Aug 13th, 2024 Board Retreat
If you wish to attend, email your request to president@sfpeninsulawriters.com.
California Writers Club
San Francisco/Peninsula Branch
Aug 13th, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.
Vibha Akkaraju’s Home
Agenda
Vote on June board meeting minutes
Membership report
Demonstrate new proposed website functionality, official club email addresses snafu
Growing meeting attendees/seating, late arrivals, non-registrants
Membership at Sequoia Yacht Club
Fall Workshop Update
Members go out of their way to engage guests etc at meetings
Vote on refunding Vlasta's membership
Dates for 2024-25 contract
Welcoming new members. A gathering? A letter? A Zoom session with the prez?
What can we do better? Anything we can drop/deprioritize? Should we do another member survey?
Move Author Day to October in 2025? (To facilitate pre-holiday book sales)
Discuss Larisa White's idea (marketing support groups) and its implementation
If there is time:
Readings at Portola Arts Fair
Retreat Minutes:
Members present: Vibha Akkaraju (President), Tim Flood, Margaret Nalbach, Sue Barizon, Megan McDonald, Nirmy Kang,
June 2024 meeting minutes APPROVED
Membership report: As of now we have 173 members. Deadline to renew is the end of September at which point we may lose a few members
Currently our web hosting is done using GoDaddy and web construction is through SquareSpace. Megan recommends that we consolidate and use SquareSpace for both. During the process the website will have to go down for 24 hours. Megan is also looking into our official club email addresses and making sure everything is current. She will discuss all this at the next meeting.
Sue shared a new layout that can accommodate our growing membership.
A member of Sequoia Yacht Club (SYC) has to be present at all times in order for CWC to use the meeting room at SYC for our monthly meetings and workshops. Carol Bumpus, who has very kindly been our liaison with them for the past 8 years will no longer be able to be our point person. As a result CWC will pay for a new membership so that we can have continued access to the facilities. The cost will be: $500 for initiation + $780 annual membership fee + $125 per meeting. CWC leadership is working on who our new SYC members will be (most likely be Sue & Steve Barizon).
The Fall Workshop on October 26th will be a 2 part workshop with the first part focusing on self publishing and the second on small presses. The early bird ticket will be $49 and the regular price $55.
Action item: Megan and Vibha volunteered to provide lunch.
Action Item: We need to discuss how we vet our speakers for the monthly meetings? Should there be more Board input?
We were reminded that Board members should greet and engage guests.
A motion was introduced that should Vlasta attempt to renew her membership we express to her that since we seem unable to meet her very specific needs we may not be the right club for her. Motion passed.
The meeting/workshop dates for 2024/2025 are as follows:
Sep 21st 2024 (10-12pm)
Oct 19th 2024 (10-12pm)
Oct 26th (special workshop 9-2pm)
Nov 16th 2024 (10-12pm)
Dec 8th 2024 (Holiday Party 12-5pm)
Jan 18th 2025 (10-12pm)
Feb 15th 2025 (10-12pm)
Mar 15th 2025 (10-12pm)
Apr 19th 2025 (10-12pm)
May 17th 2025 (10-12pm)
Jun 21st 2025 (10-12pm)
Aug 16th 2025 (10-12pm)
Sep 20th 2025 (10-12pm)
10. Our ncredible increase in membership has made it difficult for Elise to greet each member personally. Several suggestions were made on how we make the process more efficient
a) A new member Zoom meeting with a panel - Elise, Vibha/Eva, a recent member
b) Produce an orientation video. Action Item: Tim will speak to Doug Baird about filming.
c) Produce a recruitment video. Action items: Megan will speak to other screen writers and pull together a group. Margaret will speak to Elise and get her thoughts.
11. Improvements/Prioritizing:
a) New member welcome - see above,
b) we will table scholarships for now,
c) we will do a new member survey in March 2025. We will keep existing questions and add a few more ie. evaluation of speakers. We will revisit the survey at the February 2025 retreat.
12. Authors day: we will move to October in 2025 to facilitate pre-holiday book sales
13. There was an idea from Larissa White about creating a “marketing support group” that focuses specifically on ideas for marketing your book. Action Item: Tim, Geri, Sarah(?) will pull together a new focus group to discuss this..
14. Portola Arts Fair - a lot of work for little effort.
Miscellaneous:
Margaret and Tim need help at the door during meetings.
Creation of a possible business development volunteer role
Announce at the October meeting that people will be able to sell their books at the Dec 2024 holiday party as it is not a FaultZone year.
Nirmy Kang (Secretary): Taken August 13th, 2024