Present: The following 8 board members attended making a quorum: President Philip Dorcas (Filipo), Vice President Alex Miller, Treasurer David Beck, Director Timothy Boronczyk, Director Hoss Firooznia, Director Fred Meyer, III, Director Tim Rice, Director Jane Shevtsov.

Absent: Secretary Charlotte Burton, Director Brian Harmon, C.O. Director Bill Harris. David Beck is acting as Secretary for this meeting.

Phil makes a note of our goals: Work with Esperanto movement and local groups. We have a responsibility to the Esperanto movement in the United States.

Phil reads C.O. Director Bill Harris’s report from the Central Office:

1. Sent out membership reminders, email and paper to those who requested.

2. “Enjoy Esperanto” by Tim Owens has been received and will be available in our book service by next week.

3. Planet Tongue is looking for Esperanto Translators. Will send that information to all members.

4. Brandon Sowers, Hoss Firooznia, and Bill Harris are working on sending books to prisoners. These books will be sent in the name of the book service as some prisons have protocols for which to do otherwise could be an issue.

5. Group that wants to buy the land in El Paso, TX says the title is not clear. The property was signed over by Kenneth Johnson but the wife did not sign the paperwork. The group is still interested in both lots and has offered $3,000 for them. Awaiting communications.

David Beck reads Treasurer’s report:

We are in relatively the same position as November. We are approximately $3,000 over budget. This is due to investments performing more poorly than expected resulting in lower interest payments.

Jane asks if we are going to do an end of year donation campaign beyond asking members to renew their memberships.

Phil responds that recommendations have been made to the Fundraising committee and Tim Boronczyk but the intention is to do the campaign “right” when started.

Tim Boronczyk suggests that we send out an email reminding people we are a non-profit, donations are appreciated and tax deductible.

Phil volunteers to write the email, in English & Esperanto, this afternoon or tomorrow and to send it to the board for editing and then to Bill Harris or Tim Boronczyk so they can send it through the email blaster to the members.

ESF Donation Matching:

Hoss reminds us that Chuck needs to know if we want to do donation matching with ESF for 2022 we need to tell them by December 14^th, 3 days from now.

Phil brings up a couple of things we need to work out and asks Alex for his opinion:

1. Do we want to do a campaign and have ESF support us.

2. Do we want to do the same amounts or double the amounts.

Alex says Chuck Mays is on board with supporting us in ESF to do donation matching. Alex thinks this is a good idea and doesn’t see any cons. Alex says it sounds like all donations would be matched.

Jane agrees.

Phil agrees. Phil and Alex discuss how the goal is $2,100 of donations which ESF would then match. The $4,200 would go toward prizes for two film festivals such as were held in 2021, Spring and Fall.

ALEX MAKES A MOTION THAT WE NOTIFY ESF THAT WE WOULD LIKE THEM TO MATCH DONATIONS FOR 2022.

JANE SECONDS.

VOTE PASSES UNANIMOUSLY.

Alex says Joshua Moss wants to start a Tik Tok channel for us but it’s on hold as Joshua is busy with classes.

Phil suggests we need a Roadmap. He works directly with airlines to develop Roadmaps to organize their year, 5 years, etc.

Jane says 1 year is really a checklist. 5 year you can start thinking about the things we want to accomplish, where we want to go, and how we can get there. Jane is pro 5 year Roadmap.

Tim Boronczyk suggests 5 years is good but maybe we should start with 1 year and a 3 year. Our terms are not long enough to make a 5 year Roadmap as easy. He suggests we take an additional meeting to create this.

Jane agrees.

Phil would like our Annual Report for the Universal Esperanto Association (UEA) isn’t as good as it could be and would like it to be better.

Hoss thinks a Roadmap is a good idea but would like it to start outside of a meeting, on Slack, to get a framework ready. We have items on our Farendaj Agadoj we should start with and Hoss has new items to add to that agrenda.

Tim Boronczyk wants us to have a stake in creating this Roadmap and we’ll do the work as well rather than just talk about how nice it would be if these things were done.

Alex thinks this points to a 1 year plan because we’ll all be here the whole time.

Jane believes a 1 year checklist is valuable, but a 3 or 5 year Roadmap would also be something valuable we should work on.

Phil agrees. If we have a vision for a mature, solid, non-profit, with more members, fundraising, publicity, education, publications, and home schooling it’s going to take more than 1 year. You’re right, we can’t do it in the 27 minutes we have left in this meeting. Also, as this is December, it won’t be done by the end of the calendar year. We also need more delegation and volunteerism. Let’s pick a day in January we can do this. Is everyone amenable to a longer than 1 hour meeting.

David Beck suggests it may be easier to have the Roadmap meeting immediately after our next board meeting rather than try and schedule two different meeting times in January.

Alex asks that we move on to the remainder of our To Do list (agenda) which we do.

Hoss says David Wolf reached out to discuss a web idea. Simple website that would have basic answers to what is Esperanto, things like QR codes on posters. Hoss and he discussed it and David Wolf suggested he would be willing to help us with our About Esperanto page. It would include FAQ, links, etc. Much of what we already have but more. He would make the content and Hoss would put it up.

Tim Boronczyk asks if David Wolf would be interested in revamping the whole website. Hoss doesn’t think he would.

Fred says it would be good if the Board had final review before things went up on the site. Hoss confirms that would be the plan.

Phil brought up that our site’s intention is to inform about EUSA and is somewhat weaker at informing about Esperanto. Hoss agrees and says that was a conscious choice the board made a few years back.

Phil says we need 2 fantastic landing pages:

1. How to find out about Esperanto.

2. How to donate.

Hoss, Tim Boronczyk, Tim Rice, Phil, Jane, Fred, and David Beck agree we should let David Wolf submit work to be added to our site. No one disagrees. Phil indicates that no vote is necessary.

Phil brings up point J on the agrenda: Phil will talk with William Morton and Jane Shetsov. regarding meeting times for social media group.

Social media is important. Charles Germany and Joshua Moss are some of our experienced social media leaders. Jane should be part of any discussion.

Tim Boronczyk asks if the letter he wrote that was supposed to be included in the newsletter to publicize the publicity committee looking for volunteers. Phil thinks that may not have been included yet and asked that Tim send it again so it can be prioritized and included in the next newsletter.

Fred points out that item H is complete: Phil will send MENSA special interest group handbook to board.

Phil agrees.

Tim Rice points out that item K doesn’t have a person associated with it: Write announcement of special interest groups for website. He asks that someone help him make it excellent. Fred volunteers to look at it.

Phil brings up that item K relates to item N which is not yet complete: Phil will create a document explaining the SIGs, what they are, what they do, and how to form one. Fred says we need to get some publicity about these groups as we are not getting a lot of action. Tim Rice asks and Fred confirms that board members can form groups.

Phil itemizes tasks for himself to perform:

1. Donation letter

2. Publicity/ Volunteer announcement

3. Special Interest Groups (SIG)

Phil brings up Sumo Wrestling Esperanto Literature Game. It’s a literature campaign. One will read an Esperanto book for 15 days. A specific quantity of pages determined by the participant scored on the honor system. Started by a group in Seattle. A SIG to do this would be pretty cool.

Phil asks that we hold the Roadmap meeting immediately after our board meeting in January and that we begin the process through Slack and/or a Google Doc.

Happy Zamenhof Day.

AGENDA SENT BY BILL HARRIS ON DECEMBER 7^TH, 2021:

A. Phil will continue the discussion on international articles/videos in Slack, possibly in a new channel for meeting asides.

B. The Board will work on the project ‘How to host a Landa Kongreso’ offline.

C. Phil will research a list of current board procedures for online meetings and approval of minutes, to be sent out to members.

D. Phil needs to select a Komitatano A, and to determine what duties Komitatano A is expected to perform.

E. Fred will edit the Community Group form to use the term “Special Interest Group” instead.

F. Hoss will collaborate with Fred to add required extra column to the spreadsheet, so that new listings will not appear until the regional coordinators review and approve it. Once this column is added, Hoss will create a program to automatically populate a new “Special Interest Groups” page, which will appear under the “regional groups” tab on our website

G. The Publicity Committee will create and enact a plan to advertise the launch of this new initiative.

H. Phil will send MENSA special interest group handbook to board.

I. UK Montreal stickers - discuss with regional coordinators, start campaign asking people to post pictures where they stuck them.

J. Phil will talk with William Morton and Jane Shetsov. regarding meeting times for social media group.

K. Write announcement of special interest groups for website.

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

M. Alex will reach out to Lee Miller regarding the bookstore and publication committee.

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

O. 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.

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

Q. Tim B. will bring up the informational packet with the membership committee.