February 1, 2023 Board Meeting Minutes

by | Mar 17, 2023 | 2023 | 0 comments

The National At-Home Dad Network

Board Meeting Agenda

2/1/2023 9:30 PM EST / 6:30 PM PST

 

  1. Call to Order 9:34pm                                            
  2. Roll Call All present
  3. Approval of January Minutes Board meeting Minutes 1/4/2023 Motion to approve minutes from Grady seconded by Matt unanimously approved 
  4. Committee Reports
    1. Convention Committee
      1. Ticket sales 13 tickets
      2. Room Bookings 47 nights sold
      3. Speaker Bookings 10 Submissions 1 researcher as potential keynote.  
      4. When to begin Speaker announcements we would like to start earlier than in previous years
    2. Social Media and Marketing 
      1. Featured Volunteer for the February Newsletter JHG suggested focusing on the volunteers that aren’t right out there in the open. The behind the scenes people need to be recognized. We will do Patrick this month and feature Ian next month. Matt motioned to name Patrick, Charlie seconded. Passed unanimously.
        1. Kyle Denny
        2. Patrick Wilbraham 
        3. Quetzal Torres 
        4. Ian Smithdahl
        5. Brett Landry

Sergio asked what we are doing for Black History Month. Last year we did one post for each week. We need to feature black fatherhood. Sergio recommends that we feature black dads that are out there doing things now instead of looking back. Brock mentioned James Lopez, Dante Palmer, Vernon Gibbs, and Glen Henry. Sergio mentioned Matt Presberry. We can highlight their connection to the organization.

We need to be working on March already for International Women's Month. Matt will add Patrick and Joshua to the org G Suite calendar. Gerard suggested that we start pulling shorter clips from the YouTube channel to post across other social media platforms. He also suggested dad jokes. Brock can clip down the podcast. I can clip the webinars. Sergio will use the promotional video from Dad U to start.

  1. Membership
    1. Matt is still not receiving any email notification of Paypal Payments Matt will just check Paypal on his own to keep the membership roll current.
    2. Still need to begin getting mailers sent out to 2023 members
      1. What else do we need to make that happen? Matt dropped the ball on this. He will get on it immediately.
  2. Sponsorship/ Fundraising
    1. Has Quetzal found a volunteer for this? Quetzal is still looking. They are also looking for someone to act as a journalist to write things like the volunteer spotlight.
    2. Do we want to have someone look into researching available grants? We are willing to offer a 10% commission for finding and securing grants for the organization. Danny suggested we look for a professional to do this since we are offering compensation. Steven Shaffer was brought up as an option. Keith will reach out to them to offer the compensation.
  3. J.D.E.I
    1. Updates following their first meeting The Committee is asking for money for two reasons 1. To offer a stipend to minority speakers to help them attend the convention they want to start with $250. 2. They would like to request an additional $750 a year to fund the committee. Sergio will produce an itemized budget and the board can consider the proposal further next month. Plans are in place to do their own fundraising. The patch sale is the current plan but they plan on doing a fundraiser every year. There were 8 people at the first meeting. They talked about sending messages to different JDEI people on social media to try to get them to speak at the convention. Joseph Saucedo is one of the potential speakers, he is also coming to the Board Retreat to speak with us. Quetzal nominated his wife to speak at the convention about explicit bias and how to get directly involved in JDEI. Sergio spoke with James Lopez’s wife and the situation is not looking good after a second brain surgery. The JDEI committee would like to start some kind of honor/fund/award in his honor. They would like to give Joseph a stipend of $150 for coming to the retreat. Brock suggested we up the budget to $1000.00 vs. $750. Evan Moser is very interested in speaking about Justice for disabled people as a disabled dad. 
    2. Plans for patch fundraiser The DDBS patch needs to get designed and prices secured so we can go ahead and order them. Keith raised concerns about the DDBS Tshirt funds going to the scholarship fund. It was agreed that the patch would be a different item and not need to give a percentage to the scholarship. Matt asked that Grady could go through the budget to determine if we actually have the funds in the budget to offer the requested funding. JHG brought up that the $35 per year membership is not covering the expenses for the organization. We need to raise the dues. We feel that doing this incrementally would be the best option. The JDEI committee would like for there to be a percentage of the scholarship funds to be dedicated to minority dads. We would like to offer a free ticket to some local organizations to both give the ticket but also get publicity in their communities. We need to make sure we block out the spaces for minority speakers and scholarship recipients. This will allow these people to be secured for attendance. JHG suggested creating the “Fatherhood is Lit'' fund to finance the JDEI committee’s work. This would need to be cleared with James and/or his Wife. We do not want to use his brand without express permission. Grady asked for clarification on the speakers at HDC. He wanted to make sure that the speakers would relate their content to Fatherhood. Sergio confirmed that that is a requirement.

 

  1. Pillars Report (F.A.C.E.S.)
    1. Family
      1. Is the new T-shirt design available for purchase
        1. No The past shirts and new shirts offer us an opportunity to plug both membership and the spring store. JHG and Keith will work on how to organize the spring store into categories 
    2. Advocacy
    3. Community
    4. Education JHG will reach out to Kari to see where we stand with the survey.
    5. Support
  2. Treasurer’s Report 02/2023 Grady will look into alternative savings accounts that may offer better interest.
  3. January Slack Discussions and Votes
    1. Creation of a TNAHDN/CityDads Committee to coordinate partnership
    2. Joe Saucedo speaking at the board retreat
    3. Dad Joke Madness in March
      1. Who is spearheading? No one currently. Brock will reach out to Arvis. 
      2. Prizes T-shirts for winner and runner-up. We discussed potential sponsors including Fathering Together. Sergio has a lot of contact with them. They are networking with a group of C-suite dads and looking for in person events for those dads to sponsor. Sergio will reach out to them regarding HDC. Danny suggested that we Brand out Dad Joke madness as the John Francis or Father’s Eve contest. We can get the $50 donation elsewhere. Danny Motioned, Grady seconded passed unanimously. Danny will donate the $50.
      3. Format There needs to be a time limit. Matt Suggested that we set up a group of judges to decide. Grady suggested the executive committee. Sergio suggested we use social media and try to create a call to action. Grady suggested calling it March Daddness. Unfortunately, that hashtag is taken by a group honoring Father’s of Color. We cannot use it.
    4. Allowing Robbie Samuels to highlight the organization and feature our door hanging in his book. Voted unanimously to allow both
    5. Amazon Smile shutdown
      1. How much were we receiving? $1143 is what we are losing, we believe. We will need to research to determine a concrete number.
      2. Will we need to offset this income stream? Probably, but further information is needed.
    6. Organization Polo shirts
      1. Getting payment from the board We will all donate the $30 to the general fund by February 20th. Motion from Matt, seconded by Danny seconded passed unanimously.
      2. Do we want to open up sales of these to our members? We are looking at making this available to the general membership. It would have to be set up as an ordering period and then placing the order. Brian Anderson says he will reach out to Sprecher Brewery on our behalf.
    7. Do we reach out to the congressional Dad Caucus in an official capacity with an official letter of introduction along with the issues we feel are most important to At-Home Dads? Yes, this is in our interest and we will. Brock suggested that the dads local to DC can potentially get some face time with them. Grady raised concerns about the committee being 100% Democrats currently. The Board feels this isn’t an issue as we are supporting policies NOT individual politicians. The goals of the caucus (Family leave, affordable childcare, etc.) are all issues we have a very public stance on and we are advocating for that. We need to reach out to all the members of congress GOP and DEM to be a part of this.
  4. Old Business
    1. Membership Drive
      1. We need things to announce to spur membership
        1. Phoenix Videos Did David Pindancet do his breakout? Keith has most of the videos up and good to go.
        2. New T-shirts Can we create a members only area on spring
        3. Polo Shirts? Do we add “Board Member” to the shirt? Do we add a challenge coin to the items members can buy? Coins will be discussed on slack
        4. Speakers at HDC 
    2. Past members Archive
      1. Getting the eventbrite ticket lists from past conventions Keith has gotten that list to Matt.
  5. New Business
    1. Fathering Together School Chapters JHG is concerned about how we can actually help with this program. It is a good idea but we can’t run it. Our best help we can do is to promote the program. Podcast, Webinar, and putting the info out there to our network.

JHG made a motion to enter into an executive session, Matt seconded. The motion unanimously passed.

  1. Executive Session
  2. Agenda for the Board Retreat.
    1. Important topics to be included
    2. Plans for Food and Drink
    3. Outside speakers Joe and Greg were suggested to attend. We decided against Greg coming to the retreat. We can talk with him on Friday night. We like the idea of having Joe come in before lunch. Probably 10:30- about 12:45 or 1. Remember to send the ticket info to Grady for reimbursement.
    4. Coordinating pickups from the Airport All the board members will forward their travel itinerary to Matt and he will put it together to arrange rides. Possibly make a hotel visit before the DNO on Friday. 

 Motion to Adjourn JHG  motion to adjourn Brock Seconded. Motion passed unanimously. Meeting adjourned at 12:00 am Eastern