April 5, 2017
3 p.m. Eastern
Riverview Room, Marriott Cincinnati RiverCenter, Covington, KY

Committee Attendees: Ron Gagnon, Kathy Lussier (chair), Grace Dunbar, Amy Terlaga, Rogan Hamby, Ruth Frasur

Guests: Elizbeth Thomsen and ?

• Election of Outreach Committee Chair (5 minutes) - Kathy was nominated to serve as chair again. Unanimously approved.
  • Are there any members who will be stepping down? - all members will continue serving. Two (Ron and Ruth) fulfill the requirement that we have at least one EOB rep on the committee.
  • Official outreach liaison to conference committee? Kathy noted it would be a good idea for somebody from Outreach to be a liaison to the conference committee to help with publicity of the conference. Rogan volunteered to serve as the official Outreach Committee liaison to the conference committee.
• ALA Meeting Planning (15 minutes)- Elizabeth Thomsen will be facilitating the upcoming ALA Evergreen session. Concerns were expressed that the last meetup at MidWinter attracted the "usual crowd" of ingrained Evergreen community members with only one participant from outside the community. Attendance was higher at the ALA Annual meetup last summer, but the participants were still from existing Evergreen or soon-to-be Evergreen libraries. Grace had previously suggested that we might want to consider a presentation on a specific topic to get more people to attend the session. There was general agreement to present on a topic at the session, perhaps highlighting a strength(s) of the Evergreen system.
• Oversight for merchandise booth (5 minutes) - Ron and Ruth agreed to stop by the merchandise booth during the breaks to ensure things are going smoothly and to help out if needed.
• Annual report - many thanks to everyone who pulled this together in a short amount of time! Work on 2017 annual report has begun (5 minutes)
• Budget to present to EOB - Draft Budget (10 minutes) - Kathy indicated she would like to present an annual budget to the EOB to approve rather than requesting funding every time the committee needs something. She budgeted more than we've previously spent on giveaways and shipping because she would like to make a conference kit available this year. Pens that would need to be shipped are one piece of the conference kit. Unsure of how many people would be likely to use the conference kit, the group agreed to raise the budgeted amount for shipping to $400.
• Fundraising Opportunities (15 minutes)
  • Raising money through merchandise sales - In addition to the merchandise sales at the conference, the group discussed the possibility of selling generic, non-Evergreen merchandise that may be of interest to the larger library community.
  • Project membership - Kathy asked to revisit the idea of Evergreen memberships. The memberships wouldn't be tied to voting rights or use of the software, but would provide a way for organizations to provide funds to the project. When Outreach tried raising funds for exhibit booths, at least one state-funded organization said it was difficult to spend money on donations, but it's easier to make the case to pay for a membership. There was some discomfort with the idea of membership. We might want to consider using different language to describe the funding opportunity. NPR was recommended as a model to follow. Kathy said she would work with Ron and Amy, who had previously volunteered, to explore this idea further.
• Outreach committee target audience and mission - See original charge (15 minutes) - The original charge for the Outreach Committee has expired. The mission has also changes, as a large part of the original goal was to fund conference exhibits. We discussed the idea of expanding the charge to include outreach to current Evergreen users as well as those outside the Evergreen communities. This outreach could include encouraging community participation from current users and helping them with local meetups. The consensus was to incorporate this audience in a new proposed charge that needs to go to the EOB. Kathy noted that, as part of this effort, she would like to explore the idea of doing a formalized badge program to recognize community participation.
• Messaging - I am Evergreen Grace's Notes and Kathy's Notes - Because the meeting was running late, the committee deferred this agenda item to the next meeting.

Next Meeting: 2 p.m. Wednesday, May 3, 2017