A little bit about the Minnesota Furs Board Retreat from a Coyote Perspective.

[Kurst Hyperyote]

I have been asked by people in the past what is the board retreat – I figured it would be a good time to write a quick little post about it from my perspective.

Q) What is a board retreat?

A board retreat is a meeting that the board of director have to fulfill the legal yearly requirements of reviewing the bylaws, review how the organization is operating and current/future budget.

Q) Why do we have a board retreat?

Minnesota Furs is a non profit organization that is the parent of MNFurs and Furry Migration. We have to follow the laws and we need to have that yearly review of the bylaws. It’s important we do that. Its also important that we take it seriously and take the time out of our lives to do so. Hence a board retreat where you take the time away from your day to day to take a step back and try to look at the legal stuff. It’s rare for a non profit not to do these.

Q) Who goes to these?

The people who are required to go to it are the board members, the officers of the board are invited but not required. This year @aerak, @leggonare, @kurst, @ridah, and @yarrick . @Kellic sadly can’t make it – he is going to be collecting Pokemon in Japan……

Q) Anyone else goes?

Usually people will come to advise for legal or financial questions. We hope we don’t have many problems that require those type of people to be at the physical meeting.

Q) Why now? Why not at (x or y).

It’s hard to pick the best time for these. You want them after the major events like Furry Migration, Zootopia, picnics is all wrapped up. You want to do these before an election to give incoming board members time to adjust and understand their role. So the natural time is January – this year we having it Feb 12-14 a little later but hopefully the weather will cooperate by being horrible.

Q) Feb 12th!?!?! isn’t that the day of the Dead Pool movie is released?!?!

Yes that is why I am going to the Feb 11th 7PM showing at MN Zoo IMAX theater – it’s going to be awesome.

Q) But still that day..

That was one of the few days that everyone is off and that there is a location we can host it.

Q) Wait 3 days!?! Isn’t that long?

It takes a lot of time to think, be focus and keep at it. Bigger organizations book a week or 2 time for it. In fact most organizations also do the rule “The meeting last as long as it needs” its not unheard of for some meetings lasting a month.

Q) Where is going to be at?

Board retreats are usually held away from your ever day norm. So while some small organizations do x person house or in their house most do a hotel of some sort. We are doing it at the Hyatt Regency Minneapolis for the weekend.

Q) Wait a hotel that cost money!

Tell me about it.

Q) Who is going to pay for it?

Well the board does. All food, drink and lodging will be covered by the board of directors and offers that are attending. If they are itemizing they can write it off on their taxes. Trivia – I spend on a normal month about $100 on Minnesota Furs related expenses some months up to $400. My checkbook is going to love it when I stop being on the board 🙂

Q) So during this meeting you are going to dictate x or y about MNFurs or the con.

The main purpose of the retreat to handle high level legal, organization, and financial planning. There will be nothing other than a high level talk about the convention there. For MNFurs since the Minnesota Furs board is very intertwined there is going to be talk about it’s organizational structure and direction.

Q) So if X happens and the board later after the election it should be Y can it be changed?

Yes it can, as long as it’s legal. People make decisions that sound great but in the end are just dumb stupid. People need to be able to make changes after the fact.  So this meeting does not mean “x will be set to x always”.  New people, new board will be able still to make changes.

Q) So what are you REALLY going to talk about at the board meeting?

Well this year we really are going to talk about:

• How did last year MNFurs go
• How did last year Furry Migration go
• What is our organization structure for MNFurs – departments etc.
• Talk about that Minnesota Furs is doing it’s legal obligations
• Do we need to make any changes to the by-laws
• Review of budgets including any new revenue and expenses that are coming up
• Any vision for the future and changes in the organization
• Discussion on is if the group is the right size or is there any ways to make the organizations
• *Fun* team building exercises and eating
• Work on more paper work!  HECK YEAH ACK!

Q) I hear you are going to be talking about _____ person there and going to do ___ things.

Board retreats are trying to handle broad things that are legal things. Unless it’s a legal obligation you don’t really talk about specific people.

Q) I hear you are going to be talking about _____ event there and going to do ___ things.

Board retreats are trying to handle long term ideas and vision. It’s all about broad strokes. You might get things like lets try to do 365 fursuiting events this year. Its not WHAT the events are. You do the goals not the execution usually at these things. We do usually talk about the picnics because of the impact they do to the organization for both staff and money., This year we will more like how to more formalize the picnic like events like we do for the convention with it’s own charter.

Q) I hear you are going to do ___ about the con.

The convention has an agreement with the board of directors. We follow the rules of that agreement (aka a charter). Because of that agreement the board stays out of the way of the con 99% unless it puts the organization finances, legality, or stability in jeopardy. In general the convention does what the convention does :).

Q) If you make the changes to the by-laws how will we hear about it.

If any bylaws changes are made we will first submit them to the government and then update the web site. We will also talk about it in March. Again you don’t make any changes to bylaws unless its really necessary. Since incorporation this organization has organization not changed any of the bylaws. Administrivia – For those that don’t know our operational documents are located here.  The link has always been on the bottom of every footer of our home page.

Q) So you do this and sounds like nothing much happens during these board retreats.

Pretty much everything that happens from organization to reacting happens during the normal week by week. The average board member puts about 5 hours a week on average board level activities. So when you go to the board retreat it’s mostly just review and talking what happened not very much on the what will happen. If it is its going to be about the future vision in general not something that is actionable now.

Q) That doesn’t sound fun why are YOU doing it?
This is what being part of the board does it allows others to go off and do fun things. I rather have others put on things than them get caught up with the legal rules and headaches that comes with having an organization which allows us to do all the stuff.

Hope that helps answer any questions if you have more please contact me, any board member or the full board itself [email protected].

Kurst “Trivia Yip Pursuit” Hyperyote

Member of Minnesota Furs a 501c3 Non Profit, former Convention Chairman for Furry Migration, volunteer, and always doings lots of other stuff.

Feel free to ask questions because I'm here for you!
Kurst "YipYap" Hyperyote

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