The Chair, Richard Harrison, called the meeting to order on October 1, 2008 to be conducted on the IAGW-CM list.
The following directors were present: Richard Harrison, Barbara Hug, Gail Kilgore, Rich Lowe, Don Kelly, Mark Christian, Sharyl Ferrall ,Constance Diamond, Greta Thompson, Karen DeGroote-Johnson.
The agenda was published by Richard Harrison on October 1, 2008.
Agenda:
1. Treasurer's Report (Barbara Hug)
2. Approval of Minutes of August meeting (Mark Christian)
3. Report: Google Adsense Test (Rich Lowe)
4. Report: Cookbook project (Karen DeGroote-Johnson or Rich Lowe)
5. Report: CafePress Store (Karen DeGroote-Johnson)
6. Report: Welcome Committee (Sharyl Farrell or Constance Diamond)
7. Action Item: Membership term for donors (Richard Harrison)
8. Action Item: Office of the President (Richard Harrison)
9. Comments from Guests
The Treasurer, Barbara Hug, presented the report:
The treasurer's report in on the Friends Operation pages on the Forum. I will not receive bank statements for the month of September until about October 10th. Remember that Loren has forgiven $3000 of the loan to him which will also show up on the new reconciliation.
The Chair called for any questions about the Treasuer's report interim to an updated report later in the meeting. There were no further questions.
The Treasurer presented an update to her report:
The September books have been reconciled and are shown on the web site. I think most everything in the report was discussed last month or in between.
The Treasurer presented an update to her report:
After the November reconciliations, The Friends of IAGenWeb has a cash balance of $2,963.64. We brought in $392.20 on the Google Adsense that Rich and Jeff has worked on - great going! We have received no donations since Sept 13th.
The Secretary, Mark Christian, presented the minutes:
The last Board of Director meeting was held from July 31, 2008 to August 26, 2008. Please refer to the "Meeting Minutes" tab on the Friends operations page for minutes of the last meeting.
The Chair called for any questions about the Minutes.
Rich Lowe presented a report on the status of the Adsense trial.
We introduced Google AdSense advertising on the GPP gravestone photo display pages on Aug. 9th. We have experimented with various ad display configurations, display positions, colors, etc over the past 7 1/2 weeks. Our "click through rate" (ads clicked on divided by number of page impressions) is less than we had hoped for which is disappointing. We were hoping for a 2% click through rate and our average thus far has been just 1.15%. Also disappointing were the number of ads that we feel have not been appropriate to genealogy research. (ads for weight loss, ads geared to attorneys, wills, living trusts, grief counseling, sympathy, etc.) Our challenge in that regard is that we had little text on our site compared to many good AdSense sites since we display basically just the name of an individual, a county and state and cemetery name along with a photo. We've added supplemental keyword text in an attempt to make ads more relevant to genealogy. Daily earnings have ranged from a low of just $ .96 on Aug. 28th to a high of $8.09 on Oct. 1st and everywhere in between. Through October 1st, total AdSense earnings have been $167.92 or an average of $3.11 per day. We made further changes to the site over this past weekend that show promising early signs that we may have finally found a good combination of positioning and relevant supplemental text. If the trend of the last three days continues (a click through rate of 1.69% vs 1.15% for the entire period) we'll be tickled to death. Even at the present average daily earnings of $3.11 per day, we might project yearly earnings of over $1,100 for GPP AdSense ad revenue. Hopefully, we can improve upon this projection. As each month goes by, we'll have more history behind us to see how things trend over the long pull. Checks are issued near the end of the month following the month the balance earned exceeds $100, so if I am understanding things correctly, our first check will be for approximately $160 will be direct deposited at the end of October. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sharyl Ferrall presented the report of the Welcome Committee.
The Friends Welcome Committee has finished entering all 2007 & 2008 donors into a spreadsheet: Date of donation, amount (to determine membership level), email/snail mail address, thank-you sent & date. Using the SS, we will be able to send out reminders about 1 month prior to when their membership year is up and invite them to renew their membership. When agenda item #7 (Membership Term for donors) has been determined by the board, we will know if the membership year for all donors ends on the same day (June 30), or if their membership will run a full year regardless of when they made the donation. Until the Board decides this, the Committee is not sending out reminders. Constance has designed very nice thank-you notecards with the Friends logo and has had them professionally printed. They will be snail mailed to appropriate donors, or those who did not include an email address. We also have a thank-you letter that we can send via email to appropriate donors. Next, the committee will be developing tag-lines for CC's to use on their mail-lists and very brief 'attention-getters' for their websites to help catch the eye of listers & site users prompting them to visit the Friends website (and become a member) or go to CafePress store and make a purchase. We will also be making periodic announcements to the IAGen-L about Friends and its purpose. We'd like anyone with a good 'quickie' phrase that can be used for this purpose to please send them to us. Richard has also requested that the committee: -Develop a set of response messages that CCs can use to respond to the complimentary notes they receive from visitors, and post them to the IAGenWeb site. The messages would suggest membership in Friends of IAGenWeb. -Develop a series of messages and post them periodically on various websites highlighting the achievements of IAGenWeb and inviting membership in Friends.
It was moved by Rich Lowe and seconded by Don Kelly that:
Votes For: Rich Lowe, Constance Diamond, Greta Thompson, Mark Christian, Gail Kilgore, Karen De Groote-Johnson, Sharyl Ferrall, Don KellyThe Board of Friends of IAGenWeb authorizes the Technical Team to increase disk space by up to 4 gigabytes at $2.50 per gigabyte per month as necessary over time.
The Chair declared the motion passed.
Karen De Groote-Johnson presented the Cafe Press report.
Since the last Cafe Press report the store has been revamped. Richard provided a wonderful large Friends logo and that department was the last to go online last week. I am slowly getting the prices adjusted due to the mark up being very low. I recently went shopping and saw the exorbitant prices that clothing and household goods have risen to while in Waterloo. I am a bargain shopper and it bothered me to increase our prices initially but considering what things are selling for nowadays and the fact that we have fine and unique products, I am doing much better in that department. Richard has also prepared an alternate Friends logo. I will have him explain the ability to change photos as well as color. I would appreciate all input on how best to promote this nifty idea. Unfortunately we saw no sales in the last quarter and our balance to pay the monthly fee is down to $9.50. I think it is high time I put together and implement a marketing campaign. I am also going to see how I can add the Cafe Press to my counties. Many of you may remember the example of an online game that had a window which showed continually different products at their store. I would very much like to put that on my counties and it may be something others would like to do. If everyone would like that photo again I can certainly email it to all who wish to see it. Of course it will be on subpage as I don't believe it adheres to USGW policy for the index page. I know with the recent economy problems that people are much tighter with their money right now. I believe that a quality gift from Friends will mean more to the receiver than many gifts that are normally purchased. It is that line of thinking that I will be taking in my marketing campaign. Finally, I am going to suggest to our CCs that if they would like to design their own logos, I will be happy to add them to the store so that their county volunteers and researchers can purchase county specific products. I hope to talk my busy brother into working something up for Webster as a test run. Promotion is the key to the Cafe Press store success. Please let me hear any questions or comments as the Cafe Press is new to me and I am learning on the fly.
It was moved by Mark Christian and seconded by Gail Kilgore:
Votes For: Rich Lowe, Don Kelly, Sharyl Ferrall, Mark Christian, Constance Diamond, Karen De Groote-Johnson, Greta Thompson, Gail Kilgorethat in Article IV, Section 1 of the Articles of Association: "General members of the Friends of IAGenWeb are all those who have make an annual financial contribution." is changed to "General members of the Friends of IAGenWeb are all those who have made a financial donation within the past year. Membership runs for one year from the date of the general member's last donation." And further that in Article V: Finance, Section 1: "Dues are payable on or before July 1 of each year. The membership year is from July 1 to June 30. Dues for each of the various classes of membership shall be proposed by the Friends of IAGenWeb Board of Directors. Corporate sponsorships shall be negotiated separately and must be approved by the board." is changed to "Corporate sponsorships shall be negotiated individually and must be approved by the board."
Rich Lowe presented a second report on the Adsense trial.
November was our fourth month with Google AdSense on the GPP site. We have continued to make gains with AdSense income in November totaling $252.58. Income for August (23 days): $76.42 Income for September: $83.40 Income for October: $232.38 Income for November: $252.58 << will deposit to our bank acct in late Dec. Total through Nov 30th: $644.78 Page Impressions per day have increased each month from 2,356 per day in August to 2,897 in November. Our Click-Thru Rate has increased from 1.22% in August up to 1.99% in November. Average earnings per day have increased from $3.32 per day in August to $8.42 in November. Since about mid-November we've noticed a drop off in revenue which we think is attributable to both advertisers pulling back a bit as well as Page Impressions and Click-Thru Rates being down a bit. Through the first 14 days of November, we were averaging $10.01 income per day but ended the month at $8.42. We are still averaging $7.59 per day through the first 8 days of December.
The meeting was adjourned by the Chair on December 10, 2008.