April 2019
April 25th 2019, San Francisco
Prior to the meeting, please add items for discussion here:
Check in about publication of these minutes and future board meetings — https://board.bff.fm has been created for this purpose.
Open Discussion
Scribe: Ben Ward
Convene as Best Frequencies, Inc. Board of Directors
Tom: Really good!
Amanda: We’ve had it reviewed by external consultants.
Amanda: Pressing thing is we need to present it to the larger DJ population.
Amanda: Working with Caryn to create a presentation deck as a basis for the presentation to DJs. Stripping out proprietary details (exact listenership, etc.) but include budget, strategy, etc.
All these things are supposed to be transparent and accessible.
Starting Sept/Oct we’ll need to get some of us together to produce and EOY report — spending, achievements, goals for 2020, etc. Also needs to be published and sent to all donors.
Tom: Can we just share the video of the BFF.fm meeting as a year-end report?
Amanda: They’re different content, so no. We can try to find a pro-bono consultant to produce a well presented version of the report for release. Would ordinarily be very expensive though.
Board members should consider which section of the plan they want to present to the DJs — we want to build up the DJ’s relationship with the board.
Action Item: If there’s any part of the plan that resonates, let Amanda know and work with her to prepare presentation.
Amanda: Dani Scoville is working with us to get a venue (Potrero Hill) and invite all DJs.
Event will be mandatory for DJs (at the very least to watch the video recording of the presentation.)
We will also make this event open to the public and supporters.
Probably “commission” another video to raise community awareness of the event, get the public more involved.
We want to get this schedule as soon as possible. Before the end of May. Halfway through the year, want this done before the next fundraiser in June. Possibly a Saturday Afternoon.
Amanda will reach out to each DJ individually to ensure they understand the importance of the event and get feedback on what scheduling works best for them.
Probably plan a post-event social at The Parkside to coincide with it.
Goal of the meeting: Pare down the strategic plan, just to the core, room for questions.
Tom: We’ve got a lot of stuff to do. Do we want to focus on just the really necessary things, or try to put together groups for all of it right away.
Amanda: The biggest thing is switching to the committee-based structure, everything else is supported by that. It makes sense for the committee-portion to be the most detail. Other things like “Finding a New Space” are more long-term vision.
We want everyone to leave this feeling like they’re part of an organisation that has a cool history and bright history that they can be a part of making happen.
Tom: So we do emphasise the most immediate things.
Ben: Do we want to use this event for committee recruitment?
A: Yes.
Tom: No bones about it. I love seal.
Ben: It’s not the regular version, right?
Tom: No! It’s an acoustic version.
<The playlist progresses and a conversation about Dogs Eye View proceeds>
Ben: We have a new documentation platform upon which we can write content.
Board.BFF.fm has been set up as the future host of board profiles. We need bios for each of us.
Summarized new documentation and tech offerings for DJs — new @dj.bff.fm logins will be issues soon — Ben is working on the transition plan.
Amanda: May and June are booked up! A bunch of bands found out about it now and so August is booking fast.
We’re getting $12K from JLS, plus potential for sponsorship.
We got permits and beer donated. However, no additional sponsor money has come in through sponsorship yet. We’re still under budget to book August, but holding off on September until we know the bar income, and budget for bands.
Will: What kind of sponsorship are we looking for?
A: Local Oakland businesses mostly.
The bonus of limited sponsorship is that we’ve been able to lead all the branding in BFF colours, etc, and we have “BFF.fm presents…” as the headline.
Additional sponsors will be “BFF.fm presents MUSH, sponsored by FOO”
The issue is that potential sponsors didn’t have a concept of what the event would be, and after the first event that will be easier.
Additional income comes from “Artist Row” — $50/table for local artists. Again, slow uptake due to unknown event. We’ve given all the tables for the first event for free to artists who’ve worked with BFF before.
Oakland has a weird thing where the permit cost is much more expensive to have a food truck in addition to bar, so we’re limiting to just the bar. JLS has a bunch of restaurants who are going to arrange some take-out specials during the event.
B: In a lot of ways that sounds better — gets JLS even more involved.
A: We have additional money from JLS for promoting the event, so we’ve ordered BFF-coloured skydancers and a small tent.
We still need to figure out a backdrop for the stage.
We have had MUSH stickers made.
Ben: That reminds me, we have a lot of variants of our logo and icons. One of the other things we can do with the new public documentation pages is publish a Media Kit with just the logs we want people (including us) to use in different settings.
Ben: Right now Amanda is running point on all of of this. Do we envisage that a Committee will own this going forward?
A: Yes, Events Committee. Erika is already involved in MUSH.
Andre is also really interested and likely to join that committee too and has run his own events. He wants to work more closely with BFF to make BFF events.
Note that BFF has a sense of minimum standard for us to put our name of an event, namely that they must be diverse and inclusive. e.g. We won’t put out name on an event that doesn’t include women.
W: The committees will be fully staffed by volunteers, and we’re looking for DJs to be involved in them?
A: Yes. Part of growing the committees is staffing them up with more involvement.
A: Also we’re trying to start a flyer campaign. Got Miles to distribute some.
We’ve got a laser printer and have been trying to improve print quality and lower production cost.
A: There are five open timeslots. I’ve emailed 5 potential DJs.
Once they’re filled, I want to review the process for how we get people in the door. Currently it’s very direct, people apply through the website and we review their applications. We still want to review people for whether they’re aligned with our values, but we could consider making the barrier to entry more aligned with participating in the community: e.g. volunteering at Bestie bashes, supporting events and the station, joining committees, etc. Then getting a show opportunity off the back of that.
We think that should be a board-led process to decide if we want to set a bar like that.
Ben and I have discussed ways to measure the “health” of shows — just to keep track of which shows are showing a lot of re-runs, or not showing up regularly.
This would let us identify where maybe a DJ should be approached to rethink their timeslot or take a break.
B: Or share a timeslot. It can be a positive approach to suggest they get a level of involvement that works for them.
It all fits with a general desire to have DJs shift from feeling like they are part of the community, and not “paying to have a show.”
Ben: Want to flag that one thing we’ve done in that past is that access to our community tools has been very gated by “having a show” — e.g. being present in Slack. When people end a run of their show, they disappear from the space. With the desire to have broader community participation, we might want to consider allowing people to stick around.
A: Broadly agree. Again with moving away from Dues, moving a model where DJs are encouraged to be supporters/donations makes that relationship more sustainable and ongoing.
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20:20 — Meeting adjourned.
