March 2025
March 11th 2025, San Francisco
Agenda
Review Agenda & Vote
Vote to approve February minutes
Resolve Previous Action Items
Discussion Topics
Discussion Topics
Board Term Expiration: Ben Ward
BFF.fm Trademark
Executive sessions questions
Quick Comms Plan review
Exploring BFF.fm Venmo Account
Closing Items
Public Comment
Anything from committees not covered?
Any other business?
Minutes
Present:
Christa Hartsock, Secretary, Chair of Tech Committee
Clair McDevitt, Chair of Fundraising Committee
Mark Pearson, Board Member
Irving Pham, Treasurer
Kerri O’Malley, Co-Chair, co-Chair of Marketing Committee
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
Voted YES to adopt the proposed agenda.
Voted YES to approve last month’s minutes.
Review Previous Action Items
Ben: Publish previous redacted minutes. ✅
Ben: Create a Zapier “service owner” account that can exist in these private channels and not be tied to an individual person. ✅
Irving: Check for a Loomly annual subscription ✅
Kerri: Create comms plan for station leadership
Discussion Topics
Board Term Expiration: Ben Ward
Ben’s second board term is up, and he will not be standing for another term. Thank you, Ben, for all you’ve done for BFF.fm in the past 6 years!
Ben shared, in summary:
"Proud to have served this organization for over a decade! As Technical Director, secretary, and now as co-chair. The board's success these past 3 months in navigating the transition is something for all to be proud of. I’m excited now to contribute as a regular volunteer, which I think is a testament to how well this transformation has gone. More and new people are visible, and that’s something to celebrate.
But, my time is at an ever greater premium — it's harder doing board meetings at baby bedtime! — I want to be mindful of the most effective ways to contribute to this wonderful place.
Fundraising and networking obligations of the board role have not been a good fit for me, so focus on being an operational contributor to the station feels more appropriate. Thank you all so much! I'm glad to have been here."
Ben will finish up the month as a board member and stay on as a Tech Committee volunteer.
BFF.fm Trademark
Recently received an update and bill re: trademark filing
Mark explained what the trademark filing is and why it’s important, namely:
Prevent another radio station/similar service from using BFF.fm
Some contractual relationships or grants may require proof of trademark
LPFM may require proof of trademark
Presuming there’s no further office action or that Buzzfeed doesn’t object, there wouldn’t be any more legal work on the matter until renewal (~5 years after registration is granted). If the examiner rejects our filing or another party comes forward to oppose it, then we’d make a decision as a board whether to pursue or not. (We could go to Buzzfeed, ask them to sign a letter of consent in case of refusal.)
Board agrees it makes sense to move forward with this for now.
Clair to reach out to the lawyer for payment, clarify point of contact and ask to reach out before any future action is taken.
Executive Sessions
Prior to moving to better promote board meetings to the BFF community and invite public observers, we wanted to clearly understand and document where private/confidential executive sessions should be applied.
Executive sessions should be used for matters of: Employment status, disciplinary actions, contract terms.
Q: Is there a standard for notes redaction/delayed publication of executive sessions? A: Actually, for a true executive session, notes should not be taken.
BFF.fm Venmo Account
Do we want to pursue a business profile?
Use case: Listening parties: band, Stable, snack reimbursement
Ben shared: Venmo Charity Profile
Irving researched already: Venmo business still needs a phone number, which doesn’t work for us
Merch at events - use QR code for Givebutter
Committee leads at Board Meeting
Invite committee leads to do an update at the beginning of board meetings
Talk to committee leads at next meeting to figure out solid participation but not too many/too long board meetings - proposal: committee reports every three months (rotation)
Discuss with committee leads what an appropriate format would be for these report-outs: think high-level share, noting what you might like the board to weigh in on, “bring committee matters up to the strategic level, not pulling the board down into the operational”
Board members encouraged to read committee notes before every meeting
Public Comment?
No public comment.
Any committee highlights?
Transition Working Group met briefly to talk about Doorbot operations; looking to add multiple people to the fallback call list for accessing the studio.
7:15 pm — Meeting adjourned.
The next meeting of the BFF.fm board is scheduled for April 8th 2025. See https://board.bff.fm for more information.
Action Items
[Agenda for Next Month] Board Term Renewal: Amanda Guest
[Agenda for Next Month] Trademark point of contact (remaining with Amanda or shift to Mark?)
[Amanda] Share access to DJ join form with appropriate committee group
[Amanda] Confirm if Loomly account is registered to her personally, status of paid plan.
[Clair] Contact Alan, ask about payment method, share [email protected] contact, please reach out to us before taking any add’l action ✅
[Irving] Look into setting up a BFF.fm Venmo Charity account
[Kerri/Christa] Next committee leads meet-up: discuss committee leads at board meetings, figure out when to start and the rotation
[Ben/Mark] website terms of service work
[Kerri] Create comms plan for station leadership things
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