Board Update – 14 February 2013

Hello everyone,

Just another quick update while we’re busy with Board Elections!

We’ve officially pulled together our election nomination committee, which is comprised of 4 former board chairs. They are Kathy Astromoff, Noah Falstein, Mitzi McGilvray, and Tobi Saulnier. For more information on why we instituted a nomination committee, check out this post from 2012.

The nomination committee will review all nominees, and will provide to the Board for ratification, a final slate of candidates to be put forward to the membership for election. That final slate of candidates will be no more than double the number of seats open for election. This year we have 2 seats open for election, so the final slate they provide will be no more than 4 candidates.

The minutes from December’s meeting are now available online here: http://igda.org/board/minutes

Yours in service,
The IGDA Board of Directors

Board Blog Update – 11/19/12

Hello IGDA Members,

Just a quick update for you today! We’ve been working hard on several initiatives (including the new Executive Director search), but the primary news today is that the meeting minutes for September 27^th, October 25^th, and October 31st have been posted.

Yours in Service,
IGDA Board of Directors

Board Blog Update – 10/08/12

Hello IGDA Members!

The Board met last week and we approved the minutes from our August meeting, which may be viewed here: http://www.igda.org/board/minutes

We also discussed the status of our various projects (as mentioned here: http://igdaboard.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/board-update-09212012/). Some of the updates include:

• Website Redesign – we are nearing the selection of the primary vendor.
• Membership Program – progress is being made on auto-renewals and membership cards.
• Fair Employment Agreement Project – the structure we’re developing will soon be sent out for feedback.

There were also updates on finances, day to day operations, and a few other items.

The last major bit of news is a bittersweet goodbye. Board Member Jane Pinckard stepped down from the Board, in order to focus on some exciting new projects she’s started (which we’re sure she’ll talk about when the time is right). We will miss her, but are excited to see what she does next. We wish her the best of luck in her new endeavors!

Jane’s absence leaves the Board Secretary position open, so the Board held a vote and unanimously decided to elect Sheri Rubin to that post.

Our next meeting will be held Thursday, October 25th. Watch this blog for the publication of the September minutes.

Continue to check here for more updates as your board works to keep this org running and growing.

Thank you for your membership,
IGDA Board of Directors

Board Update – 09/21/2012

Hello IGDA Members,

As always, thank you so much for your support and participation. Because of your engagement, this organization is able to evolve, grow, and better serve all of its members.

The Board of Directors recently had their semi-annual offsite meeting. We met for two days to discuss IGDA business, assess our achievements from last year, and develop the guiding vision for the organization for the future.

At last year’s offsite meeting, four main priorities were identified:

1. IGDA.org
2. Global Game Jam
3. IGDA Scholars
4. IGDA Summit / Leadership Forum

Here is the current status of each of those projects:

1. The IGDA website redesign project is moving full steam ahead. We’ve finished creating and distributing the RFP (request for proposal) and are working to source and select a vendor.
2. The IGDA Scholars program had a bigger year than ever and we now have a new IGDA Scholarship committee to help beef up the program and its infrastructure. We have some fantastic volunteers helping oversee things: Heather Decker-Davis, Luke Dicken, Kenji Ono, and Ashley Zeldin.
3. Global Game Jam was wildly successful – so much so that the event is now officially a Guinness World Record holder. There are tons of volunteers all around the world preparing for the 2013 jam.
4. We had a great IGDA Summit – two amazing keynotes and lots of great sessions. Many attendees told us that IGDA Summit and Casual Connect (our generous partner – huge thanks to them!) are now their two favorite game dev conferences to attend each year.

During this year’s transitional period, the Board decided to re-work its focus for the next six months. Each Board Member selected a few key areas as their priority moving forward spread between the new “Top Three” and some general operations areas.

The “Top Three” main focuses for the board going forward are:

1. IGDA Website Redesign
2. Membership Program
3. Fair Employment Agreements

The rest of the board’s time will be focused on the following:

1. Executive Committee
2. Finance
3. Executive Director Search
4. “Staff Box” aka Day to Day Operations

If you have questions regarding any of these key focus areas, please feel free to reach out to us. Individual email addresses can be found at http://www.igda.org/directors, or you can contact the entirety of the Board at board@igda.org. We will continue to provide updates on these projects monthly, so please watch this blog for our meeting minutes.

Speaking of meeting minutes, at the Board offsite we also approved the July meeting minutes. You can view those and any previous minutes at http://www.igda.org/board/minutes.

Our next meeting will be held on Thursday, September 27^th.  August minutes will be made available once they are approved and ready for posting.

Thank you again for your participation.

We look forward to serving you and hope that you’re having a great year!
IGDA Board of Directors

Board Update – July 17th, 2012

Hello IGDA Members!

The IGDA Board blog will be evolving slightly to better serve our members – we will start publishing updates here on a more regular basis. Some of the items you’ll see will include notices regarding upcoming board meetings, links to our meeting minutes (so you can see what happened), and news about some of the various projects the board is working on.

To kick this off, we’re announcing the next board meeting, which will be held this Thursday, July 19th. With the 2nd Annual IGDA Summit happening next week, the meeting will likely focus primarily on the event, but you can still look forward to some brief updates on the website improvement project, our current financial status, and other items.

We also posted our most recent meeting minutes for public consumption and you can view them here: http://www.igda.org/board/minutes

Lastly, we hope to see many of you at IGDA Summit where your fellow board members, staff, and a slew of awesome volunteers and members have put together a great set of sessions that will help inspire you and give you tools you need to make better games. You can find out all about the event at http://www.igda.org/summit.

Thanks again for helping make this organization great!
IGDA Board of Directors