July 2021
July 15th 2021, San Francisco (Remote)
Agenda
Opening Items
Review Agenda & Vote [Secretary]
Vote to approve previous minutes [Secretary]
Discussion Topics
Consideration for Board: Clair McDevitt
Review Action Items
[Everyone] Review PR proposal
[Amanda/Brandon] Get help for outdoor event ideas
[Amanda] Call Scavenger Hunt meeting when Ben returns
[Amanda] Prepare updates to strategic plan
[Everyone] Plan a tiny fundraising activity
Committees Post-pandemic
Returning to studios/Programming Update
Scavenger Hunt
Closing Items
Open for public comment
Any other business?
Minutes
Scribe: Ben Ward
Present:
Amanda Guest, Chair, Executive Director
Ben Ward, Secretary, Tech Director
Brandon Paski, Chair of Marketing Committee
Caryn Kesler, Vice Chair, Creative Director
Erika Delgado, Events Director
Jenn Lemon, Treasurer
Guests:
Clair McDevitt
Absent:
18:11 — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes
Vote YES to approve the June minutes.
Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
18:07 — Consideration for Board: Clair McDevitt
From Amanda:
This month I am bringing a new board candidate for consideration: Clair McDevitt. Attached is her resume and below is her bio/blurb for review:
Clair McDevitt has spent most of the past 20 years living in San Francisco, where she has worked in communications and fundraising roles in the nonprofit sector. Most recently, she was the communications manager for the Low Income investment Fund, where she wrote about all facets of community development with a focus on the interconnected housing and economic opportunity challenges facing the Bay Area.
Clair wrote her first letter to a radio station DJ in 1987 and has spent much of her free time since listening to the radio. She’s been a longtime listener to BFF.fm and a volunteer since December 2020, helping the station win its first-ever grant and providing other fundraising and sponsorship support. Clair hopes to use her time on the board to help support San Francisco’s music and culture scene and provide more opportunities for diverse voices to access community radio.
When not listening to the radio, Clair is a cyclist, avid SF Giants fan, and human to a very good dog.
Questions for Clair
Q: What are you hoping to bring to board? [Caryn]
More grants! More sponsorships. I really hope to be the person who can do that. We have a really great program but I see some opportunities.
Q: What are some of those opportunities? [Jen]
Donor engagement, lapsed donors in particular. For BFF to engage with people around significant events.
Philanthropy in the Bay Area is not super-open to new entrants, so figuring out ways to break into that.
Amanda notes that our previous efforts with grant writing using an external person fell a little flat and struggled to explain BFF, and that being able to do that instead with someone internally will really help us tell the story better.
Q: What do you hope to get out of being on a board? [Ben]
I’ve been on a board previously, and leadership non-board positions elsewhere. It’s a values thing, I’ve been a Bestie for over a year and have no hesitation looking to raise money for it, so I’m motivated to join.
Q: Favourite music scene in the Bay Area? [Erika]
I’m a huge Deadhead. Got drawn into all sorts of local music.
Q: What was the contents of your letter? [Brandon]
I wrote a letter making a request to be played on the radio! I grew up in Manhattan, it was the end of the 80s, he read the letter out and played my song.
Vote YES to proceed to a nomination
Amanda nominates, Brandon seconds.
Vote YES to vote Clair McDevitt onto the BFF.fm board.
18:23 — Committee Updates
Events
Virtual Besties Bashes are coming to an end. Bands are generally keen to start playing in person again.
The Secret Alley is surveying tenants to determine resuming events in the space, might start small, but concerns about Delta variant abound. We might just need to take a few months for this to shake out.
We could consider redirecting that budget into bookings for the Scavenger Hunt.
The inaugural Wax Social happy-hour event at Make Out Room was successful.
Casements have mentioned they might be interested in a monthly BFF DJ night.
Talked with Mission Bowling Club about doing an event, maybe grow into an annual bowling-based fundraiser for the station.
Marketing
Met with Chloe to build a more robust strategy for our social media strategy, looking at analytics, et.
For partnerships, met with Noisepop, working on a template for that kind of repeat outreach in future.
Fundraising
In future Clair will give this update.
Tech
No big updates. Tech Committee will reconvene and meet tomorrow and look to get some input on what our priority projects should be.
Board Development
The board is now at max capacity per our original bylaws. We will need to decide whether to vote to amend the bylaws to expand the board. Amanda proposes letting this board settle in, and then vote to expand in early 2022.
Music
Some new volunteers have come onboard with specific interest in local music; so hopefully that will grow from being a conversation into a meeting.
Finance
Worked on budgeting for the scavenger hunt, otherwise no major updates.
18:37 — Review Action Items
[Everyone] Review PR proposal
Completed, PR specialist hired and already at work!
[Amanda/Brandon] Get help for outdoor event ideas
Carry over to next month.
[Amanda] Call Scavenger Hunt meeting when Ben returns
We met! Scavenger hunt missions are starting to be drafted. Will meet again Sunday/Monday.
[Amanda] Prepare updates to strategic plan
Carry over, pending comittee activity.
[Everyone] Plan a tiny fundraising activity
No new tinitivities. The Roll Over Mug fundraiser sold over 100 mugs and raised $1500!
18:41 — Committees Post-pandemic
People are starting to come to the site more to volunteer for the site. That fell by the wayside a bit during the pandemic. Want a goal to have every committee meeting monthly.
18:44 — Returning to studios/Programming Update
We had made the decision that the Ferry Building is our primary studio. The Alley still functions, but Studio A isn’t fully automated (e.g. archives don’t get uploaded automatically.)
Studio B will be back online this weekend, which will allow us to resume recruiting for overnight and pre-recorded shows.
Investigating ways to improve loudspeaker situation at the Ferry Building: New speaker, mounting it on the Ferry Building, or even using a low-power FM transmitter and small radios distributed around the site.
18:52 — Scavenger Hunt
We met last Friday, starting to brainstorm mission ideas for future refinement to then integrate into the app.
We will need help to talk to Parklet managers to find out who already has events booked for our weekend,
PR is fully funded to run now through the event.
Amanda has commissioned an artist to work on imagery for the event.
Speaking to Goose Chase to negotiate a rate for running the event through the app.
19:01 — Public Comments
No public comments this month.
19:01 — Any other business?
Clair: We should have a joint fundraising-marketing committee conversation to align on fundraising.
Caryn will be absent next month.
20:01 — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for 6pm on August 19th 2021. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
Action Items
[All]: Think of tinitivity tasks
[Amanda/Brandon] Get help for outdoor event ideas
[Amanda] Prepare updates to strategic plan
[Clair] Set up Fundraising/Marketing meeting for Scavenger Hunt fundraising.
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