Date: April 12, 2021
Time: 6:00 pm EST
Present: Logan Meyer, Des Bennett, Kaley Bachelder, Robbie Flanagan, Meryl
Prendergast, Arielle Greenspan
Recorded by: Logan Meyer
Summary of Meeting
In this meeting, we discussed a new organizational system for our drive, a new grant grading spreadsheet, our thoughts on the pitch process for FTGU, and our new design scheme for the website. Few decisions were made, but a plethora of thoughts were floated, and we even liked most of them!
Discussion – Google Drive Organization
We began this meeting by discussing the draft Index of Files and, more generally, how to reorganize our current mess of a Google Drive. Logan proposed organizing the drive by department circle, with each respective folder managed by the secretary of the circle. The Index of Files would then serve as a master directory of all files in the drive and their locations. We liked the organizational structure, but quickly came to agree that including all documents in the index would become unnecessarily cumbersome and likely unhelpful. We discussed alternatives, like creating an index for each circle instead of a master index or using the master index as a quick links page for accessing org policies, frequently referenced documents, and other important files.
We think that having a master Index would be very useful, but that one which requires manual updates is unrealistic. We discussed creating the index in Airtable or another software platform, but we could not agree on one that would work for us currently. We tabled the conversation about a formal index but agreed to adopt the circle-based organizational system.
Discussion – Grant Grading System
Robbie then walked us through the new Grant Ranking Spreadsheet, a document which will automatically rank potential grants for us according to the priority scheme we developed earlier in the Grant Eligibility Questionnaire. There’s also a form to use when evaluating grants, which will make the process almost completely automated. We discussed adding an additional sheet to the document to function as a summary or tracking page. The dream here is that this page would provide an easy-to-read overview of which grants fall in which priority category.
We also discussed adding a consideration to the scoring system of how many circles need to be involved in the application. In this case, the more circles involved, the longer the grant would take, which is good information to know. We think combining our current Grants Tracker with the new spreadsheet would be a good idea, since it would keep everything in the same place. This would also allow us to more easily perform a year-to-year meta-analysis of the grants we’re evaluating to determine how our eligibility is changing and find grants we have been ineligible for in the past that may work for us in the future.
Discussion – FTGU Pitch Process
We then discussed our thoughts on the sample production pitch that Robbie shared and our general thoughts on what the pitch process for FTGU should look like. If we adopt this sample format, we will need to define what an “original” or “new” work is. We deliberated about whether or not we should let people designate production team members, too. While we want to support artists choosing to work together, we also don’t want to lose the aspect of our programming which actively expands professional networks. We think allowing individuals or small groups to deliver pitches could work well, and only those who pitch a project are guaranteed to be able to work on it if we pick it up.
We then discussed how to measure the time commitment of a given project. We could ask for a proposed timeline with the written pitch, or have a conversation with the artists during the pitch interview itself, or do a combination of both while offering information about our production dates and capacities. However, the goal of this question is really to manage our organizational capacity, so we agreed that it would probably be better to approach the conversation with the goal of understanding the work that needs to be done. We could then budget based on what our capacity is.
Meryl then mentioned the importance of asking what the pitching individual wants their own role to be in the process, so that people don’t feel they have to do the whole project on their own. Other questions we may want to ask include:
Why is Reground a good fit for this work?
What do they need from us?
What are they looking to get out of this project?
How does this fit our mission?
How does this work support our values?
How do you foresee doing this project in an anti-racist and otherwise responsible way?
How will you create a collaborative and safe creative process?
Asking all of these questions also brought up the topic of accessibility. The longer the written pitch, the less accessible it will be, and the less we’ll actually be able to garner from it. To that end, we think a minimal written pitch, with no word count expectation, is a good idea. Meryl proposed that we host info sessions about our pitch process. We also agreed that we should require consent to our terms/conditions surrounding anti-racism, accessibility, etc in both the written pitch and interview process. These will be our community guidelines, and it’s important that we be able to enforce them. We’d also like to make clear that we will provide resources and support in running the room according to those guidelines.
We wrapped up this conversation with some logistical considerations about how to accept pitches. We want to allow pitches to include visual elements and supporting documentation, so a standardized form might not be ideal. At the same time, we want to be able to collect standardized data about demographics and other easily answered questions without having to perform a massive amount of data entry. The most practical solution seemed to be to accept pitches via email in word doc/pdf format and then send a standardized form to collect additional information after we’ve received the pitch.
Discussion – Website Redesign
Meryl then presented a Revised Branding for the website. This included a revised company color palette which uses our classic orange, an accent blue, and grayscale. Under this proposal, Marketing would develop a new color scheme for each instance of programming. This design proposal keeps the plaster textured background we discussed last week and incorporates rips for visual flair. We liked this proposal, but want to be careful about using rips for images, as doing so too much may imply a devaluing of our work.
We also discussed changes to our homepage banner image. We liked Option #s 2 and 3 for varying reasons, but did not come to a final decision. We will vote via slack over the next week to decide which we like more. We also agreed that we want the banner space on the homepage to feature a newsfeed slider rather than simply a static image. There’s also fantastic potential to animate this once we have a webmaster.
We then discussed reorganizing our webpages according to the outline on page 2 of Website Pages. This outline reorganizes our content into three categories: Our Team, Our Work, and Our Mission. This organization fits more cleanly with our collective voice we’ve been developing, keeps the menu clean and consistent, and places our team first in accordance with our general ethos and org culture. We liked this organizational system, and agreed that it would be great to eventually include a timeline of significant programming and organizational milestones on the Our Work page.
Logan and Meryl will present updates to the website each of the next three Mondays according to the Website Update Timeline – April 2021.
Backlogged Agenda Items
We added the following agenda item to the Backlog:
Figure out what materials Marketing should prepare for use in future grant applications
Action Items for Next Meeting
For the next General Circle meeting, we’ll prepare copy for the website about Reground’s history and update our Agreement of Copyright Ownership and Continuous Use.
Next Meeting
The General Circle will next meet on Thursday, April 15th at 6:00pm EST.