We recently announced that from now on we will be posting minutes from Board meetings - we hope this will help people both inside and outside the organization get a flavour of what the Board gets up to and what we're currently working on.

Each meeting generally begins with an “open session” that is open to all OTW committee chairs. The second part of the meeting is a “closed session” that is open only to the Board. Closed sessions are used for discussing confidential matters such as legal or personnel issues (in the latter case, the minutes generally do not record the names of the personnel involved), while open sessions cover a wide variety of topics. Following each meeting, minutes are drafted by the Secretary and then approved by the other Board members.

We had our first Board meeting on 22nd December. This meeting was devoted to setting things in place for the Board's work in the new term, so we didn't have any open session topics. We talked about policies and communication for the new term, and appointed new officers (the folk who play a specific role within the Board to keep its work running smoothly).

Congratulations to our new officers! The people appointed are:

• President: Kristen Murphy
• Treasurer: Nikisha Sanders
• Secretary: Jenny Scott-Thompson
• Vice-Secretary: Julia Beck

Read the rest of the minutes for 22nd December here.

Thanks and congratulations to all the people who worked hard to make the 2011 term a success - we're looking forward to seeing even more great work in the new year.

The Board would like to issue a public apology to our Support and AD&T staff and volunteers, our members, and the users of the AO3.

It is the Board's responsibility -- including the responsibility of the position I, Hele Braunstein, hold as Board liaison to both AD&T and Support -- to keep an eye on any organizational issues that would affect both the quality of the product put forward to our beta install and the amount of work and responsibility of our volunteers. It is, in addition, our particular responsibility to ensure that they are not blamed and held accountable in public for what are, at their heart, organizational failings.

It was the Board's responsibility to act on these failings, and avoid their having the impact that they, regrettably, have had.

As apologies are nothing if they are not followed by action, we can promise to take measures to avoid this happening in the future. The AD&T committee will work to figure out where we went wrong and what measures to take and guidelines to set to avoid it happening in the future. They will work with their current Board liaison, the Board as a whole, and their future Board liaison.

I especially apologize for being only able to set things in motion, as I'll not be returning to Board next term. However, I promise to be available to the people working on it next term as well, if needed.

Finally, and most importantly, we want to thank each and every volunteer and staff member who has worked on this, both before and after the deploy. Your work was not at fault, and it's deeply appreciated. Without you, and your efforts, OTW and its many projects would not exist.

Edited to add: This post was made in response to a number of conversations that were, and are, happening both inside and outside the OTW in reaction to the AO3 deploy; we find ourselves in the position of offering another apology as a result, as this post, in practice, proved to be opaque to the larger OTW community, which includes diverse interests in all our projects. To clarify, there were issues with the latest deploy to the AO3 -- the deploy was somewhat hurried, limiting the ability of our testers, coders, support team, and other staff to do their jobs, and making the process harder than necessary, both for our volunteers as well as for our users.

As a result, many volunteers were put in a position where they felt personally liable for larger organizational or group-level errors; this is why we, as a Board, felt it was necessary to acknowledge their distress and to respect their very hard work. They addressed many of the problems and corrected them within 48 hours -- we are grateful for their efforts, and wish to apologize for the necessity. (edits made 14 November 2011 5:00 UTC)

The OTW is officially on break, and will be until mid-January, but it's a very busy time for many of us!*

A change is as good as a rest, or so we've heard! That's a good thing, because change is what we're preparing for: a new term, a new Board, and new committees, all well rested and ready for a strong 2011. In some cases, change means new staff in the form of volunteers who are able to increase their commitment; in other cases, change brings brand new people who answered our Willing to Serve post in October.

The start of a new term also means staff who have served on committees in previous terms have a chance at trying their hand at something new, which strengthens communication and helps foster perspectives that embrace our organization as a dynamic whole rather than as isolated projects. It makes us stronger, smarter, and more sustainable. Fandom is about sharing ideas and making new things out of old, about building our own worlds from a combination of all our dreams; in short, transforming the world as we transform ourselves and each other.

The Organization for Transformative Works is pleased to confirm the 2011 Board of Directors: Rachel Barenblat, Hele Braunstein, Francesca Coppa, Ira Gladkova, Sheila Lane, Allison Morris, and Kristen Murphy. After three years of formal service, founding members Naomi Novik and Rebecca Tushnet have become Emeritus Board Members.

Elizabeth Yalkut, who joined the Board beginning with the 2010 OTW term, has stepped down for the year due to personal reasons. We hope she will be able to consider returning to the Board in the future. We're also happy she will remain on staff during the coming year!

Luckily, we have an excellent candidate who has been heartily endorsed by our members and who has very graciously agreed to step in to complete the remaining two years of Elizabeth's Board appointment. Hele Braunstein had an excellent showing in the November elections and impressed the other candidates, the Board, and candidate chat attendees with her thoughtful approach and commitment to inclusiveness and diversity. A longstanding staff member with our Translation and International Outreach committees, an active Tag Wrangler, and a liaison to the AO3 Support team, Hele has worked to keep things running smoothly for everyone.

As we look forward we also want to look back and take a moment to thank Naomi Novik and Rebecca Tushnet for both their sterling service as founding Board members and for their willingness to stay on as staff. They are bright lights of the OTW, and we haven't burned them out! Victory!

Busy even over break, the new Board determined what committees will be necessary in the new term, the best candidates to chair those committees, and asked those candidates if they were willing to serve and crossed our fingers while we waited for their replies — we're on cloud nine, since every single one of them accepted. \o/ The OTW's new term begins 17 January, 2011 and there's plenty of work for all the teams being assembled!

Without further ado, Board officers and committee chairs for the 2011 OTW Term:

OTW Board
Allison Morris, President
Kristen Murphy, Secretary
Sheila Lane, Treasurer
Rachel Barenblat
Hele Braunstein
Francesca Coppa, PhD
Ira Gladkova

Abuse
Franzeska Dickson, Chair

Accessibility, Design, & Technology
Elz, Co-Chair
Amelia Ryan, Co-Chair

Communications
Francesca Coppa, Chair

Content
Elizabeth Yalkut, Chair

Development & Membership
Megan Westerby, Chair

Finance
Sheila Lane, Chair

International Outreach
Julia Beck, Chair

Journal
Karen Hellekson, Chair

Legal
Rebecca Tushnet, Chair

Open Doors
Heather Cook, Chair

Support
Matty Lynne, Chair

Systems
Arrow, Co-Chair
Sidra, Co-Chair

Tag Wrangling
Alison Watson, Co-Chair
Renay, Co-Chair

Translation
Hele Braunstein, Chair

Vidding
Francesca Coppa, Chair

Volunteers & Recruiting
Allison Morris, Chair

Webmasters
Kristen Murphy, Chair

Wiki
Aethel, Co-Chair
Rachel Barenblat, Co-Chair

*We're not even getting into how busy the amazing coders and testers of the AO3 are right now, but we're very grateful to them, and are happy to see the good feedback on their work on Twitter and elsewhere! They'd do it even without the pats on the back (they want the Archive to be awesome, too), but the appreciation helps!