[Eg-oversight-board] Statement of Clarification
Amy Terlaga
terlaga at biblio.org
Wed May 18 19:53:30 EDT 2016
I really have nothing new to this discussion, but I did want to write to
say that I have agreed with everything that Andrea, Rogan, and Kathy have
written here about the subject. Since I was involved with the conference
planning with Kathy, I can verify firsthand what she had to report.
I thought it was important to weigh in on the matter.
Amy
On Wed, May 18, 2016 at 12:06 PM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org>
wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I want to provide some background from the perspective of a previous
> conference co-organizer, a former EOB member, and a former rep to the
> Conservancy.
>
> Having served in the role as local organizer and also as an EOB conference
> committee rep, I can say both roles have their challenges. I'm sure
> everyone working on the 2016 conference, including Tanya and Grace, acted
> in a way they thought was best for the conference and for the project as a
> whole. I don't think anyone acted out of self-interest or the interests of
> their employer.
>
> Looking at the specific communications, as related by Grace, I believe
> many of the actions she took and recommendations she made align with how we
> previously conducted conferences and with what I would have recommended if
> I were still serving in a role as a standing conference committee rep. For
> those who have not previously been involved in organizing an Evergreen
> conference, I want to provide some background on why I think these actions
> were appropriate.
>
> - To maintain its non-profit status, the Conservancy has communicated to
> the project that sponsorship opportunities cannot be changed after the
> sponsorship package has been released. It presents an issue if one
> potential sponsor decides to, for example, go with a Gold package only to
> find out that another vendor was able to get more from the Platinum package
> than was originally advertised. I participated in the kickoff calls with
> Tony Sebro, attorney at the SFC, for both the Cambridge and Hood River
> conferences. He made this issue clear from the start of conference
> planning. I did not participate in the kickoff call with Raleigh because I
> was no longer a conference committee rep, so I can't say whether this
> information was communicated for the most recent team.
>
> - There is some flexibility where we can create new sponsorship packages,
> similar to the birthday package Grace outlined in here e-mail. For example,
> looking back to the 2014 conference, we created a new sponsorship for
> Eventbrite so that they could waive our registration feeds. However, those
> who were on the Board at the time may remember that we had one issue with
> the Eventbrite conditions for that sponsorship. They wanted all of the
> confirmation e-mails to include a statement saying that Eventbrite was a
> sponsor for the conference (I don't recall the exact language). At the
> time, the Board felt uncomfortable with this request because the same
> opportunity hadn't been provided to other sponsors who had already
> committed to the conference. We resolved the issue by acknowledging all
> sponsors in the confirmation email. I believe this decision is one in which
> the Project set a precedent. Even when it was legally permissible to
> create a new package, we didn't want to present opportunities for new
> sponsors that weren't available to the vendors who had already signed up to
> support the conference. This is a precedent I think the project should
> continue to maintain.
>
> - I think few non-conference-organizers realize that the sponsorship for a
> specific function, particularly when it comes to the reception, supports
> only a fraction of the cost of that function. To an outsider, it may seem
> reasonable to allow the sponsor paying for a function to determine what
> type of food or entertainment is provided at that function. But the project
> is really funding a large percentage of that function. I don't now what the
> numbers were for Raleigh, but, in the case of Cambridge, the sponsorship
> didn't even cover half the cost of the reception. The project needs to have
> the flexibility to contain those costs as much as they can while also
> meeting contractual food & beverage minimums and providing what they
> believe is a quality conference experience to attendees. As Grace said, the
> sponsorships are there to offset costs. They are not there to involve
> sponsors in the planning.
>
> - As far as giving welcome speeches at an event, I have attended other
> non-Evergreen conferences where speaking opportunities, perhaps during the
> Welcome session, were part of a sponsorship package. If we want to provide
> that opportunity, we can do so. It just needs to be part of a package that
> all vendors have an opportunity to support. The idea here is that we need
> to be fair to all potential exhibitors and sponsors. Changing the rules in
> the middle of the game is likely to cause frustrations among other sponsors
> who may not feel they were given an equal opportunity to do receive a
> particular benefit.
>
> - Overall, I would say vendor/sponsor communications is something that can
> add a lot of stress to a local planning team that is already working hard
> to put on a great conference. If there is anything the Board can do to
> alleviate that stress and remove some of the burden from the shoulders of
> the local planning team, I think it would be a step in the right direction.
> There is the expected stress of getting enough sponsors to keep the
> conference in the black. But there was also a lot of unexpected stress.
> During the two years I worked on conference planning, we dealt with a) a
> vendor that was reluctant to provide a sponsorship because they were
> unhappy with a new policy adopted, with community support, by the Board b)
> a vendor that wanted additional conference registrations to go along with
> their sponsorship, and, in 2015, c) a vendor that wanted a custom package
> reflecting the benefits they were most interested in. In the last instance,
> we ultimately lost the sponsor, but we (we being the joint local and
> standing conference committee, in consultation with the EOB chair) felt it
> was better not to set a precedent that a vendor could pick and choose which
> benefits they received from various packages.
>
> It may not sound like a lot of stress, but, sometimes, vendors can be very
> persistent in these requests, which sucks a lot of time from the conference
> planning process. It really doesn't need to be the local planning team
> dealing with these issues and, in some ways, I think it's better if the
> same group handles sponsors from year to year. When a new team comes along,
> a vendor may see it as an opportunity to see if they can get a different
> answer than they received for previous conferences.
>
> As far as the role of Conservancy rep, I believe it has traditionally been
> the rep's role to inform the Conservancy of votes taken by the EOB that
> require Conservancy attention. For the Cambridge conference, the rep, who
> also happened to be EOB chair, checked in once in a while just to see how
> our relationship with the Conservancy was going. However, when issues arose
> late in the conference planning process, it was the local planning
> committee that handled those issues. I was the rep during the 2015
> conference, but I also was serving on the standing conference committee,
> so, even though I was involved in many discussions with the Conservancy, I
> don't think it was done in my role as Conservancy rep. Having said that, I
> do remember the discussion at the 2015 conference, and I have long believed
> that local conference volunteers, on top of everything else they are doing,
> should not have to deal with what can sometimes be unpleasant
> communications with the Conservancy. If the Conservancy rep can be an
> intermediary to resolve those issues, I think that's fine. Otherwise, I
> don't think this role should be include involvement in the particulars of
> conference planning. Clarifying this role in the by-laws may be a good
> thing.
>
> I also wanted to talk a bit of the handoff that typically happens from
> conference to conference. It certainly does need improvement, as we have
> all agreed, but I don't want to leave people with the impression that no
> guidance is given to the incoming team. We have also gradually made
> improvements to the process over the past few years.
>
> - When the Vancouver conference wrapped up, Ben Hyman handed off a Google
> drive folder to Amy and me with documents, budgets, etc from the 2011,
> 2012, and 2013 conferences. He also met with us via phone to go through the
> post mortem typically done by the previous year's committee. Amy and I
> added a 2014 folder to that Google drive folder and handed it off to the
> Hood River team for 2015 and also had a similar phone call with Buzzy. I
> don't know if a similar phone call happened with the Raleigh team, but I do
> know that I shared the Google drive folder with Tanya early in the stages
> of the Raleigh conference planning process. Indeed, there is a lot of
> paperwork to go through in that folder, but Amy and I found it invaluable
> to consult it when we were confronted with specific questions about the
> conference.
>
> - I do know Tony Sebro from the Conservancy typically has a kickoff phone
> call with the local team where, among other things, he talks about some of
> the sponsorship issues outlined above.
>
> - After the Cambridge conference, in an effort to further improve the
> process, the Board created the Standing Conference Committee that would
> work on the conference in conjunction with the local team. The idea was
> that the local team should not reinvent the wheel every year. If involved
> in the planning, this committee may recognize potential issues before they
> snowballed. For the 2015 conference, the local planning team met regularly
> with the standing committee to go through conference planning activities. I
> think this helped with communication. Perhaps we need to be clearer with
> the local planning team when they come on board that these joint meetings
> should happen.
>
> - In 2015, in an effort to further improve the process, we developed the
> "Expectations of the Local Arrangements Committee" available at the bottom
> of http://wiki.evergreen-ils.org/doku.php?id=eg09:conference_nominations.
> Those expectations were shared with potential hosts during the site
> selection for the 2016 conference. Previously, local teams had worked off
> sample timelines from previous planners. These expectations included set
> deadlines for when the EOB expected to have certain tasks completed.
>
> - There clearly needs to be more documentation around conference planning,
> and I'm confident that the process will get even better for the 2017 team.
>
> I also concur with a lot of what Andrea said. The Evergreen community is a
> community of users, developers, volunteers and vendors. I think it's
> important for vendors to be an integral part of the community, and
> community involvement is something I look for when I am seeking with
> vendors. It tells me that they care about the Evergreen project and are not
> just about providing a service to customers. If a vendor or any other Board
> member, whether they are working for a library, for a state agency, or a
> library consortium or in a volunteer capacity, behaves inappropriately,
> then the Board should deal with the inappropriate behavior. I haven't seen
> indication yet of inappropriate behavior.
>
> There are also a lot of gray areas in the Evergreen community on who is a
> vendor and who is not. We have some developers who have day jobs working
> for library organizations, but who also perform contract work in their
> off-hours time. Technically, MassLNC is now a service provider (or will be
> in another month) and were exhibitors at the last conference. However, I
> also consider this organization to be a strong representation of the
> Evergreen users who are partners in our project. We also are customers for
> the other vendors in the community. So the vendor/user/customer distinction
> is not very clear. I just want people to be careful in whatever direction
> is taken because restrictions against vendors being conference liaisons may
> impact more community members than originally intended.
>
> Overall, as unpleasant as this recent experience may have been, I'm
> confident it will lead to better planning processes for future conferences.
>
> Thanks to everyone who made it to the end of this e-mail!
>
> Kathy
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 05/17/2016 01:47 PM, Grace Dunbar wrote:
>
> 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>*
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> eg-oversight-board mailing list
>> eg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.org
>> http://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Grace Dunbar, Vice President
> Equinox - Open Your Library
> gdunbar at esilibrary.com
> 1-877-OPEN-ILS | <http://www.esilibrary.com>www.esilibrary.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> eg-oversight-board mailing listeg-oversight-board at list.evergreen-ils.orghttp://list.evergreen-ils.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/eg-oversight-board
>
>
> --
> Kathy Lussier
> Project Coordinator
> Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative(508) 343-0128klussier at masslnc.org
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>
--
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Amy Terlaga
Director of Member Services
Bibliomation, Inc.
24 Wooster Avenue
Waterbury, CT 06708
(203)577-4070 x101
terlaga at biblio.org
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