[Eg-oversight-board] Statement of Clarification

Tue May 17 16:59:34 EDT 2016

Hi everyone,

I wish to re-state that my statement, as I have submitted it, represents my opinion and the intent of my remarks at the EOB meeting during the Conference. 

No matter the situation, or the specifics of a situation, I feel that it is unprofessional, poor form, and a conflict of interest to discuss vendor-related activities with another vendor. I do not feel that my words implied any wrongdoing on the part of any vendor or member of the EOB or any Evergreen organization. I did not intend to do so.  I am trying, perhaps poorly, to help facilitate conference processes for future organizing committees. I do not wish to point fingers.  I wish to let the EOB know what made NC Cardinal staff uncomfortable.  

I must further state that Grace's last email requires me to clarify a few points. Grace does not have access to all the facts regarding conference activities.  For example, I uninvited the NC Live Director from our Conference.  I did not remove him from EventBrite but he did not attend the Conference.  He was not given a free registration.  Secondarily, I do not feel that NC Cardinal, as the host organizing committee, excluded the EOB at any time.  I constantly touched base with a representative of the Board and the SFC, whether through Grace, Chris, or Tony.  I was not informed that I had to speak with all EOB members all the time.  I assumed, correctly or not, that speaking with Tony, Chris, or Grace was the same as including the Board and that they represented the Board and could give advice to be followed. I regularly sent budgets for review and waited to finalize reception activities (band and cake for example).  The budget, as it stands today, is over $3000 in the black.  

I prefer not to address every point listed by Grace.  I'm not sure that this type of activity is beneficial. If you feel it is beneficial, I will be glad to address each statement individually.  I do wish to state that NC Cardinal library staff worked extremely hard on the conference.  During the process, my staff were treated to rude emails, confusing emails, and found themselves in the middle of some historically, yet unknown to us, poor relationships.  Yes, we made some mistakes but they WERE corrected to the best of our abilities.  Overall, my conflict of interest statement is not about the reception.  The statement refers to the whole conference and all vendor-related activities.

Let me re-state that I wish to make the Evergreen Community better. To date,  the feedback that we have received from the Conference signifies that the Conference instilled new excitement in the Community for many participants.  I want that excitement to continue and thrive. This is my intent and sole purpose for making my statement.  

Regards,

Tanya Prokrym
NC Cardinal Program Manager and Director, Library Development;
State Library of North Carolina

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Statement of Clarification (Grace Dunbar)

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Message: 1
Date: Tue, 17 May 2016 13:47:04 -0400
From: Grace Dunbar <gdunbar at esilibrary.com>
To: Ruth Frasur <director at hagerstownlibrary.org>
Cc: Oversight Board <eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org>
Subject: Re: [Eg-oversight-board] Statement of Clarification
Message-ID:
	<CAOrp-BvU+rzBStfDnH1ZpcO4_O1LZwzDKxzn3t5VqUiT-GKXOw at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

All,

I appreciate Tanya?s thoughts on how the conference planning can be improved.  There are many things that do need to be improved and the EOB and conference committee are actively working on these changes.  However, I do take exception to the implication that there was a conflict of interest in my role as the Chair of the standing Conference Committee because I am employed by Equinox.  This hits me particularly hard because this is not at all how Tanya clarified her statements to me, in person, after the EOB meeting.

I take my Board responsibilities very seriously and I strive to ensure that, as a representative of the Project, regardless of my personal or professional relationship with any group or individual, I treat them equitably.

I invite the current EOB, former EOB members, and any previous Evergreen conference organizers to please weigh in with your opinions on the guidelines and statements I provided in the course of the 2016 conference process.

Below I have detailed, as best as my memory and fast email scraping allows, the issues that involved other vendors and sponsorships for the
conference.   Please note that some of the issues that are detailed below
are issues where the Project, if not following the guidelines, could inadvertently get the SFC in trouble with the IRS and they could potentially lose their 501c3 status.  Hence, the issues have implications outside our community.

1.)  On May 13, 2015 GPLS broached the idea of a PINES Birthday Party (separate from the reception).  Tanya asked me how this should be included in the budget and she and I agreed that since this was branded as a PINES birthday party with specific money they wanted to put towards it, GPLS should handle that separately ? in other words, don?t put it in your budget if you?re not in control of how the money is spent.  We agreed that it sounded like a good ?after hours? event separate from the Reception.

a.     In October, the SFC weighed in on the idea of a PINES birthday party
when it was brought up again.  In essence, the SFC stated that the conference should add a specific sponsorship for the ?Evergreen birthday party? and allow all sponsors to participate, inviting members from PINES to assist in the planning.  I echoed the concerns the SFC had about the birthday party and gave my support to the SFC?s plan.

b.     In January, the Hosts stated that GPLS would be sponsoring ?cake,
champagne, and a band? for the reception.  In email I asked Tanya not to make statements of this nature since sponsors do not get to dictate exactly how their contributions are spent. I also expressed concern over two issues.

                                               i.     The conference was in
the red and the Hosts were committing funds to non-essentials.  For those who have never done a conference of this size, there is a food and beverage minimum of tens of thousands of dollars that must be satisfied in house.  I suggested that it was irresponsible to spend money on bands and cake from outside sources instead of satisfying the food and beverage minimum.

                                              ii.     GPLS wanted to
support the party monetarily; however, they were unable to provide a sponsorship.  They emailed the SFC in February, restating the intent to provide ?cake, champagne, and a band? for the ?birthday party? with a plan to sell PINES t-shirts and have the proceeds go toward the ?extras? at the reception.  Tony at the SFC and I both voiced concerns over earmarked donations for the conference that wasn?t part of the offered conference sponsorships.

1.     To paraphrase something we have heard from the SFC in the past
regarding conferences, ??allowing sponsors to circumvent the project's budget would prevent the project from using sponsorship income to guard against shortfalls.?

                                            iii.     My suggestion at this
point to the Hosts was to offer a special Birthday Party sponsorship to ALL sponsors.  The Host committee chose not to pursue that option but agreed on March 3 to strike the cake and champagne. The Host proposed that the EOB or NC Cardinal recognize the ten years of Evergreen at the Reception and invite someone from GPLS to say a few words.  I agreed with that approach.

1.     Note that the cake was later ordered without any notification to the
conference committee.

                                            iv.     The Host later stated
that Emerald Data, who was the actual sponsor of the Reception, would provide a ?welcome speech? before introducing someone from GPLS.  I stated that it was inappropriate for a vendor to receive a platform of this nature when other vendors did not.  The Breakfast sponsors and the Hackfest sponsors did not get to speak at their sponsored events so I suggested
(strongly) that NC Cardinal provide the welcome and introduction for GPLS to speak.

c.      Emerald Data then requested to provide a ?giveaway? at the
reception.  The conference committee was not informed as to what the nature of this giveaway was and so my recommendation was to not provide that option.  The conference provides space in the exhibits area for giveaways and we traditionally don?t allow sponsors to use their sponsored event as advertising.  Also, the SFC needs the opportunity to ?vet? giveaways.

2.)  There was an issue that was not well understood regarding tote bag inserts.

a.     I did not specifically cover tote bag inserts with the Hosts until
February when I sent a reminder of ?Phase Three things to do before the
conference?.   There was confusion over a previous email that listed the
SFC constraints on ?swag? that is given out at the conference and swag was conflated with tote bag inserts.  The official position of the conference (both the conference committee and the SFC) is that we do not allow non-conference inserts into the official bags/packets.

b.     Unfortunately, the Hosts had already accepted some tote bag inserts
form a local organization NC Live and the NC Library for the Blind.  To further complicate matters, representatives from that NC Live were being given complimentary registrations to the conference.  I suggested removing the inserts and making them freely available on a table.  The SFC agreed with the solution.

                                               i.     I also requested that
the free registrations be rescinded and offered to ?be the bad guy? and explain it to the registrants.  The Host assured me that they would handle correcting this.

                                              ii.     One NC Live free
registration was never corrected.

3.)  Free registrations

a.     There were two complimentary registrations provided by the Hosts to
two presenters ? David Singleton (Charlotte Mecklenburg) and Julie Walker (GPLS).  I notified the Hosts that presenters were not provided free registrations (with the exception of keynote speakers) and asked the Host to correct it or to allow me to correct it.

                                               i.     The Host indicated in
email that it was corrected, however, these were never corrected and these registrants did not pay registration fees.

4.)  Emerald Data ?wrote in? a sponsorship for $500 for Tote Bags on their Sponsorship form.  This wasn?t a sponsorship that was offered on the official form that went to all the potential sponsors and it wasn?t on the Conference web site. Tanya stated that Emerald received an outdated form with a Tote Bag sponsorship on it, however, tote bags were never discussed as an official sponsorship.

a.     I asked Tanya to remove that sponsorship because we don?t offer
special sponsorships outside the official list lest we (the Project or the
Host) be accused of vendor bias.

b.     Tony Sebro, the SFC counsel also advocated for this course of action.

c.      The sponsorship was removed.

5.)  Due to issues with inclusion of ?extras? in a budget that was in the red, I sent a request on February 24 to the Hosts to strike the Band from the budget until such time as we could prove enough profit to pay for the
extra expense.   The Hosts responded, ? Right now the Band expense is in
the budget and I?m confident that we will be able to meet all expenses.
Since we are using the Conservancy to pay bills, I would assume that the
Conservancy will pay the band bill out of the Band lineitem.   I thought
that general sponsorships paid for items like this.?

My response stated, ?The funds that are brought in to cover the costs of the conference are not to be spent at the discretion of the local conference committee.  Those funds belong to the SFC who directs them to our project.  Our project expenditures are directed by the EOB, not the local conference committee.  We allow the local committees a lot of leeway in conference planning since they know their area and the venue best.
However, the final decision on any budgetary matters rests with the EOB and SFC, not the local committee.  As of now, with the budget still in the red and the matter of how certain sponsorships are being handled, please put the entertainment on hold until we can resolve this matter.?

6.)  Tanya stated in her clarification, ?This conflict created a need for another contact point very late in the planning process.?

a.     On February 17, I was notified by the Board Secretary, Chris Sharp,
that Tanya had been going to him privately to resolve issues for the conference and to deal with the SFC, excluding the conference committee altogether.

b.     If the issues discussed between Tanya, Chris, and the SFC included
the PINES sponsorship issues or anything regarding the Emerald Data sponsorships, I would point out that there is a potential conflict of interest in that involvement since GPLS is Chris? employer and Emerald Data is their vendor.

7.)  Lastly, it is clear that the EOB needs to be more transparent about issues surrounding past conferences.  This is not the first year that a conference committee has been asked by Emerald Data to make concessions or provide changes to sponsorships.  The reason my responses were so firm on these issues was because of past problems with this vendor at the Vancouver conference, the Cambridge conference, and the Hood River conference.  The EOB has not discussed these issues openly in order to preserve community harmony; however, it seems it?s past time to bring more transparency to the process.

8.)  The conference ultimately had a slim margin of profit, roughly $1,023.00.  In my role as conference committee chair, I felt that I did my best to uphold the conference values and structure in accordance with past precedent, Project guidelines, and the SFC rules.  The conference money is Project money and utmost care should be taken by the Hosts to ensure each conference is adding, rather than subtracting from the Evergreen Project?s coffers.  Should, heaven forbid, we end up in some kind of a legal battle over the Evergreen name or Trademark, we would need every dime the Project has and then some.

       I hope this clarifies any vendor/sponsor related issues that I managed as the chair of the conference committee. I am, of course, available for questions and clarifications.

    Sincerely,

    Grace

I

On Tue, May 17, 2016 at 11:26 AM, Ruth Frasur < director at hagerstownlibrary.org> wrote:

> Tanya Prokrym has sent this Statement of Clarification regarding 
> comments made during the Evergreen Oversight Board meeting at the 2016 
> Evergreen International Conference in Raleigh, N.C.  This statement 
> will be discussed during the next EOB meeting in the #evergreen 
> channel of IRC on Thursday, May 19 at 2:00 p.m.
>
> --
> Ruth Frasur
> Director of the Historic(ally Awesome) Hagerstown - Jefferson Township 
> Library
> 10 W. College Street in Hagerstown, Indiana (47346) p (765) 489-5632; 
> f (765) 489-5808
>
> *Our Kickin' Website <http://hagerstownlibrary.org>,  Our Rockin' 
> Facebook Page <http://facebook.com/hjtplibrary>,  and The Nettle Creek 
> Players
> <http://nettlecreekplayers.com>*
>
> _______________________________________________
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> ard
>
>

--
Grace Dunbar, Vice President
Equinox - Open Your Library
gdunbar at esilibrary.com
1-877-OPEN-ILS  |  www.esilibrary.com
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