Spring 2015 Board Meeting Summary Letter

From board member Nancy Leeper

Hi all,

Thank you so much for our productive meeting! It is a joy to work with all of you, and I am continually impressed with everyone’s dedication to our “cause” and passion for putting the effort into “getting it right.” We all want the best for EEFC and each other, and, to me, this meeting really laid that commitment out on the table—both the easy stuff and the hard stuff—and we dealt with it. I, for one, can see some clarity in our path forward and, through this in-person gathering, I am reassured of our collective commitment to doing what is right for our organization.

This meeting was particularly special (for me, anyway) because we were able to touch in with significant members of our Bay Area community in a highly meaningful way. We managed to attract an almost perfect demographic of founders, medium-timers (I consider myself in this group, at about 27 years of connection with the community), and relative newcomers. Everyone in the room had something to say, sometimes with widely differing opinions on the way forward, but without rancor and with positive intent from all participants.

As always, we have a lot of work to do in the wake of our meeting. Amy is compiling our resulting to-do list today and/or tomorrow in the cracks of time in her work day, and we can review that list and continue to chug forward.

It was particularly good to have the technology to conference people in via skype or other means. We are all very busy people, and we all have personal, professional, and family issues that we are dealing with. I am so grateful that no one had to completely forego participation, while still attending to “real life.” Thank you all for your patience and willingness to adapt to our dispersed meeting style this past weekend. Meeting in person is, of course, optimal, but sometimes that simply can’t happen. Thank you Noel, Corinna, & Demetri for hanging in with us. It would be great to find a different platform that would allow a stronger technical connection and offer the ability for remote participants to, at the very least, visually indicate their interest in speaking/responding to each other and those at the table. It’s reassuring to know that these solutions exist and that we have the technical expertise on the board and within our community to implement them. Our adoption of this technology internally will go a long way toward hosting virtual forums effectively.

And thank you Rachel and Traci for joining us! As we are currently a more or less working board, your knowledge resulting from immersion in operations is a keystone of our conversations regarding sorting out our respective roles (board and admin staff), and how we can most effectively move forward on expanding our human resources structure to include volunteer resources. Thank you so much, Noel, for stepping up to organize and launch a volunteer coordinator position and system.

Once again, thank you all for a great meeting. We had a perfect space (thank you Elena, for organizing it!), fantastic food (thanks Eva for taking the lead!), and even managed so celebrate Pi Day with the appropriate pastries (thank you Trader Joe’s)!

Now—back to work! Please review Erin’s notes from the forum, the meeting minutes, and Amy’s action list. In my estimation, we’re in pretty good shape, so let’s continue to develop and maintain our very special organization.

Best to you all,

~Nancy

Note. Community Forum, Ashkenaz: Attendance included 6 board members, 2 staff, and (at my count) 15 other community members, with input from another member via letter to the board, which Craig read in full at the beginning of the meeting.

Read the Spring Board Meeting Report.