November 16 2022

 

  

Summary:

 Meeting held on:

November 16, 2022

Submitted by:

Submitted on:

November 16, 2022

Last modified on:

November 22, 2022

Chair:

Arvid Andersen

Co-Chair:

Secretary:

cornaglia

Co-Secretary:

Attendees:

 

DanPersson   

Agenda:

Agenda:

Log in to borzoipedia.com

Open meeting.

1. Secretary for the meeting

2. Board members. The recent resignation from vice President Maja Cosic.

3. Questions from last meeting

4. Economy report, Dan

5. Budget for the period from now to September next year (the Council).

6. How to increase income? We need to introduce a member’s fee in order to maintain the borzoipedia program and the TBE. Suggest we contact all present members in borzoipedia and suggest they pay a member’s fee of €30, the founder members excluded. Without more funds, we will not be able to continue. The cost to cover the yearly running is €150. Making the borzoipedia into a fully working program have a price for the first stage of approximately €450. Stage two will also cost another €450. The result of the first two stages will be presented at the meeting. Arvid has already paid the first €450 as a no-conditional loan to TBE.
The next €450 has not yet been paid.

7. Do the board accept to pay € 450 for the program as seen here to day

8. There is an estimated cost for including a link to the studbooks, alphabetic pagination and pedigrees at between 500 to 700 € we can decide if we can raise the needed funds.  We should also build up funds so we can purchase valuable historic material in the future.
To manage the demands ahead the following actions are proposed:

9. Letter to Founder members (See letter)
Letter to all members. (See letter). We have 200 members. If 50 or more pay a yearly fee of €30 we have enough funds to continue the site, but we still be quite a long way from €4500 needed for renewing the program.

10. Donation campaign first weeks in December. If delegates have begun posting reports and more historic articles are published – then we have reason to promoting the site

11. Program progress, Arvid. Demonstration of program to the boardmembers

12. Deborah Soete would be an excellent choice for Webmaster. Suggest we ask Deborah Soete to take the role of Webmaster, responsible only to the board/who on the board+

13. Delegates, Marina. Delegates meeting, agenda?

14.Ask delegates who are still not members (4) to join before the delegate’s meeting
Ask delegates who are already members to test if they can log in and eventually ask for new passwords.

15. Addition of material. We need more articles and interviews. Quite a few have been published recently but we need more. Suggest we all make an effort to find and publish articles of interest to the borzoi community. If you don’t have the time to work on articles, ask someone for help.

16. It can perhaps be possible to purchase Aatis Lillstroms huge collection. Dan Persson handles this. It will require additional funds. Lately there has also been the question of the Duchess of Newcastle letters.

17. Use the borzoipedia program; Encourage boardmembers and delegates to make it a rule to log in to borzoipedia every day to explore news and come with corrections.

18. The meeting in Holland? Do we intend to be there? Who is in charge?

19. Report! Prepare events, speakers, and products for sale! Discuss with Holland about shows, judges. Who on the board is organizing?
Arvid has been asked to do a talk about IBC history at the conference. If I decide to do this it should be in combination with TBE. Am not quite clear if I really can go.

20. New business

21. Suggest a date for the Next meeting

Minutes:

The Borzoi Encyclopedia – Board Meeting Minutes
(November 16th , 2022)
19:00 CET

Board Members:
Present: Arvid Andersen, Dan Persson, Marina Cornaglia,
Absent: Lorraine Harvey. Sue Vasik, Kristina Terra, Vida Klenovsek
Quorum present? yes

Others Present: no

Proceedings:
· Meeting called to order at 19:04. by President, Arvid Andersen.
· (Last month’s) meeting minutes were amended and approved

· Treasurer’s Report:
– Current balance of the account is around € 800,00.
– The price of the server’s monthly payment was slightly raised and is now around 8€/month. The cost to cover the yearly running of TBE is now € 150,00.
– Making the borzoipedia into a fully working program has a price for the first stage of approximately € 450,00. Stage two will also cost another € 450,00. The result of the first of the two stages will be presented at the meeting. The president has already paid the first € 450,00 as a no-conditional loan to TBE. The next € 450,00 has been split into two separate amounts of € 225,00 , the first one has already been paid by TBE. MOTION to approve the final payment of € 225,00 to the web developer; seconded and passed.
– There is an estimated cost for including a link to the studbooks, alphabetic pagination and pedigrees, and in general to have a fully operational website between € 500,00 and € 700,00, raising funds is paramount and several strategies were discussed.

· Funding and donations:
– One option to gather funding is to start collecting membership fees; there will be two options, a yearly fee of € 30,00 and a life membership fee (one-time payment) of € 50,00. Treasurer Dan Persson expressed his concerns in the probability of losing several members if a payment is required. Though not present, also member Sue Vasik expressed her opinion on the membership fees via e-mail that was relayed at the meeting: “Although we need financial support, I do not think it feasible to expect people to pay to become members when likely the majority of them get all the information they want from the FB group. Reasoning for this? Compare the current amount of members in TBE to the current amount of subscribers to the FB group. Why aren’t all the subscribers also members? Because the group satisfies their needs. Limit their access to complete information on the FB group, they may be happy enough to migrate to our website to learn more.”
Secretary Marina Cornaglia suggested to change the fees to € 20,00 for the yearly fee and € 60,00 for the life membership: the difference between the original amounts (30 and 50) was too small and might have enticed the few members who were willing to pay to choose the one-time payment, thus cutting off the possibility of the membership renewal; moreover, 30,00 is probably too high a price for a yearly fee and we risk losing members. Two letters were drafted and are ready to be sent, one to the founder members1 and the second to the regular members2 describing the membership fees and the reasoning behind them. The letters will be presented again to the board for review and approval. MOTION to send out the letters to founder and regular members; seconded and passed.
– The second option is to launch donation campaigns on the date of the new version of the website. Advertisements for the visibility of the new website and a call for donations will be made through various social media groups. MOTION to approve the new campaign; seconded and passed.

· Program development report:
– Currently the website is in a development stage (see the address dev.borzoipedia.com) but will be switched back to the ordinary address (borzoipedia.com) soon.
– At the moment there is no webmaster in charge of the website. President Andersen suggests to ask Deborah Soete if she is willing to accept the position. The webmaster will be in charge of the website and will be responsible only to the board. MOTION to approve Soete as webmaster, if they accept the position; seconded and passed.
New features:

  • Cloud studbook: Borzoipedia does not have its own pedigree database but a good option is to use the PedigreePoint Online Databse.
  • “Review Unpublished” section in “Tools”: all material that is uploaded will go to the review unpublished section. When adding a new dog you can select the name of the parents or – if not present – add them directly to the website, but they will still go to the unpublished section so remember to approve the posts/articles/dogs once finished.
  • When adding a new dog, it is possible to upload the registration documents as a proof of authenticity.

Other business:
– It is with the utmost regret that the board accepts former Vice President Maja Cosic’s resignation from the board.The Vice President’s position is currently empty and although active people that could be an asset to the board and the encyclopedia will always be encouraged to be part of the project the board feels that there is no impending need to fill the position, as long as quorum is easily reached in board meetings.
– The delegates project was on hold, but once the new version is online and working it may continue.
– There is the possibility of adding new material to our archive, such as the Aatis Lillstrom collection or the Duchess of Newcastle letters. There are no new developments on the Lillestrom collection but TBE has been offered access to a copy of the Duchess’ letters by the prospective buyers.
– TBE Meeting in Holland: former V.P. Maja Cosic was in charge of organizing the first TBE meeting, which should take place at the IBC conference in Holland next year. Motion to ask Maja Cosic for her continued help for the organization of the event; seconded and passed.

· Meeting adjourned at 20:23.
· Minutes submitted by Recording Secretary, Marina Cornaglia.

 

 

1Letter to the founder members:

Dear Founders and Life members!

Many of you have supported TBE from the start and we are extremely happy for your support. Without you we could not have been able to start building the site.

The wish for The Borzoi Encyclopedia is to be the place where all possible information about the borzoi can be found in one place and be available to all borzoi interested people of the world!

It has been our sincere ambition that the information collected by eager members should be free of charge – but we have finally realized that there is one obstacle we can’t overcome any longer – COST.

We have the ambition that the largest collection (and growing) of its kind in the world, shall be available for generations to come. But, to accomplish this we need professional help, a reliable web company who can continue to develop and maintain the program, making sure that it’s stable and available into the future.

We will send out a letter to all members of the Borzoi Encyclopedia community and ask for them to do what you did when we started, be a life member or pay a yearly fee.

YOU ARE ALREADY A LIFE MEMBER and do not have to pay attention to that letter but if you do and still like to contribute, we like you to know that we would especially welcome your donations.

The Borzoi Encyclopedia
The board

 

2 Letter to regular members:

Dear member!

We write you in a matter of the greatest importance for the Borzoi Encyclopedia.
The background is the wish for TBE to be the place where all possible information about the borzoi can be found in one place and be available to all borzoi-interested people in the world!

To live up to this we have worked to build a site (https://borzoipedia.com) where all the information we collect can be searched and displayed. It has been our ambition that the information should be free of charge to all – but has finally realized that there is one obstacle we can’t overcome any longer – COST.

We have had help from volunteers, and they have really done their best and a little more to help. But even good things come to an end and the fact remains, the site cannot survive in the long run based on voluntary help alone. We have the ambition that the information, the largest collection (and growing) of its kind in the world, with your help, shall be available for generations to come.
To accomplish this we need professional help that can develop and maintain the program and secure that it’s stable and available also in the future. We can wish for this to happen but without enough money, it will remain a dream.

We ask you, members of The Borzoi Encyclopedia/Borzoipedia if you are willing to continue supporting by paying a member’s fee?
We have two suggestions:

Life member 60€/60$
Yearly fee of 20€/20$

I want to pay a members fee and continue to support The Borzoi Encyclopedia and borzoipedia.com
As a member you can take part on-site or by the net at the TBE Council in Holland in September next year where the direction of the association will be discussed, and members of the board elected. The Council will be held in connection with the IBC conference. There will be interesting events and workshops dedicated to borzoi.

Board of Directors