# January 2021

## 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

{% hint style="success" %}
Vote **YES** to approve the December minutes.
{% endhint %}

{% hint style="success" %}
Vote **YES** to adopt the proposed agenda.
{% endhint %}

### 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](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.


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