2018-10-12 P&C Meeting: PDF pamphlets, quaker.ca emails, backups, privacy policy, GDPR, supporting Secretary uploading, big picture visioning, tech support volunteers, role-specific emails, Asana, intellectual property

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Minutes for Oct 12, 2018

Publications and Communications Committee, Canadian Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends

Present: Maggie Knight (presiding), Mylène DiPenta (recording), Anne Trudell, Robert Kirchner, Kerry MacAdam

Regrets: none

The meeting opened with worship.

2018.10.12.1.     Land Acknowledgement

We acknowledge that we meet on the traditional territories of the Haudenosaunee, the Huron-Wendat, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. Toronto remains the home of many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. May we share the land in peace.

2018.10.12.2.     Overview of the Work of the Committee

We reviewed the description of our committee’s responsibilities from Organization and Procedure, and discussed its meaning. We discussed the difference between a focus on communication vs. a focus on the technologies used to communicate. We discussed our role to “aid our understanding and use of emerging technologies” as it relates to technology use by other bodies within CYM.

2018.10.12.3.     Acceptance of Minutes

We accept the minutes of September 16, 2018.

2018.10.12.4.     CQLS Report

We receive the report from Canadian Quaker Learning Series with thank. We affirm the Board’s decision to produce a PDF version of their pamphlets, and ask that it be produced such that it is numbered in sequential order for online reading and exported with searchable, copy-pasteable text and hyperlinked table of contents.  We also ask the Board to consider whether there might be a way to produce the document such that it could easily be exported to HTML for inclusion directly on quaker.ca.

We also note that the CYM office has limited copies of pamphlets available to be mailed. Anyone interested is invited to contact Kerry to find out about availability of individual titles.

We also encourage anyone who has ideas for pamphlet topics to contact the Board.

Editorial subcommittee is asked to review the way the pamphlets are displayed on the website, and ensure that the list of both print and electronic copies is accurate and linked from the relevant pages on Quaker.ca

We ask the CQLS board to ensure that the production files for electronic pamphlets are stored in the CQLS folder of the P&C online storage drive.

2018.10.12.5.     Web Host Report

We receive the Web Host report with thanks.

We ask the clerk to bring to Representative Meeting the idea that people carrying out CYM roles are encouraged to use @quaker.ca email accounts directly, rather than conducting business in their personal accounts.

We ask the Communications Reevaluation Subcommittee to begin the work of transitioning to third party server hosting.  We accept with thanks Maggie’s offer to co-ordinate this effort.

We ask the clerk to follow up with the Web Host (Bruce Dienes of Capflex) about:

  • Confirming that we are fully in compliance with the GDPR
  • Retrieving the proposed privacy policy
  • Confirming what our website backups include, whether they are automated, how often they are currently being done, when the last complete backup was completed, that backup files are stored offsite in a location that committee members have access to, and how long it would take to restore the site from backup.

We also ask the clerk to circulate the proposed privacy policy by email to the committee and, unless there are objections, ensure that it is posted on quaker.ca.

2018.10.12.6.     Report from Editor

We receive the Editor’s report with thanks.  We ask the editor to co-ordinate with the CYM Office Administrator  to confirm dates for The Canadian Friend so that 2019 Issue 2 is delivered before the early registration deadline for CYM in Session, and other production deadlines align with Program Committee’s needs.  We ask Editorial Subcommittee to bring this schedule to the next meeting.

We ask Editorial Subcommittee to co-ordinate the uploading of outstanding videos and communicate the timelines to the people involved in production.

We ask the Editor to notify the Editorial Subcommittee when new content is posted on the website, for sharing to facebook.

We ask Editorial Subcommittee to co-ordinate a meeting up to one hour so the Editor can ensure that the CYM Secretary is able to upload documents to quaker.ca before Representative Meeting.

2018.10.12.7.     Budget Report

We approve the submitted 2019 Budget with thanks.

We ask the Clerk and the Editorial Liaison to propose a process for approving invoices related to P&C work and bring it to the next meeting.

2018.10.12.8.     Big Picture Visioning

We brainstormed possibilities and visions of P&C and CYM over the next 5 years.  We thank the clerk for facilitating the discussion, and ask that she circulate the results to the committee.

2018.10.12.9.     Coordination With Other CYM Committees

We welcomed the Clerk of Contributions Committee to join us by phone for this item.

We ask the Clerk of P&C to include the offer of visual identity guidance in our next Representative Meeting report. We celebrate the progress toward a more cohesive visual identity nurtured by Contributions Committee and the CYM Office Administrator.

We ask the Communications Reevaluation subcommittee to propose boilerplate language for use in our publications that encourage donations, in consultation with CQLS and the CYM Office, for review by Contributions Committee.

We ask Communication Reevaluation subcommittee to research benchmarks for audio and video recording quality and bring a proposal to the next P&C meeting. The proposal should address the possibilities for livestreaming, uploaded recordings, and embedding on quaker.ca, for example of the SPG lecture and the Quaker Study.

We ask the CYM Office Administrator to include “tech support” as a role that CYM-in-Session registrants can volunteer for.  We approve the decision that P&C will ensure the co-ordination of those volunteers.

We gratefully accept Robert’s offer to reach out to the Clerk of Education and Outreach to find out what support they would like in publicizing their work, such as assistance in editing of course announcements, posting on the web, and sharing on facebook.

2018.10.12.10.                       CYM Directory

We ask the clerk to co-ordinate with the CYM Office Administrator to ensure that role-specific email addresses are up to date on the Friends Serving section of the website as well as committee subsites, and that the email addresses are distributed with Representative Meeting documents. We gratefully accept Robert’s willingness to assist with this work.

We ask the CYM Office Administrator to take note on an informal basis of the tasks people are trying to accomplish that relate to the directory.

2018.10.12.11.                       Committee Task Management

We approve the decision to use Asana for task management.  We ask the Recording Clerk to migrate information from Pivotal Tracker as appropriate.

2018.10.12.12.                       Contractor Relationships

We ask Robert to follow up with the clerk about intellectual property recommendations relating to our contract with Islandside, and if no significant issues arise, to have the written contract signed.

We gratefully accept Robert’s offer to take up the role of contractor liaison with the Editor. Mylène will notify the editor, and remain on the committee as clerk to support Robert in developing technical capacity with website updates and transition into this role in early 2019.

2018.10.12.13.                       Meeting Schedule

Our next in-person meeting will be October 18-19, 2019.

Next Meeting:

November 18, 2018, 7:30pm Eastern

2018-Sept-16 P&C Minutes: Outreach SIG, Editorial Budget Change, Employment and Contracting Update, Planning for In-Person Meeting

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PRESENT: Maggie Knight (presiding), Mylène DiPenta (recording), Anne Trudell, Catherine Novak

REGRETS: Kerry MacAdam, Robert Kirchner

The meeting opened with worship.

2018.09.16.1. Acceptance of Minutes

We accept the minutes of July 8, 2018.

2018.09.16.2. Update on Mid-Year Budget Report

Maggie reported verbally. Today’s financial matters are discussed in the Editorial Subcommittee Report.

2018.09.16.3. Membership Review

We welcome Catherine’s return for another term and thank Chris for her faithful service. We currently have a spot open for another member. We ask all members to keep their ears open for others who might be led to serve.

2018.09.16.4. Report Back from CYM-In-Session

Maggie reported verbally on the Special Interest Group (SIG) we offered in collaboration with Education and Outreach Committee. The SIG was well-received by approximately 30 people who attended.

2018.09.16.5. Editorial Subcommittee

We accept the report from the Editorial Subcommittee. In order to produce this year’s third issue of The Canadian Friend and continue with the current pace of web updates, which have been more time-intensive than expected, we will require approximately $5000 more than we had initially budgeted. We approve using money from our line item for website renewal to cover this expense.

We lay over until October the decision about whether we require the editor to attend CYM-in-Session, what the duties should be, and whether we need to propose modifications to the content of the contract.

2018.09.16.6. Communications Re-evaluation Subcommittee

Anne reported verbally. The subcommittee is not yet in unity about the goals and process of the website updates. Anne has collected feedback from members. We ask her to bring this back to the subcommittee and bring a proposal to a future meeting.

We are laying down the forum functionality on our website, as the technology is no longer supported by the developer, and has seen very little use in the past several years.

2018.09.16.7. Finance Update

Maggie reported verbally. She has consulted with committee members about upcoming budget needs, and will bring a draft 2019 budget in advance of our next meeting.

2018.09.16.8. Employment and Contracting Update

Maggie reported verbally. She is working with Bruce at Capflex Consulting to transition quaker.ca to another host, including generating documentation that would be needed by a future host. Bruce has agreed to send a report on his activities this year so far, as well as a possible timeline for hosting transition, by the end of September.

We ask Policy and Procedures Subcommittee to work with Glen so that reports come to P&C with research and recommendations ready to implement.

2018.09.16.9. Planning for In-Person October Meeting

We thank Maggie for circulating the draft agenda for October’s meeting. Any members who have suggestions or requests about the agenda are asked to contact the Clerk.

2018.09.16.10. Policy and Procedure Subcommittee

We receive the report from the subcommittee. We ask any Friends who have comments to contact Mylène.

Next Meeting

Friends House, Toronto

Friday-Saturday October 12-13th, 2018

2018-July-8 P&C Meeting: Website updates, Employment and Contracting, Editor budget and renewal, Regional gathering registration, Intellectual property, Budget update

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Present: Chris Hitchock (presiding), Mylène DiPenta (recording), Maggie Knight, Robert Kirchner, Kerry MacAdam, Anne Trudell

Regrets: Tim Kitz, Bruce Dienes, John Samson Fellows

The meeting opened with worship.

2018.07.08.1.     Acceptance of Minutes

The minutes of May 6, 2018 were accepted.

2018.07.08.2.     Communications Re-Evaluation Subcommittee

We reviewed the scope document for Phase 1 of our proposed website update contract (accessible in the P&C shared Google Drive folder for today’s meeting).

We ask Maggie, Anne, and Robert to review and comment on the Phase 2 document by Friday, July 13. Maggie will reach out to Catherine to see if she wants to participate. Mylène will synthesize into a new draft and circulate to the committee. Anne and Mylène will work together to decide, based on reactions to that new draft, if a specially-called meeting is needed.

2018.07.08.3.     Employment and Contracting Conference Call

Maggie reported verbally on the conference call she and Robert attended with others in CYM who are involved in employing and contracting. It appears that the Editor role could in the future be structured as an employment or contracting situation.  We look forward to the guidance in the fall of the Employing and Contracting working group.

2018.07.08.4.     Editorial Subcommitee

Mylène reported verbally that The Canadian Friend is expected to be mailed by Monday, July 16.

We ask Mylène to clarify with Tim and Kerry that CYM will cover the Editor’s costs to attend CYM-in-Session, and P&C will pay the billable hours during which he is engaged in the work of the contract.

We ask Mylène to confer with the Editorial subcommittee and the Editor to ensure that the subcommittee is notified if the deliverables will not be met within the approved budget, if a new proposal is needed for the budget, and what structures are needed to support the Editor.

We approve the renewal of the Editor contract with Timothy Kitz.

2018.07.08.5.     CYM Archives Indexing Project

We lay this matter over.

2018.07.08.6.     Request from Atlantic Friends Gathering for Registration Assistance

We are not able to assist regional gatherings with registration. We ask Chris to respond to the request from Atlantic Friends Gathering and share contact information for Half-Yearly Meetings that may have resources.

2018.07.08.7.     Policy and Procedure Subcommittee

We receive the report from the Subcommittee (accessible on the P&C shared Google folder for today’s meeting).  We discussed the questions of intellectual property as they relate to material developed by contractors, as well as material published on the website.  We ask Chris and Maggie to forward their comments to Robert.  We ask Policy and Procedure Subcommittee to discern these issues and bring this back to the next P&C meeting.

2018.07.08.8.     Budget Report

We receive the report from the Budget Officer (accessible on the P&C shared Google folder for today’s meeting).  We are awaiting some clarifications from CYM as we may be in danger of overspending. We ask Maggie to continue to look into this, and to co-ordinate with the Editorial Subcommittee when details about mailing and printing costs are clarified.

2018.07.08.9.     Website Forums

We lay this over until the next meeting.

 

Next Meeting: via Google Hangouts

Sunday September 16, 2018, 7:30PM Eastern Time

2018-May-6 Pubcom Committee: SIG, Email transition, Committee Membership, Editor title and search process document destruction, Planning DIA

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Minutes for May 6, 2018

Present: Chris Hitchock (presiding), Mylène DiPenta (recording), Catherine Novak, Maggie Knight

Regrets: Robert Kirchner, Anne Trudell, Kerry Macadam, Tim Kitz

The meeting opened with worship.

2018.05.6.1.            Acceptance of Minutes

The minutes of March 4, 2018 were accepted.

2018.05.6.2.            CYM 2018 Plans with Education and Outreach

Maggie circulated a tentative plan for a Special Interest Group on the topic of outreach for Monthly Meetings.  All are welcome to submit comments or suggestions. She continues to work on this with Rachel Urban-Shipley of Education and Outreach.

We ask Maggie to submit this plan for inclusion in the CYM documents, and to distribute it through other channels as she and Rachel deem helpful (facebook, CYM website, etc.).

2018.05.6.3.            Email Transition to Google for Non-Profits

Email addresses for quaker.ca have been transitioned to Google for Non-Profits. Maggie reported on what went well and what challenges we experienced. Some work remains to be done to finalize who had access to what administrative permissions.

Some Monthly Meetings have subdomains under quaker.ca; their transition is outside the scope of this project and they remain affected by email delivery problems.  Communications Reevaluation Subcommittee will gather information about this and seek ways to share information that may assist those Meetings.

2018.05.6.4.            P&C Committee Membership

We thank Catherine for allowing her name to go forward for re-nomination.

We ask Mylène to follow up with those who have asked questions or expressed interest.

We ask all members to reach out to others who might be interested.

We ask Maggie to liaise with CYM Nominating Committee to make sure that nominations are being received.

2018.05.6.5.            Editorial Subcommittee

We discussed the scope of work of the editor as well as a title that would accurately represent it.

We discussed the idea that the title needs to make sense to internal audiences, external audiences, as well as future candidates.  To meet these needs, we discussed the possibility of a hybrid title, for example CYM Editor and Communications Specialist, and ask the Subcommittee to further season the question and bring it back to a future P&C meeting.

2018.05.6.6.            Policy and Procedure Subcommittee

Mylène reported verbally.  All documents relating to the unsuccessful candidates for the editorial contract have been destroyed.  The subcommittee is preparing templates and resources to committee subsites to be shared with other committees.

2018.05.6.7.            Preparing Documents in Advance for CYM-in-Session

We ask the Recording Clerk to post our reports to Representative Meeting in the Minutes section of our subsite.

We brainstormed a list of topics to include in our submission for Documents in Advance for CYM-in-Session.  We ask Maggie and Chris to revise and submit to the CYM office.

 Next Meeting: via Google Hangouts

Sunday July 8, 2018, 7:30PM Eastern Time

2018-June-7 Policy Subcommittee: Intellectual Property, HTML5, Security

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Present: Mylène, Chris, Robert

Glen’s contract, and IP considerations (update)

– Robert met with Personnel Committee
– they advise that we are free to tailor the contract as we see fit
– can we just make everything public domain? How does this affect learning materials, TCF, pamphlets, etc?
– can anyone just lift videos of SPG and relabel them?
– does this restrict people’s ability to sell a piece to a magazine, or prevents Glen from reusing or re-selling utilities he writes?
– smashwords only allows distribution of things you have claim to… not public domain
– SPG contract includes permission to publish on quaker.ca… do we have the legal right to put it in the public domain?
– do we need legal guidance from CYM’s lawyer? Does CYM even have a lawyer?
– how do we allow Glen to retain rights to plugins, utilities that he might develop?
– ROBERT will look into public domain vs. CC, and advise Trustees that we are looking into this, inviting them to let us know if there are people who hold responsibilities in this matter that we should consult with

HTML5 compliant theme

– ROBERT will confirm with Catherine that the scope document, as split into two parts, is ready to be circulated. If so, ROBERT will send to Glen for a quote.

Status of backups

– ROBERT is still looking into it

Committee subsite templates

– no update — MYLENE will keep working on this!)

Survey feedback on security and accessibility

– We reviewed the feedback from the survey
– We will continue to hold this in the light

DIA

– we worked on the Report for Documents in Advance.  MYLENE will add links and send to CHRIS for circulation to the full P&C committee.

2018-May-5 Communications Reevaluation: Website update, Email Transition, SIG

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Communications Reevaluation Subcommittee
Minutes – 3 – 4:45 pm (EST), May 5, 2018

Attending: Anne Trudell (clerk/recorder), Chris Hitchcock, Mylene di Penta, Maggie Knight.

Regrets:Catherine Novak

After some technical difficulties, we began with silent worship.

Status of Website update for accessibility compliance and design changes.

Mylene has a document from Catherine which is informal and easy to read. It has three aspects of work. It might need to be made more formal for RFP purposes. Mylene recommended we go with two pieces of work. They showed their commented copy of doc: highlighted stuff is phase two; rest is phase one. Get quotes for phase one, phase two, and both phases together? Give Catherine and Robert a deadline for when we’d like to see their reaction to the phase approach. Mylene will pull apart into two separate documents and Maggie will forward to Catherine and Robert to begin process of circulating for quotes. Hopefully we will have quotes by our next subcommittee meeting. We will invite Robert to our next meeting.

Subcommittee Shared Folder Permissions

There are issues with using a shared Google Drive: Documents we create should be owned by the Pub Comm account and shared from there, rather than sharing documents from writer’s account. We all need document creation powers in the Pub Comm account. Mylene will make that so.

Email Transition

Status of Email address transition (Maggie): It happened. We have lurched across. We did not disrupt Kerri’s and Laurie’s work. Maggie had to do much cat herding and communication facilitation. [Maggie = Cajoler-in-Chief.] Maggie has super admin access to the new system, though she’s not had to use it yet. Billing situation with Bruce’s work on this is uncertain.

Subdomains have not been migrated; Bruce has separate contracts with all those meetings. We do not know if we can get Google for NonProfits for subdomains. Maggie will try to get the list of subdomains from Bruce. Who should manage the quaker.ca email accounts? In Pub & Comm hands currently. Possibly use a Google Form to gather the needed information for accounts and track changes. Maggie and Mylene will work on how best to do the managing.

Proposal for SIG at 2018 CYM-In-Session

Work to be done this month for the SIG: Maggie sent a document to us. We need a title. It will be reviewed at the Pub-Comm Hangout on Sunday evening. Maggie will send the SIG description to Kerri on Monday.

We closed with silent worship.

2018-Mar-11 Editorial Subcommittee: TCF layout done, Future TCF timelines, Editor break, Email newsletter

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Present: Mylène DiPenta (recording), John Samson Fellows, Timothy Kitz

Regrets: Catherine Novak

TCF Current Issue

Current issue has been sent to Island Blue for printing.  Tim had an Ottawa printer (Cielo) do a proof which allowed him to make changes before sending to Island Blue. Tim made these style improvements in the current issue: column text is justified, page numbers are on the outsides of pages, reduced empty space, articles end at end of pages, etc.

  • We ask Catherine to take a look at the proof when it is ready.  Tim may also request a proof be express mailed to him, at his discretion.
  • We ask Tim to circulate to the Editorial subcommittee any text that speaks on behalf of P&C.
  • The Editorial Subcommittee will pay extra attention to material that represents P&C and provide any feedback ASAP, before the layout stage.

TCF Next Issue

We approve Tim’s proposal to set the submission date one month from when print copy is delivered — in this case, April 15.

Expected timeline:

  • April 15 – May 15: Editing
  • May 15 – June 8: Layout
  • June 8 – June 14: Printing and mail preparation, bundled with Steve Fick’s SPG pamphlet
  • June 17: Delivery

We expect the third 2018 issue to close submissions by the end of September, and be delivered by end of November.

Editor Break

We approve Tim taking a hiatus of 7-10 days once TCF is mailed; he will inform the Editorial Subcommittee of the exact dates, and list our pubcomm.cym email address in an autoresponder.  Mylène will monitor and respond to requests that come in during this time.  If changes are needed to quaker.ca, Mylène will make sure they get taken care of either personally or by passing on to others who are have admin rights.

Mylène will ask Glen to grant John admin rights on the P&C subsite, so he can experiment with the WordPress interface, and be available for web editing duties as a backup in the future.

Email website updates

In our next report to P&C, we will make the following proposals in order to set up an email update distribution list to add a Mailchimp sign-up form to the front page of the site.

  • Add a form to the front page of quaker.ca that allows people to subscribe
  • Distribute updates approximately once per month, or more often if content warrants
  • Keep in contact with Kerry to determine how to co-ordinate with other communication on behalf of CYM
  • Solicit initial signups by asking clerks of worshipping groups to put it on the agenda of their business meetings; send to clerks of commitees, members of commitees, post to the informal CYM facebook group, etc
  • Include at least one item in each distribution that is geared toward newcomers

– MYLENE will contact Kerry and Cam to solicit input
– MYLENE will ask Maggie to check in with Rachel as informal E&O liaison

Vimeo

Tim reported that Vimeo does not allow delegating access, nor creating playlists (and later filled us in by email that it can create “albums”, and admin rights can be delegated if we upgrade to the next more expensive package).

Facebook update

Tim will contact Reykia to have himself and Mylène granted admin rights

2018-Mar-4 P&C Meeting: Email transition, 2018 SIG, QBS laid down, Procedure Manual, Email Notification

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Present: Robert Kirchner and Maggie Knight (co-presiding clerks for this meeting in lieu of Chris Hitchock), Mylène DiPenta (recording), Anne Trudell, Kerry McAdam, John Samson Fellows, Chris Hitchcock, Catherine Novak, Timothy Kitz, Bruce Dienes (partial attendance due to technical difficulties)

Regrets: none

The meeting opened with worship.

2018.03.04.1.     Acceptance of Minutes

The minutes of Jan 7, 2018, were accepted.

2018.03.04.2. CYM 2018 Plans with Education and Outreach

Maggie reported that she has consulted with Rachel Urban-Shipley of E&O Committee about a possible Special Interest Group at Canadian Yearly Meeting in Session 2018.  The proposed theme is to help Meetings share outreach techniques that they are using, and learn about techniques they are interested in.

We support Maggie and Rachel in creating a plan for this.  Members of the committee are available to be called on for assistance as needed.  We look forward to an update at our May meeting.

Sherryll Harris on Program Committee will need to know about equipment needs, ideally by June.  Information can be sent to Kerry to make sure it gets to the right person.

2018.03.04.3. Email Transition to Google for Non-Profits

Maggie reported on the process of transitioning email to Google for Non-Profits.   She is consulting with the users of @quaker.ca email addresses to discern how and whether they should be transitioned.

The remaining steps are:

  • confirm the plan for transitioning subdomain addresses
  • confirm the plan for transitioning the CYM Office email
  • finalize the plans for organizing committee-related emails
  • notify users of the cutover date and possible downtime
  • ask Bruce to perform the switch
  • test the system and resolve any problems that arise

She hopes that the transition could be complete by the end of March.

2018.03.04.4. Laying Down of Quaker Book Service

The Quaker Book Service has been laid down as of December 2017.  There were 6 weeks of transition during which purchasers had some confusion about payments that had been sent and materials whose delivery was delayed.  However, Kerry is now managing this and all orders have now been processed correctly.

The CYM Office is now able to process orders of Faith and Practise (F&P), Organization and Procedure (O&P), and any pamphlets in stock.

We discussed how future CQLS pamphlets should be distributed.  Kerry is willing to add these, as they arise, to the order form used for F&P and O&P.

2018.03.04.5. Title for Editor Contract

We lay over the question of the title for the editor contract until the next meeting.  Friends are encouraged to consider the suggestions put forward in the Editorial Subcommittee Report of Jan 7, 2018.

2018.03.04.6. Procedure Manual

We approve the use of the current version of the P&C Procedure Manual. FOR INTERNAL COMMITTEE PURPOSES ONLY, it can be found in our shared storage drive.  We ask the Recording Clerk to post it on our Business subsite and notify Discipline Review Committee of its availability.

2018.03.04.7. The Canadian Friend

The issue currently in production is expected to be finished layout this week. The next issue is expected to be published in June. Its call for submissions will close April 9, and will be announced this week.

We approve continuing to use Island Blue printers in Victoria.

2018.03.04.8. Facebook and Email Updates

Communications Reevaluation Subcommittee has decided not to proceed with a facebook page at this time but continues to discuss the idea.

We approve the proposal to create a way for the public to sign up to receive email updates about new content on the website.  We ask Editorial Subcommittee to take this on, and to consult with the CYM Office about how to co-ordinate with paper mailouts.

2018.03.04.9. P&C Committee Membership

We ask Maggie to reach out to CYM Nominating Committee about possible candidates for our committee.

We also ask all members to consider whether they know of people whose gifts might make them well-suited to this committee, and bring those thoughts to the next meeting.

2018.03.04.10. Finances

Maggie reported verbally and will provide a first quarter update at the May meeting.

 

Next Meeting: via Google Hangouts

Sunday May 6, 2018, 7:30PM Eastern Time

2018-Feb-11 Editorial Subcommittee: TCF Dates and Print Houses, Video Procedure, Proposed Email and Facebook Strategy

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Present (online) Tim Kitz, Mylène DiPenta, Mary Conchelos, John Samson Fellows (recording)

Meeting opened with worship.

The Canadian Friend

Tim relayed that he has narrowed printing quotes for The Canadian Friend down to 2, will ask about recycled paper, and will check on past prices to compare. Layout will begin soon. Tim is waiting on the insert, but doesn’t anticipate any delays.

Tim has set the theme and timetable for the next issue. The deadline for writing is April 9, going to print in the first half of June. CQLS should therefore have the Steve Fick pamphlet ready to go for June 1.

Development of a Style Guide continues.

Tim sought guidance on submissions to the Canadian Friend from writers outside of the CYM community. We affirmed his statement that widening our circle is a good thing.

Video Uploading

We heard about Tim’s pastoral Vimeo care, and were reminded that establishing best practices for video recording will be important in the future. There are currently three types of videos that need to be organized on the CYM website: Palestine-Israel, Contributions, and the Talks at Younge Street Half Yearly Meeting. Possible solutions were discussed, and will also be investigated in more depth by the Communications Reevaluation Committee. In the meantime, Tim will make a small change to the CYM website’s architecture.

Communications Strategy via Email, Facebook, Web

This led to a discussion of the purpose of the website, and the importance of reaching out to Seekers.

Mylene will distribute a mock up of the CYM Facebook page.

Mylene shared possible techniques available for monthly email updates. They proposed two monthly email lists, one for the wider public, and one for Clerks/members/attenders which will be more business-oriented. We all agreed this is an excellent idea, and mostly liked the first, more point-form, “clickbait” option, though Tim would prefer a more linear design.

Thanks To Outgoing Member

It was Mary Conchelos’ last Editorial Subcommittee Meeting. We thanked her for her work and dedication.

Meeting closed with worship. Next meeting is March 11, 7:30 pm EST.

2018-Jan-7 P&C Minutes: Email Transition, Contractor Liaisons Established, Invoicing Procedure

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Publications and Communications Committee Meeting
January 7, 2018
via Google Hangouts

Present: Chris Hitchcock (clerk), Mary Conchelos, Mylène DiPenta, Robert Kirchner, Timothy Kitz, Maggie Knight, Kerry MacAdam, John Samson Fellows, Anne Trudell

2018.1.7.1. Introductions.

We opened with a period of silent worship, and introduced ourselves. Robert agreed to take minutes. We welcomed John Samson Fellows as the new clerk of the CQLS Subcommittee.

2018.1.7.2. Previous minutes.

The minutes from the October 13-14 meeting were approved.

2018.1.7.3 Plans for CYM 2018

Maggie will be liaising with Rachel Urban-Shipley about coordinating our work with the E&O Committee in preparation for CYM 2018.

2018.1.7.4. Transition of @quaker.ca emails to Google for Non-Profits

Maggie’s report, which we received, is in the form of the following questions and proposals:

Questions:

  1. Do Friends agree that we should encourage CYM roles and committees to have full @quaker.ca accounts (which could be set up to forward to a personal address if desired), for the purpose of better institutional memory?
  2. Do Friends agree that CYM/PubComm should be open to continuing to provide email infrastructure to Camp NeeKauNis and to HYMs, MMs, and WGs if desired?
  3. To what extent do we want to prioritize transitioning emails ASAP to address deliverability issues vs taking time to clean up what addresses people actually want to have transitioned (thereby making the transition process more efficient and the resulting infrastructure potentially more accurate/useful)?
  4. Are Friends comfortable delegating decisions regarding email address format and laying down emails that are no longer needed to the Communications Reevaluations Subcommittee, with Maggie taking the lead on consulting with the relevant email address holders?

Proposed next steps:

  1. Provide an overview of the transition plan to CYM Clerks and staff, consult staff re their transition needs (particularly Kerry and Lorraine, who are currently using @quaker.ca inboxes).
  2. Send out an overview of the transition plan and consult with CYM roles and committees regarding their email system; endeavour to find a common standard structure for committee email addresses.
  3. Send out an overview of the transition plan and consult with Half-Yearly Meetings, Monthly Meetings, Worship Groups, Camp NeeKauNis, and Young Friends regarding their email infrastructure / whether they want an email address transitioned to the new platform.
  4. Provide cleaned-up list of emails, groups, aliases, and forwarders to Bruce for implementation. Maggie has agreed to manage this transition, working with Bruce, in consultation with the Communications Reevaluation Subcommittee. We accept her offer with thanks. We support her suggestion to take a few weeks to clean up the @quaker.ca email list, purging obsolete names, etc., before
    starting the switch to Google hosting.

2018.1.7.5. Canadian Quaker Learning Series

We receive the CQLS Report with thanks. We laid over approval of the CQLS Guidelines to our March meeting.

2018.1.7.6. Editorial Subcommittee report

We received the subcommittee’s report with thanks. We agreed to lay down an ‘internal rate’ for advertising in the Canadian Friend for CYM-affiliated bodies, as their copy is deemed editorial content rather than advertising, and as such, should not be charged at all. We laid over till our March meeting a decision as to the CF Editor’s (Tim’s) official title.

2018.1.7.7. Policy and Procedures Subcommittee

We received the subcommittee’s report with thanks. We accepted Mylène’s offer to serve as recording clerk for P&C with thanks. We approved P&P’s proposal for liaisons with contractors, to wit:

  1. The CF Editor (or whatever title we eventually adopt for Tim’s position) will continue to be supervised by the Editorial Subcommittee (with Mylène as liaison).
  2. The Web Hosting (Bruce Dienes) and WordPress Maintenance (Glen Newbury) contractors will be supervised by the Policy and Procedure Subcommittee (with Robert as liaison).
  3. To reduce the burden on the P&C Clerk, contractor invoices will henceforth be approved by the subcommittee that supervises the contract

Procedure for approving invoices:

  1. Contractor sends invoice to designated liaison
  2. The liaison reviews the invoice.
  3. If the work is routine and clearly corresponds to requests from the subcommittee, the liaison sends the invoice to the CYM Accountant for payment, copying P&C’s Clerk and Budget Officer for information. Otherwise, the liaison brings the invoice to the next subcommittee meeting for discernment.

2018.1.7.8. Quaker Book Service

Quaker Book Service is in the process of being laid down. We will revisit this issue at our March meeting to consider implications for P&C.

2018.1.7.9. Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust

The Samuel Rogers Memorial Trust funds have been awarded, as per our letter of application.

2018.1.7.10. Next scheduled meeting

March 4, 2018 at 7:30pm ET. The following meetings will be on May 6 and July 8. Please join the hangout 15 minutes early incase time is needed to resolve technical difficulties.