2008 March

Board Notes - March 2008

President Tony Cheng reported on the Board Retreat plans. The Board Retreat is a multi-day meeting ( with remote members attending in person) for the purpose of addressing major strategic organizational questions. The Board retreat days have been moved to May 31 and June 1. There are three potential facilitators being considered as the choice for the retreat and the location in the museum has already been reserved. An agenda will be made available to all Board members.

Treasurer Wendy Zeichner has been working with the Online Presence Committee to help set up direct credit card processing through our website. The current process for charging credit cards (e.g., for Source purchases or Convention registration) currently requires some manual processing; we would like to make this entirely automatic (which will improve speed of processing considerably).

Wendy is also continuing to prepare for the 2007 audit (with Jan’s assistance). She has been working many hours on it and hopes to schedule it for late April (after tax season) but in time to report the results at Convention. .

Administrator Rachel Langley reported the following membership information: Membership is currently 1660. The previous year was 1549. Last month was 1668.

Elections are coming up. Members should have already received the call for nominations for the Board of Directors via postal mail. Robert will also post it on the OrigamiUSA website. Nominations must be postmarked no later than April 18th.

Convention 2008 is around the corner. March 27th is the first meeting of the Convention Committee with FIT. The availability of housing directly across the street has been confirmed. A member has initiated solicitations for paper donations for this year’s convention celebrating 50 years of origami in America. The Board felt that this is a lovely idea, but guidelines need to be established for the types and amounts of paper accepted. The Convention Committee agreed to contact the member to integrate his activities with the overall convention plans.

Tom Hull reported progress on the membership survey. His next step is to get it sent out on surveymonkey (a web-based survey-hosting source) and via snail mail. The Board discussed his draft of the letter and phraseology of some questions.

b>Rachel Langley reported that Nancy Schneider will be submitting some design options for the Volunteer Recognition pin, which is presented to those wonderful people who give so much time and energy to make our organization so successful. Also, preliminary lists for 2007 volunteers have gone out to respective groups to review.

Development Committee Liaison Margaret Van Sicklen discussed a report filed by by the Development Manager, Jan Polish, via email. Jan had also submitted a revised Development Policy and Procedures document (in response to last month’s requests for additions). In further discussion, Toby Schwartz mentioned that she would like to know how big the pool is of people Jan Polish picks from (i.e., is it a job bank) as well as what the historical numbers look like. Overall, some would like to see a more comprehensive historical file, i.e., a longer-term record of development projects. A question about the committee liaison came up. The Board consensus was that Margaret should remain the liaison to this committee.

Issue #97 of The Paper has been mailed to the membership. Toby Schwartz is now the new editor. She is pleased to say that Issue #98 is in the works. This month, she plans to meet with Mark Wilson, the graphics designer.

Robert Lang reported for the Copyright Committee. An international group of origami authors and representatives of folding organizations (OrigamiUSA, BOS) has formed to share information and coordinate efforts to reduce illegal file-sharing of copies of origami books and publications. Robert is acting as representative of OrigamiUSA’s Copyright Committee as well as on his own behalf as an author. The group has had some success in taking down a Brazilian and a Vietnamese website that were distributing copies of many books and society publications (including our own Annual Collection).

Tony Cheng indicated that Policies and Procedures documents are still being gathered. They will clarify some of the many workings of our organization and provide templates for current and future use.

Origami by Children submissions have begun to come into the office.

Tom Hull updated information on fundraising and grants. The committee is still working on a fundraising letter. As a thank-you gift, for donations of a sufficient size (TBD), donors will receive a new Green Fuse documentary project DVD, “Portrait of the Origami Artist,” which is a collection of video and interview footage with several artists. (This DVD is distinct from the documentary “Between the Folds,” which GFF has been working on for some time and which is nearing completion.) This new, Origami-USA-only film is done and the graphic design for the box is near completion. The Board felt that this DVD would be very desirable to own and would remain of interest for many years. There is a licensing fee to be paid for the music that is included on the DVD, which will be part of the expense of the fundraising mailing. The general consensus was that the expense was worth the cost, and the Board was extremely grateful to Green Fuse Films for putting this special DVD together for this effort.

Robert reported for the On-Line Presence Committee. The committee is working on making credit card charges through the system automatic. This capability will be used for Convention 2008 registration. It will also eventually be tied into the Source.

Some months ago we moved the web server to a new host. While the migration took place mostly without problem, we have encountered a problem with the 10% automatic discount that is part of the Source website. Since the automatic discount isn’t working, this discount is being applied manually to all qualifying orders. A solution is still being worked on.

We have undertaken a complete website redesign, that will not only change the appearance but has a much more powerful underlying infrastructure (called Drupal), which has become a popular web system in recent years. Trevor is working on the new website pages, with his primary focus being convention registration. The Committee’s plan is to roll out the convention registration pages first, since that is the most time-critical element, then roll out the rest of the new website shortly thereafter. There will be the ability for many different authorized people to have restricted access to specific areas of the site, so that they can update those areas directly, without having to go through the webmaster. The new system will also eventually support members-only access, but human work flow issues need to be worked out before creating members-only areas. The site will also be capable of areas where things such as videos could be downloaded.

Tony reported that Special Folding Fun Sessions numbers were low for March. Better numbers are expected for April and May. He also reminded us of External Project Support. One such project involved the creation of origami how-to videos for the website Howcast.com; these videos are now live. June and Tony were involved in the filming of the origami instructional video. They look great! Check them out here: http://www.howcast.com/search?q=origami&=index.

Marc Kirschenbaum will prepare Board Notes for April.

Respectfully submitted,
Ros Joyce