January 2021

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January 2021
January 21st 2021, 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 Updates
1.Events
2.Tech
3.Board Development Committee
2.Winter fundraiser review/2021 Fundraising Plan
3.Update on The Secret Alley
4.Annual report draft: https://bff.fm/2020-annual-report​
Closing Items
Open for public comment
Any other business?
Minutes
Scribe: Ben Ward
Present:
Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director
Caryn Kesler, Creative Director
Tom Tierney, Vice Chair
Ben Ward, Secretary, Technical Director
Erika Delgado, Events Director
18:11 — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes
Vote YES to approve the December minutes.
Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
18:15 — Committee Updates
Events (Erika, Amanda)
We’ve set up a new form to take band submissions for future Bestie Bashes. (https://bff.fm/bands)
Q: How many people have submitted their work so far? 25 bands, so far.
We’ve promoted it in our social media, as well as email newsletter.
Tom will try to promote it to the Pops music community, too.
We don’t have a great sense of band availability right now
Taking submissions for a Valentine's Day event
We’re looking for ways to make more use of our Twitch channel with other broadcasts/content
We’re going to start sharing music videos that are submitted from like minded bands on our YouTube.
Q: What is an “unlikeminded band”? Bands that we don’t currently have a show for the genre: e.g. Jazz and Blues
Tech (Ben)
Automation reliability remains a bit wonky, but somewhat improved
Ben and BenGG met to discuss stats platform next step; we want to take over stream hosting so we can get raw stats data, but need to get a licensing reporting pipeline built first, which is a little complex.
Support Us page has been brainstormed, next step is needing to sync with Caryn to start on design process.
Board Development (Amanda)
We might have a treasurer? Amanda spoke to someone who was really keen and set up a meeting for them with Forrest.
At some point we’ll need a bookkeeper as well, trying to determine if those roles are something that our treasurer candidate could do.
Seems promising, but weren’t able to arrange introduction for this month’s board meeting. Will try to set that up for next month.
Will hopefully share bio and LinkedIn info with rest of the board soon.
18:46 — Fundraising
Amanda: We did great!
We didn’t meet the goal, fell $7000 short
We did better with corporate matching than ever before
We think that in the context of 2020, there’s a lot of competing fundraisers, “every business has a GoFundMe.”
Less engagement. Our email open rate was terrible, even high-profile targets simply didn’t open the email.
Especially in that context, moving to a model where we are less dependent on these two big peak events is important.
We finished the year in the red and had to supplement from our emergency fund. We need to look to raise $25000 more this year than last, in order to ensure we don’t do the same. We will deplete the emergency fund in 12+ months otherwise.
Q: Moving to ongoing fundraising sounds good as a strategy. What are the tangible plans for that?
Setting up a syncs with Josef to try and come up with a concrete plan, but there’s nothing immediately to show for that.
Seeking additional consulting advice.
We’ve formed a new group of volunteers to resume grant writing.
19:04 — Update on The Secret Alley
The discounted rent will be extended, but currently trying to figure out how that would be distributed with the other tenants.
If we can keep our rent at our current discounted rate it remains competitive with getting storage elsewhere. If it increases, we need to revisit whether we can keep two studios there.
Tom: Emphasise that we should consider what the absolute financial benefit is of us if we pull out of a studio.
We don’t have the financial resources at this time to consider moving/building out another space.
19:25 — Fundraising again
With trying to create a structure to have additional fundraisers throughout the year, considering the events we might organize around. Two big tentpole events, 3-4 medium events (e.g. the gala, birthday celebrations), and then a smattering of small one-off events (e.g. a video broadcast, Facebook fundraiser, home-hosted mini-event.)
Try to be flexible with time to fit around the schedules of people who would run each activities.
Tom has determined these will be named “Tinytivities”.
We want to try and fill out a schedule for these activities — each board member will try to come up with one.
How can we get more of the DJ community involved in this, especially to host Tinitivities?
Maybe use the board member ideas to kickstart launching it to the community.
19:39 — Annual Report
Report is drafted, all board members please read it and send feedback to Amanda before Sunday.
19:46 — Any other business?
Caryn: I’ve compiled all the feedback for Amanda’s annual review, the board just need to meet to finalize it. Booking time for Wednesday 27th to do that.
19:48 — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on February 18th 2021. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
Action Items
All:
Come up with a “tinytivity” idea, and when you’d be able to host it. Deadline: 2 weeks.
Review the annual report before this weekend so that it can be sent out next week. Feedback by Sunday.