Public Meeting Notes 02-06-2022
Categories:Meeting Notes
by Record Keeper |
on February 14, 2022

Meeting Details

  • Date and Time: February 6th, 2022 at 7:00 PM
  • Location: WebEx
  • Agenda:
    • Opening
    • Breathing Exercises led by Counselor
    • Special Business
    • Regular Business
    • Record Keeper Report
    • Chamberlain Report
    • Intermission
    • Vice director report
    • Culture committee report
    • Steward Report
    • Counselor Report
    • Scribe Report
    • Charter Revision Report
    • Adjournment

Attendees

  • Members (15)
    • [Names Redacted from notes]
  • Non Member (2 both with pending applications)
    • [Names Redacted from notes]

Opening:

The regular meeting of the Vampire Court of Dallas was called to order at 19:10 on 02/06/2022 in WebEx by Vice Director Danielle Kowal.

Breathing Exercises

  • Led by Councillar Joel

Special Business

  • Going forward: Used for event discussions will be done during this segment
  • This month’s is:
    1. Swear in as Vice
      • Initially planned on Herald; conflicting schedule
        • Per charter anyone in the group can do this, Dani asked Rayne
        • Swearing on the original document from the original meeting with signatures
      • Swearing in promise:
        • Rayne: Danielle Kowal, do you hereby slowly swear and promise you consciously and faithfully discharge the best of your ability duties and responsibilities required of the office chair hold as the director of the Vampire Court of Dallas?
        • Dani: YES
        • Rayne: Do you swear to up hold and defend the courts charter and bylaws while bearing true allegiance to the organization?
        • Dani: YES
        • Rayne: Do you swear that you will obey and enforce the rules, laws, regulations, and policies that have been established by the court?
        • Dani: YES
        • Rayne: Do you swear that you will always lead by example and treat every participatory member with respect and well-being?
        • Dani: I shall, YES
        • Rayne: Do you swear you will always be mindful of the safety of members and make yourself available to those that are in need?
        • Dani: YES that’s without saying
        • Rayne: Do you swear to approach all member ideas, requests, and concerns with an open mind and heart to determine the best path forward that you believe at that current moment is the best and respectful to all member backgrounds?
        • Dani: YES
        • Rayne: Then by as a founder of the Vampire Court of Dallas, I now announce you the new director of the Vampire Court of Dallas. Lead by love, be yourself and always have a heart to those around you.
      • Speech (3 key things)
        • Apologizing we have been absent, COVID hampered this
          • Revitalization project, in the PDF on the website
          • Bri is acting as vice director and has been helping her with writing this up
        • “Surface pressure”
          • It’s going to be difficult
          • Can’t do it alone
          • Doesn’t want to do it alone
        • Let’s get to work and lets have some fun along the way
    2. First acts as Queen
      • Resigning as Media Relations
        • Wants to bring up new blood
        • New generation of leaders
        • Who has the skills, who wants to do better
        • All gears need to be running
        • Event leads can go to “this resource”
        • Everyone can see all the guides
        • Event leads can go to all officers to improve things
        • ADHD kicked in
      • Post office to mail out all the Patreon records
        • Working on getting more professional to improve and get federal grants
        • You’ll see it and we’ll talk about what’s in it later
        • Let’s sell ourselves again to get more consistent donations and make sure things stay above board
      • Google sheets going up
        • Roster update
          • Do not have to disclose
          • IF we can provide proof of established critical minorities we can be eligible for more grants
          • Sharing of the homeless data
        • Gage skills and talents and where our community can go for things
          • March is the next votes
          • 8 openings as officers
          • Working on AS9100 type guides on roles so that you know what you are getting into
          • No single recommendations
          • Going to ask people to run and 2 people for roles, leader and the shadow (backups) for redundancy
          • Not going to micromanage, will reach out and check in occasionally to make sure you are good, but will put trust in our group.
      • Goal: Next in person meeting is April 3
        • Setting up perimeter
        • Guardians to help organize the events
        • New media release forms for Scribe to deliver
      • Bri is helping as acting vice director
        • As Charter states:
          • As there is now an opening for vice director;
          • there will be a snap election
            • This will occur in March as well
      • 2 week policy
        • All votes will be up and accessible for 2 weeks
          • Changes will be fully written out for to be reviewed
          • Will be up before the meeting 2 weeks before the next meeting
          • No more last minute/short window votes
        • Flora posted the meeting minutes for January earlier today
          • We will vote in two weeks to pass those into record
        • We will also have the meeting notes within 2 weeks after this meeting so they can be voted on into this next meeting
          • First action in regular business will be the record keeper meeting
          • Votes will happen every month and part of the rituals of order
        • Posting the training packets tomorrow
          • Some positions may seem the same, but have defining points
          • Encouraging people that are consider running to do so for two different positions
        • (Will respond after meeting if messaging privately)
        • Elections will start Sunday the 20th and ending on March 5th
          • Next meeting, March 6th
    3. Order of Business
      • Rainbow in the Dark in June
      • Semi Fang project
      • Help Rae’s Hope Charity with an art show fundraiser

Regular Order

Record Keeper Report

Chamberlain Report

  • Reached out to a personal hosting company that I have worked with for 10+ years.
    • They provide both email & website for free for non-profits
    • Companies are responsible for the domains they own
      • Vcdallascharities.org (an existing DBA)
      • 2 other domains will be transferred in ownership
  • Previous herald has been notified of the court’s decision
  • Working on finalizing the website and features
    • Please clarify what you like and don’t like about it
    • I will be reaching out to get more details to ensure it fits what we need.

Intermission (Ended at 39:02)

  • Got to know a new applicant during intermission
  • Discussing moving forward with the interview process

Vice Director Report (Bri Acting)

  • Will take the point with the membership pipeline
  • Per membership pipeline
  • 18 applications
    • 1 in another country
    • 1 not in the area
    • 16 potentials
      • 2 are former members
    • Need officers willing to help interview
    • Two weeks before meeting there will be a vote posted
  • Vice director will take point on this process
    • Officer and VP will handle those
      • Dani can step in if there is any issues/need to help

Culture Committee Report (Maddie)

  • History of the VCD – by Bri
  • Calendar of Events
    • February
      • Party/Social event – 21st
      • Lex/Maddie point person
    • March
      • Nutrition month
      • Class
    • April
      • Taco Pledge
      • Eat as many as you can
      • Donation for autism awareness
    • May
      • Mental health awareness month
      • Mindfulness track
      • Ikigai
        • Japanese concept referring to something that gives a person a sense of purpose, a reason for living.
    • June
      • Rainbow in the dark
      • Pride Month
    • July
      • Hepatitis awareness month
      • Information class on STD
        • Where to get tested
    • August
      • Summer Sun and  ?? month
      • Pool party (3rd week)
    • September
      • Semi Fang
      • Picture for the community
      • Elections swearing in
    • October
      • Costume and Casino night
      • Domestic violence support
    • November
      • Trans awareness month
      • Presentation on how to be an ally
        • How to best approach certain situations
    • December
      • Toy drive
      • Get ready to donate toys for kiddos
    • Posted in a brief format:

Record Keeper Report (Dani)

  • Membership tracker implementation
  • How it works
    • Document attendance
    • Participation of
    • See the screen caps
    • Goal: 2 hours of event works
  • Minutes of each meeting are needed

Steward Report (Dani)

  • Recommendation was brought to elect out of images on one platform versus another
    • On Facebook, not Twitter or vice versa
    • New form now exists
      • Click here to get access to it and submit it here
    • If you are in the group photo
      • You will not be tagged, but your presence will not cancel out it being shared.
    • Hybridization
      • Privacy concerns can be brought to Dani\
      • Working on ways to make it so that persons can attend in person but also online
      • Broadcast will include face of the leadership, will not require anyone else to be on camera, but can elect
      • Persons who attend will not be public
        • Those speaking out, making point of orders will be documented in the notes by first name only to meet privacy

Cofferer Report (Dani)

  • Role is pending to be filled in March
  • Bank account is working to be moved over
  • Those who are willing to take on this role, please reach out to Dani
    • Had reached out to a few good potentials
    • Will have additional oversight to make sure there is no major debts (bookies, drug dealers)
  • Will provide amount in account every month
    • Full transparency
  • How we raised money
    • Etsy
    • Patreon
    • Ect…
  • Working on the IRS documentation to get it updated and resend it to Etsy
    • Currently down
    • New Merch
      • VCD sticker
      • Full batch was created
    • 5 year anniversary patch
  • We’re weird, we are a charity, were here to do good
  • We have raised 26k in the last 5 years.
    • We have been steadily increasing
  • Review full official documents
    • Looking to have official auditor to meeting GuideStar platinum requirements
    • Working towards being eligible for potential for grants
  • Next purser will be taking classes for 501(c)3 grant fundraising
    • Dani will be participating as well
    • This will be paid for on their behalf

Councillars Report (Mar)

  • Anniversary announcements
    • January
      • [Names Redacted from notes]
      • Bri
      • Elena
      • Jaden
      • JT
    • February
      • [Names Redacted from notes]
      • Mar
      • Lily
      • Justin
      • Kaitlin
  • Member check-ins will be on your anniversary month by Councillars
    • If they cannot meet with you, the leadership will step in

Guardian Report (Dani)

  • Do not have any guardians at this time
  • Sargent at arms
  • Help ensure we have safe meetings
    • Looking forward to whomever chooses
  • Covid mitigation plans
    • Covid liability release forms
  • May need help

Scribe Report (Dani)

  • Media release forms
  • Covid liability release forms
    • Lawyer has reviewed this
    • Have taken the step to get one on retainer
  • Paralegal for the organization
  • Charter revisions
    • They will write them up and then share for the 2 week window

Charter Revision Report (Dani)

  • Tough part:
    • We sometimes have to choose between a pretty lie and ugly truth. I choose ugly.
    • There needs to be better checks and balances and oversight on the Director.
  • New Proposed Charter Revision V (will be posted immediately for review, will be voted on in 2 weeks)
    • 3C: New line of succession:
      • Director,
      • Vice Director,
      • Steward,
      • Chamberlain,
      • Scribe,
      • Sage,
      • Priscus,
      • Record Keeper,
      • Purser,
      • Hospitaller,
      • Councillars,
      • Guardians
    • 4E4A: Steward: remove duty #4 regarding Media release forms as it’s transferring to Scribe.
      • Renumber duties as necessary. 
    • 4E8A: Scribe: new 6th duty: “Manage Media Release Forms as well as Covid Liability Release Forms.”
    • 4F1: Adding that the Director can be removed from office with a simple majority vote of no confidence by the Stake Holders 
    • 4F1A6: Restricting the Director from formally holding the additional officer roles of Secretary and Treasurer
      • (to comply with IRS guidelines regarding 501c3 entities)
    • 4F1A6: Requiring that the additional officer role that the Director formally holds is subject to the annual membership confirmation vote
      • (and thus can be removed if the majority of members vote against allowing the Director to formally hold that officer role)
    • 4F2A6: Requiring that the additional officer role that the Vice Director formally holds is subject to the annual membership confirmation vote
      • (and thus can be removed if the majority of members vote against allowing the Vice Director to formally hold that officer role)
    • 4G: New section to formalize the Stake Holders (aka Board of Directors) that will comprise of the Director, Vice Director, the Herald, and at least four non-officers who have ties to the local community to ensure that the VCD remain true to the core mission of philanthropic community service. [This will make our organization eligible for more grants as we prove to have non-members providing oversight on our Board of Directors] Stake Holders can ‘veto’ and censure the Director/Vice Director by a simple majority vote, as well as remove them from office.
    • 4G1A: Explains the duties of the Stake Holders, who have no operational involvement in the conduct of organization’s day-to-day business and execution of charity events, its role is confined to setting and reviewing policy as well as oversight for the Executive Leaders
    • 4G2A: Intendant: the new non-member position for the Stake Holders. While they are nominated by the Director, they must still go through the same stringent background checks and adhere to VCD bylaws regarding behavior. Voted in by Membership for a 3 year term.
    • 4G3: Conflict of Interest Policy: Members of the Stake Holders are automatically recused from any votes involving themselves or members directly affiliated with them.
    • 4G3: Expansion of Conflict of Interest Policy: All officers (except Sage) cannot be Stake Holders. Herald’s duty is to maintain custody of assets for transfer of Executive Leadership and is, by definition, part of the Stake Holders.
    • 4G4: Reiteration that the Director and Vice Director answer to the Stake Holders, represent the Court Membership to them, and therefore cannot be part of Stake Holder Leadership.
    • 5C1: Herald will, if membership vote abuse is suspected, give ancillary report to the Governing Council and Stake Holders after investigation (instead of Guardians)
    • 5C2: Replacing Ambassadors (External Liaison) with Legate (Diplomat). Rather than assign a single Ambassador to a certain organization to foster friendly relationships and cooperation, we’ll have an assigned Diplomat here to be a point of contact when VIP’s from other courts visit, so that we may maintain organizational consistency
    • 6F: Errata: there are two 6F’s, and the second one is being renumbered to 6G.
    • 6F2: MERC program: Non-Member Volunteers Maximizing Effective Readiness Corps. Apply like a member, interview with EL/Event Lead (or event assistant), no free entry, gets signed off at end of shift. Failure to behave within VCD bylaws or completing shift will have MERC not signed off and reported to their company.
    • 7A1§9: “Live Streaming and/or conference calling is not permitted due to membership privacy concerns and bylaw provisions (exception for situations where an in-person meeting is deemed unsafe for the public).”
      • While COVID is still a thing, we’re going to continue doing online meetings, but want to live-stream and keep the camera fixed on the Director/Vice while keeping membership privacy intact.
      • Would like feedback from the court, so that we can be back in person and still have a video feed for members who wish to participate but cannot due to being immunocompromised.
    • 10A-3: fixing ‘travelling’ misspelling to ‘traveling’
    • 10A-6. rewritten to remove the word ‘feeding’ to not scare off the muggles as the Charter is to be a publicly available document and the IRS could require viewing it.
      • “Bodily autonomy and personal consent are considered sacrosanct in all things.” 
    • 10A-7. Similarly rewritten for similar reasons.
      • “We will not accept as full-members anyone under 18 years of age.”
  • Acting officers CANNOT be on the Stake Holders list
    • Sage could be reclassified as specialist as it is a life time position that it’s role is to advise only
  • Do not want to rush into this revision but this is a very important revision

 

Final Order of Special Business (if time allows):

  • VCD Revitalization Project 
    • Zoom meeting
      • 2/20/22 at 7pm
      • Originally members only
      • Will talk about moving forward and getting out there again
    • create pathway for contractor assistance/freelancer corporate sponsored help, provided they submit to our background checks

Officer Comments

  • Sage (Mike): 3rd administration has been sworn in
    • Proving ourselves as a continuity of power
    • Keeping this going
    • Very few VCs have survived a second change
      • Gotham proper has survived 2
    • We will adapt and grow
    • Maintain our community
    • Congratulations to the outgoing and the incoming administrators
    • Here to train, help, and advise
  • MERC – Maximizing effectiveness readiness corps
    • Looking at ways to engage larger communities
  • Puns are the only benefit of the job
    • Happy to see this continue this forward
    • This is not the “ME”-C-D it is the “We”-C-D.
      • Making it easier to get fired then that needs to happen
      • Making this be it be its best
  • Rayne:
    • The desire for safe area for individual to give back to the community
    • All of collectively, titles aside are coming together to do something for our community.
  • Bri (acting)
    • Make her stop talking
    • Diplomat position
      • Whomever volunteers needs to keep an open mind, non-political position
      • Do not take sides
      • Do not get involved in other courts drama
      • You are there to help people learn about us
      • Do not take sides, be open mind to help people work with us
    • Every position cab be removed by a simple majority vote of the other officers.
      • If you make a bad mistake you can be removed
  • On the 20th we will have that meeting

Specialist Comments

  • Nothing additional

Member Comments

  • Nothing additional

Open Floor

  • Non member – Long live queen Dani
  • Non member – Wanted to take the time to thank for the welcoming and looks forward to joining more of these in the future.
    • Very detailed person themselves and appreciate the details.

Adjournment:

  • Meeting was adjourned at 8:32 PM by Danielle (Director). The next general meeting will be at 7PM CST on March 6th, 2022 in Fort Worth, Tx.
  • Minutes submitted by: Flora Langel DeKock – Chamberlain (Supporting Record Keeper role)

Next Meeting

  • Date and Time: March 6th, 2022 at 7PM Central
  • Location: WebEx
    • By phone: +1-510-338-9438,,, #2557 276 8590#
  • Agenda for Next Meeting
    • Opening Mindfulness Technique: Councillar
    • (Special Business will come first in times of Major Events)
      • Vote results
      • Events Discussion
    • Regular order: 
      • Recordkeeper Report
        • Approve minutes from previous meeting
        • Membership Volunteer Point Tracking System 
      • Chamberlain Report
        • Website purchase/hosting/email to become and remain in-house assets
      • [Intermission]
      • Acting Vice Director Report
        • Update on Membership Application Pipeline 
      • Cultural Committee
      • Steward Report
        • 2022 Media Release Form Update: Optional Opt-Outs
      • Purser Report 
        • Financial Report of VCD
        • Plan for Audit to Obtain GuideStar Platinum
      • Councillar Report
        • Recognize Member Anniversaries
        • Schedule check-ins.
      • Guardian Report
      • Scribe Report 
    • Final Order of Special Business:
    • Officer Comments
    • Specialist Comments
    • Member Comments
    • Open Floor
      • Members/Nonmembers insights/thoughts
    • Adjourn

Notes:

  • January Notes will be up for approval on the 20th.
  • February meeting notes will be posted for minimum 2 weeks prior
  • Votes for the open positions will be posted on February 20th

Important Dates

  • 8 votes for officer positions will be up
  • 1 vote to confirm January meeting minutes
  • February notes will be up & ready to review on or before this date

Action Items

2022electionsmeeting notesrevisionsemifangspecial business