Van Slam Family Meeting on June 14th

[Sean]

Van Slam Family Meeting on June 14th

This is a meeting for all those who wish to help shape the direction of the Vancouver Poetry Slam in the next year

Host:    Vancouver Poetry Slam
Type:    Meetings - Club/Group Meeting
Network:    Global
Date:    Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time:    6:00pm - 7:30pm
Location:    The Grind Gallery
Street:    4124 Main Street
City/Town:    Vancouver, BC

Description
This will be the 1st of 2 Van Slam meetings during the summer. The 2nd will take place after the team comes back from the National Poetry Slam in Florida in August.

The topics that will be presented for this short meeting will be

Informational Reports:
1) Report on PSI/NPS from Lisa
2) Report on CFSW from Sean
3) Financial Reports for the year to date from Sean
4) Report on last year and this year's Van Slam CD from Chris

Discussion
1) Whether or not the slam should be moving venues
2) What should the family's focus be in the next year (more events, merchandise, hosting a festival, etc.)

During the August meeting we will be discussing/voting on
1) Proposed Selection process changes (Spelt and the Rules Committee)
2) Promotion of the Honour Code and the Van Slam Constitution

and anything else that the family deems as important.

Hope to see you all there.

Sean

[Sean]

Oh and I should mention that each of the report items will be brief (approximately 15 minutes in length) so if you have specific questions or concerns please feel free to email/ask any of the presenters in advance as we will have only a short amount of time for a bunch of topics.

Sean

[ms_spelt]

my main question about NPS/PSI is that I'd like Lisa to let us know what the key/core issues are that will be arising at the NPS Slam masters mtg based on the agenda and the slam masters forum of late. That way we can reach consensus as to how we'd like her to represent us on such matters-whatever they may be.

[Lisa]

I haven't actually seen anything at all about the SM meeting as of yet. I think that's probably because the PSI EC is essentially running NPS this year and they've been pretty occupied with that.

I will let people know as soon as I hear anything.

[ms_spelt]

Thanks Lisa.

[admin]

I suggest that the proposal for any voting items should be posted in this thread in the forum so that we can all think about them beforehand, and pose any obvious questions ahead of time. It could cut down on our meeting time a lot, and by the looks of things, this is a very ambitious agenda.

So far, I see the the Selection Process and Honour Code promotion as the two voting items. Could we have more details on these items?

[ms_spelt]

The rules committee is working out the last details on what the new system we will be proposing is going to look like,and when we have a presentable draft we will most certainly post it,in advance of the august mtg,to ensure that we can streamline the presentation at the mtg and answer any questions beforehand.
as for honour code promotion that's a relatively simple thing-we're just looking at what are the ways we can make the honour code common knowledge among all our participants-and the options are rather straightforward.
absolutely we should avail ourselves of the forums for prediscussion.
thanks chris.
spelt

[Duncan Shields]

I know that Warren filming our bouts and then posting them on YouTube has raised our global and national profile a large amount.  I think it's a fantastic way to keep a record.  I think we should allot 50 dollars a week to pay a cameraman to film the slams and post them on a VPH YouTube channel.  I'd like to propose that at this meeting.

[admin]

Now that I think about it, my informational report will include a voting item, so I should probably give some background details here.

Basically, we need to decide whether we want to invest in another Van Slam CD. We made one last year and we recorded this year's team play-offs (semi-finals and finals night) so that we could make one again this year. The CD would be comprised of one poem from each of the sixteen poets who participated in the play-offs.

Of course, it all comes down to money. The total expenses for last year's CD were $763. We've sold approximately 50 of those CDs for revenue of $304. So we're still in the red. However, we have over 400 CDs still left to sell. Thus, the chances of eventually profiting from this are high.

I expect the budget for this year's CD would be the same as last year's. Many improvements will be made in terms of the speed of delivery, and packaging. Last year was the first time we've produced a CD and we've learned a lot in the process. I expect we'd put together some sort of package deal for the two CDs (this year's and last year's) in order to keep last year's CD selling.

As a final note, we did earmark 100 of these CDs for promotional purposes, and we've given away about half of these (to poets on the CD, hosts, Van Slam contest winners and schools). We still have to work on the promotional aspect of the CD project, the marketing of it, if you will. Only now are hosts mentioning the CD on a regular basis. But the introduction of a merch table at the slam is a great start, and I expect that we'll get much better at promotion as a result.

[Sean]

We're going to be adding to the agenda a proposal from Chris and Duncan about T-shirts. It should be a short item to our list. And again, if anyone has any questions about the agenda or any items on it in particular than please contact the appropriate board/committee member. If you're not sure who that is please contact Lisa or myself.

[Sean]

Here's the new and improved agenda for the Van Slam Family meeting for June 14th.

Van Slam Family Meeting on June 14th

This is a meeting for all those who wish to help shape the direction of the Vancouver Poetry Slam in the next year

Vancouver Poetry Slam Family Meeting
Date:    Sunday, June 14, 2009
Time:    6:00pm - 7:30pm
Location:    The Grind Gallery
Street:    4124 Main Street
City/Town:    Vancouver, BC

Description
This will be the 1st of 2 Van Slam meetings during the summer. The 2nd will take place after the team comes back from the National Poetry Slam in Florida in August.

The topics that will be presented for this short meeting will be

Informational Reports:
1) Report on PSI/NPS from Lisa
2) Report on CFSW from Sean
3) Financial Reports for the year to date from Sean
4) Report on last year and this year's Van Slam CD from Chris
5) Proposal for Van Slam T-shirt production from Chris and Duncan
6) Proposal for video taping all Van Slam shows from Duncan

Discussion (if we get time)
1) Whether or not the slam should be moving venues
2) What should the family's focus be in the next year (more events, merchandise, hosting a festival, etc.)



During the August meeting we will be discussing/voting on
1) Proposed Selection process changes from Spelt
2) Promotion of the Honour Code and the Van Slam Constitution (TBD)
3) Updates from NPS from Lisa
4) Updates from CFSW from Sean

and anything else that the family deems as important.

Hope to see you all there.

Sean

[ms_spelt]

I would like to point out that while I will be making the report and suggestion about possible changes to the selection process,that I am doing so on behalf of the entire rules committee.
we are all exhaustively going over this to try and come up with a system that will hopefully better serve us all in a myriad of ways.
I happen to be the member of the rules committee with a decade of experience studying slam system under Steve Marsh, Taylor Mali, Eric Daniels and Phil West- who have shaped, written and ruled on PSI's systems and rules in major ways for the span of it's existence.
So I just so happen to be the guy who really gets this stuff.
But Lisa ,Sean, Trevor and Duncan all really get what they want the system to do in order to be able to serve the family well.
They tell me what they want it to be able to do-I tell them what the system options are to achieve them.
And they vet what I bring and I go back and make it suit their requests better-guided by their insights and their questions-and incorporating system elements that they have created as well.
This is truly a joint effort and I am proud to be a part of it.
But I am just a part-I could not be doing this without them and it in no way is me trying to rewrite the system because of my own individual priorities.
we are all working hard to serve the family and to balance a host of priorities. efforts i will be happy to explain fully at the August mtg.

[admin]

Hey, two quick notes.

1. As webmaster, I've merged two threads together so that we can look at all the discussion and proposals for this meeting.

2. As a Van Slam family member, I would like to repeat my call for details on voting items so that we can mull them over ahead of time, especially for big decisions, such as a change in the qualification system.

[Sean]

The items that will be voted on are

1) whether to accept or not Chris' proposl for the van slam cd this year
2) whether to accept or not Duncan and Chris' proposal for the t-shirts this year
3) whether to accept Duncan's proposal for filming the slam year round

Think that's it.

[ms_spelt]

The Rules Committee will post with due advance.
probably sometime after the 1st mtg and before the next one.
that way we can focus in committee on a clear proposal and not distract from the forum discussion on stuff at the 1st mtg.
thanks chris