September 2020

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September 2020
September 24th 2020, San Francisco
Agenda
Opening Items
Review Agenda & Vote [Ben]
Vote to approve previous minutes [Ben]
Discussion Topics
Prior to the meeting, please add items for discussion here:
1.Committee Reports
2.Ferry Building Partnership
3.Podcast Network Launch
4.Performance review planning-planning (per March 2020, we said we would plan Amanda’s review at the end of Q3, which is now.)
5.Follow-up on anti-racism discussion; reflections, ideas (Last month’s notes.)
Closing Items
Open for public comment
Any other business?
Minutes
Scribe: Ben Ward
Present:
Erika Delgado, Events Director
Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director
Caryn Kesler, Creative Director
Tom Tierney, Vice Chair
Ben Ward, Secretary, Technical Director
18:12 – Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes
Board unanimously votes YES to approve the August minutes.
Board unanimously votes YES to adopt the proposed minutes.
18:15 – Committee Reports
Events
Besties Bash yesterday on YouTube.
Next month’s is semi-planned with 3 artists lined up, possibly one more.
“Spooky special” for halloween.
YouTube vs. Twitch
Initial stats were that we had less viewers on YouTube than we had when we did it on Twitch.
Some anecdotal feedback that Twitch is preferred.
Tech
Thinking about how to grow tech participation and distribute ownership. There are a number of distinct tech things that we do now that could have distinct owners, or and even have interesting opportunities to grow separately if they’re invested in: e.g. broadcasting, video streaming, DJ tooling…
We’ve been a bit hamstrung in the past because so much of our tech goes through Creek, which is difficult platform to extend and a barrier to entry (although, we are making significant progress in improving that off the back of the podcast work.) But some of those other areas are on different stacks, separate software, easier to take a bite of.
Flagging that our bandwidth usage is blowing up. Not very sure as to why, maybe DJs uploading higher quality MP3s? Maybe something has gotten popular? Maybe there’s a bug? We have outreach with Fastly to try and learn more.
Fundraising
Deferred for Ferry Building discussion
18:43 — Ferry Building Partnership
Contract came through last week. We’re there until December 31st. We think there’s a high-probability of it being longer than that.
Fundraising leaked, which resulted in rush of donations and excitement
Build-out aiming to be done for October 1st + 1 week.
Need to buy a new control surface for the old mix-engine in order to build a functioning studio.
We have some money leftover for the build-out.
We’ve been DJ’ing at the market and feel pretty confident about the amount of foot-traffic, Ferry Building estimates a substantial attendance for the market.
PR: Will dovetail with a PR push for a new market that’s launching.
We got a media contact following the fundraising tweet, plus we’ll be in the Ferry Building tenant directory and on their website.
We want to keep the physical space activated as much as possible: Considering ways it could be physically occupied, live DJ sets, etc. even if a show isn’t airing live from that space.
We’re still determining the schedule for occupancy (e.g. aiming to have live-DJs in the space between Xam–Ypm.) Lots still to be figured out. From that, adjustments to the schedule may be needed, but TDB.
COVID:
There will be one person in the space at a time.
Reasonable ventilation in the space.
Setting up the space to push a mic outside for co-hosts/live performance.
There’s an industrial-grade air-filter built into the space.
We’ll work out a hand-off protocol for back-to-back shows.
DJs will wear masks, and we have covers for the microphones.
There are a bunch of volunteers lined up to assist with building out the space.
19:23 — Podcast Network Launch
We… launched a podcast network.
Everyone is really excited about the design, loads of upgrades to the tech that benefits all broadcasting.
Initially we have 6 podcasts in the roster, mostly already in the BFF community already.
We’ve got 10 new applications to join the network already!
More people who want to have their podcast on the network vs wanting to mentor people.
There’s a split of novices vs. experienced podcasters looking to get involved.
We’re going to review applications in October.
We’re currently assessing 3 stats platforms, we’ll compare and assess those in October too.
19:39 — Performance review planning-planning
We agreed back in the Spring to ensure we planned the next review in Q3, and here we are.
What prerequisites need to be met in order to conduct the review, what do we need to do to ensure they’re ready.
Goals: Amanda has shared an updated draft goals document for collective review.
2021 budget needs to be drafted and shared. Amanda: This should be created by end of October.
For next month:
Everyone go away and have an idea of what we should get out of this process, so that next month we can finalize the agenda for the review.
Caryn and Erika should go back and read the retrospective notes from March about what went wrong in the process last time.
20:21 — Anti-Racism Update
What do we think is an effective way to keep on top of this subject
Amanda: I think our stated goal here should be to get more people of color involved in the station and in the running of the station. It’s not going to happen overnight, so not sure how to check-in effectively more regularly like this.
Looking to ensure we get POC mentors involved in the podcast network.
Representation is an area of active-consideration in the programming for BFF.fm’s own InFrequencies podcast.
20:25 — Any other business
Would be good to solicit more feedback from the DJ community, and maybe consider how to have them more closely involved in the board process.
Revisit our notes from a few months ago that we should more proactively share when these board meetings occur, and share these notes within the community.
20:27 — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on October 15th. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
Action Items
All
Read up on non-profit leadership review processes in preparation for agenda setting next month.
Amanda
Follow up with Ben about sharing board notes with DJ community