November 19, 2020
In attendance: Stefani, Mary, Greg, Jasmine, Elise, Melissa, Karen, Brendan, Jess, Adam
Jasmine expressed appreciation to Board Members for continuing to give time and support to the chapter alongside the upheaval of everything else going on in our workplaces, institutions and lives.
Financial report
We submitted a Grant funding request for our fall events, but PaLA doesn’t like to fund past events and asked instead that we re-submit for our future programs. Yet, there is a chance they will reconsider, since everything about this year has been different. Additionally, we hope that the level of outreach we achieved and the effectiveness of the programs may help sway them their reconsideration.
We havelmost $2000 in assets
We spent ~ $1000 in honoraria for the Fall program
We’ve received a handful of new memberships, some in advance of the fall program and a few since then.
Program Planning
Oct 16th event: Working Out Loud wrap-up
There were ~300 registrations; ~175 attendees. Perhaps people register in order to receive links to recordings, perhaps zoom fatigue plays a role.
We still have not sent out the program follow-up form. We could send something to participants in all fall programs
The video of the October 16 program is up on the YouTube channel
About 5-6 people showed up to the social time at lunch
November 12th event:“Critical Connections, Emergent Organizing: Black Library Workers in Community”
There were 53 registrations which yielded 21 participants, who were not only from our chapter location and included public library workers. Slides of the event will be shared. Requests for this type of program specific to Black Library Workers will be ongoing as they nurture efforts to diversity our profession and our commitment to this end.
However, Mary raised a question about board sponsored events that are not open to everyone. We had broad discussion ranging over the following questions and points:
Can we provide support rather than sponsorship? We can provide marketing support and the support of our time, which are more valuable at this time than our financial support.
What would be the alternative? Andrea Lemoins and Jasmine discussed the possibility of a quarterly meeting. If this plan evolves into programming rather than a meeting, it might be different. We could consider making the group a Committee or Leadership Group targeted to recruitment, networking and professional collaboration opportunities.
Organizational pride for doing this is very positive and a financial commitment speaks to our support even though naming events and groups and determining how they fit in organizational structure is a question. The board has confidence in Jasmine’s and Maisha’s leadership.
Mary suggested we include language in announcements of future events that explicitly communicates our commitment to diversifying librarianship and the positive impact a group for Black Library Workers has on achieving this goal.
Additional suggestions or ideas to explore include:
Consider creating an informal group under the DVC umbrella, if this is done, we should include and invite other underrepresented groups
The Black Caucus of the ALA may be a resource that could help with framing and other concerns
Exclusive groups have become standard practice -it shouldn’t be controversial.
Anti-racism work is really for white people and diverts funding to white people. How can our chapter structure incorporate all these things and how do we not become segregated? Jasmine mentioned an ACRL President’s Program on Generous Accountability and suggested the Program Planning Committee take a look and think about these things.
December 11th at 10am – Change the Subject discussion Participants are expected to watch the documentary first, which is freely available on the web. An announcement will go out early next week. Jasmine has a registration form ready to go. She’ll add this to the events section of the website and send out the message
Spring events: An idea to shift to a ‘call for program proposals’ model; logistics need to be worked out. Planning and work will begin in January.
Community Liaisons
The board discussed Jess the idea of sending out a possible survey for the purpose of establishing contacts (although simply emailing individuals is also a possibility.) The chapter would like to build connections with people in these groups, although depending on how this goes out, it could reach people outside our region. After discussion it was decided that Jess will send the form via the email contact list from Wild Apricot and also to all those who participated in the fall program.
Communications
Blog interviews with Stefani and Jess are up!
Live-tweeting: Brendan reported that we gained 14 followers in October surrounding our chapter event and the top tweet in November was from the event. Tweeting for events is fine – we don’t need to build more of a presence necessarily. The Communications group will discuss and make a decision about whether anything more is desirable.
Social Committee: reached a consensus that parents are stretched thin by what caring for their families during the pandemic requires and that additional events don’t fill a need. Social events are put on hold until January
Mentoring/Resume Review updates
Jasmine will send an email to 2020 participants in December to say thank you and to follow up on the experience. It will include sign-ups or a way to indicate interest for the future.
Website updates
Completed updates: moved the Resume Review Committee and Mentorship Committee to the Volunteer Positions page
Created an Archives section to include previous Board Members and previous events
Webmaster email is updated
Still to be done: the Mission Statement (in 2021)
Board members are encouraged to take a look at the content inventory sheet Karen created and to make suggestions.