As you know, Bob, I will not shut up about OTW Board Meetings.

My origin story: September 5, 2021, the OTW was celebrating its 14th anniversary, and as I read their cheerful announcement I thought of the fans of color I know and their frustration, disappointment, and anger with both the OTW's historically shitty response to racist harassment and its current lack of action on the promises it made in that June 2020 statement following the murder of George Floyd, and so I sent the OTW a letter requesting a public update on what it was doing to make the organization and its platforms more welcoming to fans of color. I did not get that update. I got a series of replies that didn't actually address my request and after I was sent to comb through old board meeting minutes (board meetings? what board meetings??) for a few crumbs of information, I thought fuck that and showed up at the next board meeting myself, armed with a pointed question about what they were doing to hire a diversity consultant. That was December 2021. I'm still asking that question in board meetings to this day.

So I'm very excited that end-otw-racism has chosen to amplify my work and that this second action focuses, in part, on getting more people to board meetings and requesting the OTW actually TELL people when and where those meetings will be. I mean, it's not too much to ask???? So let's keep asking until we get it.

Here's what I wrote in my letter:

I've been attending OTW Board meetings for several years and while there's been some progress in how the meetings are announced (mainly the addition of the @ here message in the Discord channel), there's still a lot of room for improvement. Many fans don't even know there ARE board meetings! The OTW has an incredible reach across its social media accounts and the platforms it operates. Please take advantage of this reach:

* add a banner to AO3 pages, like those used for membership drives
* post announcements on all news platforms, not just Twitter, and pin them to the top of the page across social media
* email notices to all OTW members
* maintain an opt-in mailing list for non-members

And, most importantly, do all these things consistently! This includes proper upkeep of the Board calendar and making announcements as soon as possible, as widely as possible. There's no reason why these meetings should be so difficult to access.

Thank you for considering these suggestions,
Punk

Please send your own letter! It only takes a minute. You can use the template provided and/or offer your own suggestions! But the main thing here is to get the OTW to step up and treat these meetings like the important public resource they are and send out notices for them on blast.

In the meantime, I will continue to not shut up about board meetings. The next one is July 2 at 20:00 UTC. Find out what time that is for you. It'll be on Discord. Here's an invite to the OTW server, and you can also read how to find and attend board meetings.

{also posted to Tumblr}