January 2025

January 16th 2025, San Francisco

Agenda

Review Agenda & Vote
Vote to approve previous minutes

Discussion Topics

Votes on Expired Board Terms
1. Clair McDevitt
2. Brandon Paski
Board Roles to Fill
1. Election of a new Board Secretary
  1. Related: Publication of missing board minutes
2. Other Roles
Board Meeting Monthly Scheduling
Review Board Fundraising/Giving Requirements
Fundraising Outline
Transition Working Group Updates
Disclosure of free classified with SFRoW
Finance update

Closing Items

Any Other Committee Updates?
Public Comment?
Any other business?

Minutes

Present:

Christa Hartsock, Chair of Tech Committee
Clair McDevitt, Chair of Fundraising Committee
Irving Pham, Treasurer
Kerri O’Malley, Co-Chair, co-Chair of Marketing Committee
Mark Pearson, Board Member
Ben Ward, Co-Chair

Absent:

Amanda Guest, Executive Director (Leave of Absence)
Erika Delgado, Board Member at Large

6:00 pm — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes

Defer vote to approve last month’s minutes as we have not reviewed them. Will do this next month.

Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.

6:05 pm — Board Term Renewals

Brandon: Sadly unable to renew his term, but intends to stay involved with BFF.fm

Things we need to do to offboard Brandon:
- Remove from protected Slack channels
- Update email address from @bff.fm -> @volunteer.bff.fm
  - We believe that his email is used externally, so Christa + Ben to coordinate with him about how/if to change
- Approve a new board secretary

Clair: Board term ended in July, decided to stay on for another term. Term will start now, and run through January 2028.

Vote YES to for Clair McDevitt to serve on the board for another term.

We will need to update the board terms on the website (including Amanda, who doesn’t have a current board term expiration)

Open board roles to fill:

Secretary - 1 year commitment. In absence of secretary, Vice Chair takes on role.
- Christa agrees to take on 1 year commitment.
  - Clair Nominates. Ben Seconds.

Board votes YES for Christa Hartsock to serve as secretary.

We need to publish minutes after meetings - up to secretary to decide how to do so. Previously done via Gitbook.
We have a backlog of board meeting minutes that need to be reviewed and posted publicly

Reviewing board member roles & responsibilities:

The board felt it would be useful to revisit expectations around board membership. Included are the following:
- Be available to check Slack at least once a week
- Check @bff.fm email, especially now that information is public to station
- Phone numbers available in Slack
- Each board member decides to take a personally substantial gift to each year. Can be done in a number of ways: money, solicitation of goods for gala, meme skills, raising funds, etc.
  - Board development committee has discussed setting minimum. Have not decided to go forward with this at the time, but are looking at organizations who do.
Going forward on the board, we are looking for skills around fundraiser and HR - want to be careful about how we grow board to align with needed skills. We discussed the relationship of the board to committees, and general BFF.fm membership to the board.
- Someone asked for clarification - are we currently working in model of working board, or advisory board?
- A: Transition period. We intend to move toward advisory board, and want to bring people on with skills we need to grow and support station. Board members can be involved with committees if they like, but committee chairs are a separate commitment.
- Board currently encouraged to read committee minutes shared in #committee-meeting-minutes to be apprised of committee updates, rather than having committee members attend board meetings to share updates.
We have not yet written descriptions of roles for when we are expanding the board, though it was discussed this could be helpful when soliciting new people to join.
- Clair will share draft of what has been discussed so far. Would be helpful to have more specific, but will need to be written.
- Previously each person on board had a role / title (e.g. “Director of Something”), but not clear that on an expanded board that even applies, so establishing a general “board member” definition that applies to all would be a good start.

Board transparency and engagement with membership

We want to encourage BFF.fm membership to raise any serious issues encountered to the board, and we’ll make sure they’re involved in conversation about the issue.
To make sure membership knows that they are welcome to attend board meetings, we discussed sending a Slack reminder the week before meetings.

Board Meeting Monthly Scheduling

Move board meetings to monthly on Second Tuesday of the month

Proposed by Ben, seconded by Clair

Board votes YES to meet monthly on second Tuesdays.

Upcoming dates: Tues, Feb 11; Tues, March 11

TODO: Update calendar event and move to committees calendar
TODO: Update website with meeting frequency and date

Fundraising Outline

Kerri sharing overview with outline for the year’s fundraising messaging/campaigns.

Clair and Kerri to continue meeting to sketch out rest of year, and discussing how to build a base for engagement, including volunteers, DJs, and programming committee

Fundraising committee on hiatus until June

Meeting with gala chair, Elle, next week to discuss making the gala a sustaining subcommittee and to determine capacity for 2025 gala.
Goal to build fundraising committee with experience in development, underwriting, grant writing expertise.

6:57 pm — Transition Working Group Updates

Met yesterday for fourth time. Have allocated all immediate tasks as of Amanda’s departure! Group has been good sounding board, as well.
Large amount of overlap between working group and station leadership, so work is largely done. But it’s still new!
- Proposal: Keep holding meetings with less frequency as open space for people that have concerns and are not sure how to address. Valuable to have space to catch, and to think about things that come up in the context of transition.
- Remind people regularly that #station-leadership exists, and that it’s a resource. Also, schedule a regular check-in with general membership.
- Consider a regular general membership survey (eg 2x/year), and/or a town hall in ~April to reintroduce folks. Potentially do survey in advance of the town hall to shape an agenda.

Discussion items from working group to resolve

Door operator number

Access to the Secret Alley for DJs/volunteers is run through a callbox. DJ codes are managed by our software, but the fallback used to go to Amanda’s personal phone. Christa has taken over, but it is not viable to maintain.
What do we understand the phone to be used for?
- Mailing: We have a PO box (Irving has access), but some things won’t accept PO box for mailing.
- Backup DJ access: DJs open to answering call to let in, but not always DJ in the studio. Discussed burner phone, which operations was receptive to but we think may be logistically difficult to manage.
- Have received four calls in last two weeks.
Want to establish the best practice for how we manage this. Not comfortable buzzing people in to the shared Alley space remotely when far aware to verify.
Proposal: For now, point operator to studio phone and socialize with DJs how to handle.

Governance with working group and committee leads

Board is still the ultimate governing authority.
Committees and Leadership should “recommend” to the board.
Board sets strategic direction, encouraging and empowering committee chairs to run their groups.
Will need to figure out what happens when there is conflict between vision or direction between committees. Likely a role for the board to dictate first time it happens, and determine how to handle going forward (e.g. managing via station leadership).

Amanda’s email inbox

We have received a direct deposit to checking account from mid-December from an unknown grant. Need information for taxes, and to reconcile by May.
Some accounts use Amanda’s email account, not all have passwords in 1Password, or passwords have not been kept up to date—e.g. we can’t log in to Calendly.
Clair to reach out to Amanda about grant via BFF email. Add to agenda to check in on next board meeting.

Disclosure of free classified with SFRoW

San Francisco Review of Whatever, a California LLC on which Christa Hartsock is a board member, offered a free classified ($20 value) to BFF.fm as part of the magazine’s in-kind program for non-profits. BFF.fm accepted.

The offer was raised in the #board Slack channel as an opportunity, to no objections.
Inform: In future, board members can raise a motion to take action if there is an objection about business dealings with other board members.

Finance update

Irving reviews balance and expenses to EoY 2024
Updated budget coming early 2025

Any Other Committee Updates

Marketing

Promotions - partnership policy

Disclosure: Mark Pearson is legal counsel for a festival BFF.fm is promoting.
Promoter disclosed to us that there were sexual harassment allegations against a band that BFF.fm was intending to interview
What is the policy for what types of allegations would trigger?
- Documented allegations in media of sexual violence
- Important to have documented policy, to prevent claims of applying inconsistent treatment
Current (undocumented) policy: Station avoids gray list for partnerships, but DJs can make their own choice about their creative expression of their show
- Amanda was previously the point person on this list. We will need a new clearly documented policy, which we should discuss at the transition working group.
Risk is at station level - advertising, marketing, etc. - not DJ level.
- If there are inconsistencies in policy, eg with who we advertise with or promote, could run into trouble.
We do have language around who we partner with, for grants. Clair to share.
TODO: Clarify who owns the grey list, determine partnerships policy
- Then, share with community and clarify partnerships policy and guidance.
TODO: Reach out to Brandon about whether he has policies that we could use, acknowledging he may not be able to respond due to bandwidth.

Public Comment?

No public comment.

Any other Business?

Next month’s board meeting:
- Mark: Website terms of service update
- Setting replacement dates for computing hardware

Meeting adjourned.

Action Items

Group: Divide and conquer to get past Board Minutes published on board.bff.fm
All: Please review your contributions to BFF.fm and ensure you are giving at an appropriate and viable level.
Christa: Take over Board Calendar event; set up new recurrence rules.
Irving: Pull donations from GiveButter in 2024
Clair: send revised secretary responsibilities to Christa
Clair: Reach out to Amanda via BFF email to resolve the mystery grant, add to agenda for next board meeting
Kerri: Reach out to Brandon to see if he has partnership policies that we could adapt, work with Mark on partnership/greylist policy
Christa: Send reminder and call for participation to Slack the week before next board meeting
Unclaimed: Update board terms on website, including Amanda (which requires setting board term expiration)
Unclaimed: Update website with board meeting frequency and upcoming dates
Unclaimed: Remind people that #station-leadership is a resource
Unclaimed: Consider a general membership survey and/or town hall to reintroduce leadership. Possibly do a survey in advance of town hall to shape agenda.

PreviousFebruary 2025 Next2024

Last updated 2 months ago

January 2025

January 16th 2025, San Francisco

Agenda

Review Agenda & Vote
Vote to approve previous minutes

Discussion Topics

Votes on Expired Board Terms
1. Clair McDevitt
2. Brandon Paski
Board Roles to Fill
1. Election of a new Board Secretary
  1. Related: Publication of missing board minutes
2. Other Roles
Board Meeting Monthly Scheduling
Review Board Fundraising/Giving Requirements
Fundraising Outline
Transition Working Group Updates
Disclosure of free classified with SFRoW
Finance update

Closing Items

Any Other Committee Updates?
Public Comment?
Any other business?

Minutes

Present:

Christa Hartsock, Chair of Tech Committee
Clair McDevitt, Chair of Fundraising Committee
Irving Pham, Treasurer
Kerri O’Malley, Co-Chair, co-Chair of Marketing Committee
Mark Pearson, Board Member
Ben Ward, Co-Chair

Absent:

Amanda Guest, Executive Director (Leave of Absence)
Erika Delgado, Board Member at Large

6:00 pm — Convene, Vote on Agenda & Previous Minutes

Defer vote to approve last month’s minutes as we have not reviewed them. Will do this next month.

Vote YES to adopt the proposed agenda.

6:05 pm — Board Term Renewals

Brandon: Sadly unable to renew his term, but intends to stay involved with BFF.fm

Things we need to do to offboard Brandon:
- Remove from protected Slack channels
- Update email address from @bff.fm -> @volunteer.bff.fm
  - We believe that his email is used externally, so Christa + Ben to coordinate with him about how/if to change
- Approve a new board secretary

Clair: Board term ended in July, decided to stay on for another term. Term will start now, and run through January 2028.

Vote YES to for Clair McDevitt to serve on the board for another term.

We will need to update the board terms on the website (including Amanda, who doesn’t have a current board term expiration)

Open board roles to fill:

Secretary - 1 year commitment. In absence of secretary, Vice Chair takes on role.
- Christa agrees to take on 1 year commitment.
  - Clair Nominates. Ben Seconds.

Board votes YES for Christa Hartsock to serve as secretary.

We need to publish minutes after meetings - up to secretary to decide how to do so. Previously done via Gitbook.
We have a backlog of board meeting minutes that need to be reviewed and posted publicly

Reviewing board member roles & responsibilities:

The board felt it would be useful to revisit expectations around board membership. Included are the following:
- Be available to check Slack at least once a week
- Check @bff.fm email, especially now that information is public to station
- Phone numbers available in Slack
- Each board member decides to take a personally substantial gift to each year. Can be done in a number of ways: money, solicitation of goods for gala, meme skills, raising funds, etc.
  - Board development committee has discussed setting minimum. Have not decided to go forward with this at the time, but are looking at organizations who do.
Going forward on the board, we are looking for skills around fundraiser and HR - want to be careful about how we grow board to align with needed skills. We discussed the relationship of the board to committees, and general BFF.fm membership to the board.
- Someone asked for clarification - are we currently working in model of working board, or advisory board?
- A: Transition period. We intend to move toward advisory board, and want to bring people on with skills we need to grow and support station. Board members can be involved with committees if they like, but committee chairs are a separate commitment.
- Board currently encouraged to read committee minutes shared in #committee-meeting-minutes to be apprised of committee updates, rather than having committee members attend board meetings to share updates.
We have not yet written descriptions of roles for when we are expanding the board, though it was discussed this could be helpful when soliciting new people to join.
- Clair will share draft of what has been discussed so far. Would be helpful to have more specific, but will need to be written.
- Previously each person on board had a role / title (e.g. “Director of Something”), but not clear that on an expanded board that even applies, so establishing a general “board member” definition that applies to all would be a good start.

Board transparency and engagement with membership

We want to encourage BFF.fm membership to raise any serious issues encountered to the board, and we’ll make sure they’re involved in conversation about the issue.
To make sure membership knows that they are welcome to attend board meetings, we discussed sending a Slack reminder the week before meetings.

Board Meeting Monthly Scheduling

Move board meetings to monthly on Second Tuesday of the month

Proposed by Ben, seconded by Clair

Board votes YES to meet monthly on second Tuesdays.

Upcoming dates: Tues, Feb 11; Tues, March 11

TODO: Update calendar event and move to committees calendar
TODO: Update website with meeting frequency and date

Fundraising Outline

Kerri sharing overview with outline for the year’s fundraising messaging/campaigns.

Clair and Kerri to continue meeting to sketch out rest of year, and discussing how to build a base for engagement, including volunteers, DJs, and programming committee

Fundraising committee on hiatus until June

Meeting with gala chair, Elle, next week to discuss making the gala a sustaining subcommittee and to determine capacity for 2025 gala.
Goal to build fundraising committee with experience in development, underwriting, grant writing expertise.

6:57 pm — Transition Working Group Updates

Met yesterday for fourth time. Have allocated all immediate tasks as of Amanda’s departure! Group has been good sounding board, as well.
Large amount of overlap between working group and station leadership, so work is largely done. But it’s still new!
- Proposal: Keep holding meetings with less frequency as open space for people that have concerns and are not sure how to address. Valuable to have space to catch, and to think about things that come up in the context of transition.
- Remind people regularly that #station-leadership exists, and that it’s a resource. Also, schedule a regular check-in with general membership.
- Consider a regular general membership survey (eg 2x/year), and/or a town hall in ~April to reintroduce folks. Potentially do survey in advance of the town hall to shape an agenda.

Discussion items from working group to resolve

Door operator number

Access to the Secret Alley for DJs/volunteers is run through a callbox. DJ codes are managed by our software, but the fallback used to go to Amanda’s personal phone. Christa has taken over, but it is not viable to maintain.
What do we understand the phone to be used for?
- Mailing: We have a PO box (Irving has access), but some things won’t accept PO box for mailing.
- Backup DJ access: DJs open to answering call to let in, but not always DJ in the studio. Discussed burner phone, which operations was receptive to but we think may be logistically difficult to manage.
- Have received four calls in last two weeks.
Want to establish the best practice for how we manage this. Not comfortable buzzing people in to the shared Alley space remotely when far aware to verify.
Proposal: For now, point operator to studio phone and socialize with DJs how to handle.

Governance with working group and committee leads

Board is still the ultimate governing authority.
Committees and Leadership should “recommend” to the board.
Board sets strategic direction, encouraging and empowering committee chairs to run their groups.
Will need to figure out what happens when there is conflict between vision or direction between committees. Likely a role for the board to dictate first time it happens, and determine how to handle going forward (e.g. managing via station leadership).

Amanda’s email inbox

We have received a direct deposit to checking account from mid-December from an unknown grant. Need information for taxes, and to reconcile by May.
Some accounts use Amanda’s email account, not all have passwords in 1Password, or passwords have not been kept up to date—e.g. we can’t log in to Calendly.
Clair to reach out to Amanda about grant via BFF email. Add to agenda to check in on next board meeting.

Disclosure of free classified with SFRoW

The offer was raised in the #board Slack channel as an opportunity, to no objections.
Inform: In future, board members can raise a motion to take action if there is an objection about business dealings with other board members.

Finance update

Irving reviews balance and expenses to EoY 2024
Updated budget coming early 2025

Any Other Committee Updates

Marketing

Promotions - partnership policy

Disclosure: Mark Pearson is legal counsel for a festival BFF.fm is promoting.
Promoter disclosed to us that there were sexual harassment allegations against a band that BFF.fm was intending to interview
What is the policy for what types of allegations would trigger?
- Documented allegations in media of sexual violence
- Important to have documented policy, to prevent claims of applying inconsistent treatment
Current (undocumented) policy: Station avoids gray list for partnerships, but DJs can make their own choice about their creative expression of their show
- Amanda was previously the point person on this list. We will need a new clearly documented policy, which we should discuss at the transition working group.
Risk is at station level - advertising, marketing, etc. - not DJ level.
- If there are inconsistencies in policy, eg with who we advertise with or promote, could run into trouble.
We do have language around who we partner with, for grants. Clair to share.
TODO: Clarify who owns the grey list, determine partnerships policy
- Then, share with community and clarify partnerships policy and guidance.
TODO: Reach out to Brandon about whether he has policies that we could use, acknowledging he may not be able to respond due to bandwidth.

Public Comment?

No public comment.

Any other Business?

Next month’s board meeting:
- Mark: Website terms of service update
- Setting replacement dates for computing hardware

Meeting adjourned.

The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for February 11th 2025. See for more information.

Action Items

Group: Divide and conquer to get past Board Minutes published on board.bff.fm
All: Please review your contributions to BFF.fm and ensure you are giving at an appropriate and viable level.
Christa: Take over Board Calendar event; set up new recurrence rules.
Christa: Will update Doorbot phone to Studio Phone. Liaise with Programming Cmmt to socialize DJs knowing how to use the phone. Update .
Irving: Pull donations from GiveButter in 2024
Clair: send revised secretary responsibilities to Christa
Clair: Reach out to Amanda via BFF email to resolve the mystery grant, add to agenda for next board meeting
Kerri: Reach out to Brandon to see if he has partnership policies that we could adapt, work with Mark on partnership/greylist policy
Christa + Ben: Check in with Brandon about changing email from @bff.fm -> @
Christa: Send reminder and call for participation to Slack the week before next board meeting
Unclaimed: Update board terms on website, including Amanda (which requires setting board term expiration)
Unclaimed: Update website with board meeting frequency and upcoming dates
Unclaimed: Remind people that #station-leadership is a resource
Unclaimed: Consider a general membership survey and/or town hall to reintroduce leadership. Possibly do a survey in advance of town hall to shape agenda.

PreviousFebruary 2025 Next2024

Last updated 2 months ago