Ĉeestas

Filipo Dorcas, Alekso Miller, David Beck, Charlotte Burton, Fred Meyer III, Tim Rice, Jane Shevstov, Tim Boronczyk.

Ĉeestas sen voĉdonrajtoj

Vilĉjo Harris

Komenco

The president reads the mission statement and declares a quorum. The minutes continue to be automatically approved per a previously voted on process.

Reports

Central Office

Busy season has started, and members who prefer paper sign-up forms are getting those printed out and shipped to them. Vilĉjo clarifies which books are still being stocked directly through E-USA, which is mostly items that are not for sale through UEA, and states that relatively few orders are now placed for paper copies of books which are stocked by us personally.

Jane asks about the new “Complete Esperanto” book, and Vilĉjo clarifies that we do stock it, but there are few orders due to price.

Alex asks about their new “Enjoy Esperanto” book, and Vilĉjo states that he has not heard of it but will look into it and will look into stocking it.

Tim B suggests that we should conduct a survey to determine what books and items members actually want to buy, and then compare the results to what we have in stock, as well as determining how to change what we stock in response to these results. Discussion ensues as to whether this sort of matter should be the work of a committee, or whether other procedures should be enacted to ensure that what we offer in our retbutiko is actually what members wish to buy. Discussion also ensues concerning out of stock books and print on demand.

Action Item: Form a Publication Committee, and task them with reviewing the offerings in our bookstore and determining a path for improving it.

Jane volunteers to be a part of the publication committee.

Action Item: Alex will reach out to Lee Miller regarding the bookstore and publication committee.

Vilĉjo reminds us that we now have a relatively small space available for our stock of books, and Jane mentions the “Fulfilled by Amazon” program.

Treasurer’s report

David reports that any current shortfalls in our year-to-date finances compared to the budget are due to investment income coming in lower than expected so far, but there are no major surprises, and there will certainly be some change later in the year, as end of year matters come in.

President’s report

Phil thanks others on the board and off for calling his attention to tasks he needs to complete, and he encourages us to hold him accountable to things he has promised to do. The page for Special Interest Groups (SIGs) is now live and accepting listings.

Action Item: Phil will create a document explaining the SIGs, what they are, what they do, and how to form one.

Regarding publicity, he mentions we can do videos, surveys, social media posts and more. The board has been discussing how to best form and empower a Publicity Committee which could focus on these tasks in order to help the membership and the Esperanto community at large understand the things the organization is already doing.

Action Item: Tim B will draft a letter to membership for Phil to edit and send out, the final draft of which would be posted as an announcement in the newsletter, asking members to join the Publicity Committee and detailing the role of said committee.

Action Item: Vilĉjo will try again to submit a payment to one of the film festival participants whose payment has not successfully gone through.

A discussion arises on how to approach future film festivals in order to prevent these difficulties henceforth. Returning to the president’s report, Phil states that he has reworded his letter to ESF concerning the relationship between our two organizations in an attempt to move forward in that field.

Old/New Business

No old business or new business is specifically listed.

Website

Alex asks about the website design.

Tim B. is working with the technology guild to work on improvements in this regard.

Alex asks about the free informational packet and what all is in it.

Vilĉjo clarifies that in order to receive the informational packet, requesters must submit their email address OR street address, in order to receive links to information about Esperanto, Esperanto-USA, our newsletter, and if they provide their street address, they receive an envelope with the first lesson in Ellen Eddy’s correspondence course.

Action Item: Tim B. will bring up the informational packet with the membership committee.

The membership committee is looking at different follow-up messages we can give to people who have submitted their information to us in various forms.

Alex suggests that we clarify what sort of things people will get if they give us their information.

Discussion follows on how to keep people’s information safe, be transparent about what we are doing with people’s information, but still collect the information we need in order to reach out to people and begin a relationship with people interested in Esperanto.