Minutes of Board Meeting of May 11, 2004

Location: IRC server irc.webchat.org, channel #asfar
Time: 9:00 pm eastern time

Board Members Present: Tevi Abrams, Andrew Jennings, Kevin McCormack, David Schneider-Joseph, Oliver Traldi, Susan Wishnetsky

Members Present: Gorman C., Woty F., James G., Tim H., Jacob K., Jillian N., Daryl P.

Visitors Present: Steven B., Sam H.

The meeting was called to order at 9:03 pm eastern time.

Reports of Officers

The President, David Schneider-Joseph, reported that he had been asked to do an interview for XY Magazine, a gay magazine with wide distribution.

The Vice-President, Winston Featherly-Bean, was not present.

The Secretary, Susan Wishnetsky, had no report.

The Treasurer, David Schneider-Joseph, reported revenue of 85 cents from book sales. He had begun looking at the forms for ASFAR's tax status.

The Webmaster, David Schneider-Joseph, reported 36,140 pageviews in April. He had begun uploading the backlog of Youth Truth PDFs and added information on voting protests at <http://www.asfar.org/voting/protests>. A brief discussion of protests followed, with David Schneider-Joseph encouraging everyone to organize one. He asked the Secretary to send the list of membership "hotspots" where protests could be most easily organized. Susan Wishnetsky said she had been making "Lower the Voting Age" buttons and sending them out as fast as she could make them. Gorman C. expressed concern that handing out general ASFAR material at protests, which included ASFAR's positions on controversial topics such as pornography, would harm the protests' credibility on the voting age.

The Fundraising and PR Director, Andrew Jennings, reported that he had found a graphic designer to help design the ASFAR t-shirt, and described the design they had come up with. There was discussion about the design. He then proposed that ASFAR undertake local efforts to raise funds with bake sales and raffles of donated items. He proposed that retail stores could be enlisted to help. There was general support for local efforts.

The Recruiting Officer, Kevin McCormack, reported that he had received no membership information from the Secretary.

Reports of Committees:

For the Zine Committee, Susan Wishnetsky reported that the deadline for submissions was May 31, and asked for a write-up about the upcoming protests. She mentioned that since Youth Truth was now quarterly, the old price structure allowed for purchase of single issues or back issues at a lower cost than subscriptions. If subscription prices remained at $10 per year, then the single-issue price should be at least $2.75. After discussion, the zine committee agreed to raise the single-issue price to $3.00.

For the Demonstrations Committee, David Schneider-Joseph noted that meetings had not been regularly held, and proposed to space them six weeks apart, in between board meetings. He moved to set the date of the next meeting for Tuesday, June 8. The motion was seconded and passed 3-0. Oliver Traldi asked the committee chair, Andrew Jennings, if he had made any PR plans for the protests; Andrew said he would address that at the demonstrations committee meeting. David Schneider-Joseph found that he had a conflict with the August 14 protest date, and moved to reschedule the protest to August 21. After discussion, the motion was seconded and passed 2-0 with 2 abstentions. The voting protest page was immediately updated to reflect the change.

New Business

David Schneider-Joseph reported that ASFAR had received $50 from Daniel M. to cover half the prize money for his proposed Youth Truth submission contest. He proposed that ASFAR sponsor a contest for best persuasive essay on a youth rights topic, with a first prize of $50 and second and third prizes of $25. The judges would be David Schneider-Joseph, Andrew Jennings, and Daniel M., and the deadline was set at August 31. David Schneider-Joseph made a motion to approve this contest; it was seconded and passed 3-0.

The next meeting was scheduled for Tuesday, June 29 at 9 pm eastern time.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:05 pm eastern time.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Wishnetsky
ASFAR Secretary