria will begin with a 4 month term.

• Alex will reach out to Maria and help facilitate a transition for the September 2024 meeting.

Zimfest 2025 Update (Adrienne, Claire, Heather, Tendai)

Western Washington University

• After post-visit negotiations, expenses are still far greater than CWU or Whitman. They want to know yes/no within a week. The Board has decided to turn down this offer, as it would be too expensive.

U of Idaho

• No new information. We’ve been having trouble reaching the conference coordinator. Tendai will visit sometime this coming week. Heather will try to be there when he is.
• We will keep communicating with them, looking at 2026.

CWU

• We will move forward with CWU for 2025 if they will still have us.

WOU

• Claire communicated with yet another new person, who says they are only hired until the end of this year. Claire will try again, and see if we can have them commit to hosting us for 2026.