Operations Meeting Minutes 2004-05-04

Operations Meeting – 4/5/04 Minutes

Participating: Seth Atwood, Eddie Bradford, Tim Condon, Phil Densch, Lisa Goodwin, Doug Hillman, Keith Murphy, Amy Knickerbocker, Tom Parker, Amanda Phillips, Karen Pratt, George Reich, Brian Sullivan, Alan Weiss

1. Ops Meetings

 

Amanda asked if twice/month was still good, or if we should move our meetings to once/month. Consensus was that twice/month was good.

 

Also, we’re trying the free conference calling service. If everyone likes the service and the quality is good, we’ll use the free service from now on. (At the end of the call, everyone said they liked the free service.)

 

2. Upcoming events

 

4/16, PA, NRA Convention, Phil will send a note to Rob (PA Local Group)

4/16-17, Syracuse NY, American Arms Collector, Brian organizing

4/17, Montpelier VT, VTLP convention, Amanda speaking

4/23-24, DC, NORML Conference, Amanda P and Paul Tripp (Drug Reform Liaison) organizing

5/?, Las Vegas NV, FreedomFest, Seth & Jason organizing?

5/21, CA, RLC conference, Varrin organizing

5/27-31, Atlanta GA, National LP convention, Doug & Amanda organizing

??, Killington Airlift, Amanda organizing

 

3. Booth Materials

 

Amy redesigned the tri-folds. They look great! Amy can have them printed for free, 5-7 day turnaround. (Yay!) Amy will finalize new tri-fold & ship to Brian S and Local Groups with upcoming events.

 

Amy has FSP info cards for us to hand out. Amy will send some to Brian and Amanda.

 

New tagline: Live What You Believe

 

4. Welcome Lisa Goodwin, new Director of Development

 

Lisa has drafted new fundraising plan. We will distribute to all when it is finalized.

 

5. FSP Communications – need ideas, thoughts, suggestions

 

Lisa: it should be easier to figure out who does what, have a list of who’s who that cross-references forum names, yahoo names, etc.

Doug: we should encourage people to use their real names on the forum.

Amanda: will add task list & directory to org chart document. Will distribute the org chart when it is finalized.

 

E-mail announcements – low volume is good, but it’s also good to keep the membership updated. We will send these every two weeks, alternating between Jason & Amanda. Will help retain members’ interest.

 

Eddie: We should have local announcements for Local Groups.

Doug: Local Group Leaders are doing this.

 

FSP e-mails – Amanda will check again on the finance@ e-mail address. Amanda will do an audit of all the e-mail addresses to make sure they are forwarding correctly. Alan W & Eddie B need FSP e-mail addresses.

 

Question: Is there a graphics person? Yes – that’s Amy’s realm. Amy requests that all mini-brochures go through her so she can review for consistency in image & branding. Everyone should feel free to develop mini-brochures, but they should run them by Amy before they go to the general public.

 

Suggestion: Videos make huge impressions. We should have more videos on the site. A webcast fireside chat would be nice.

 

Question: how’s the free conference calling service so far?

Brian got dumped & had to call back in. Otherwise OK.

Question: how does the provider make money?

They sell conf calling with extra services for $.10/minute.

 

6. Non-Voters Status

 

Matt is still working through the postcards. We sent 2238, received around 200 with Yes/No responses (most of these were Yes), received 200 returned to sender for bad addresses. After the postcards, we will cross-reference the remaining folks against those who have updated their membership info online. Then we may verify via phone calls & e-mails.

 

Amanda: I met a guy in Florida who said that he hadn’t returned his postcard because he was too busy looking for property in NH. I suspect there are others are in the same situation. The Participation Guidelines don’t say anything about being required to stay in touch with us.

 

Doug: It would be a mistake to cull the list just because we can’t contact someone. We should remove only the No responses.

 

Consensus from everyone on the call – agree that it would be a mistake to cull the list.

 

Tim: The issue isn’t the number of members, but the integrity of the vote.

 

Seth: We should continue what we’re doing & whittle away a little at a time.

 

Amanda: agrees.

 

7. FSP Calendar

 

Discussion about the current calendar & its effectiveness. Camparison with the LPNH calendar (www.lpnh.org/calendar.htm ) Agreement to table discussion, look into options, & work it out off-line.

 

8. General Q&A

 

We should recommend books & movies about NH on our About NH page. Suggestions: Our Town, On Golden Pond, Jumanji.

 

Possible celebrity contact == Dan Brown – lives in NH, wrote the Da Vinci Code

 

9. Next Meeting – 4/22 at 9 p.m. Eastern. (Note: This month it will be the fourth Thursday, not the third.)