August board of directors meeting

The IFVP board of directors met on Saturday, August 11, 2024 at 8:30AM NYC time. We took time to check in about our current lives and work, and then reviewed the membership reports about membership numbers and finances. Initial indicators are that we have met our summit expenses and will be able to recoup some of the loss from previous conferences. We shared thoughts about the summt at Montclair and celebrated the connections and conversations that were held there. It seemed like a calm conference where people were glad to meet and talk and learn from each other. We were particularly excited about the number of first time new attendees and the connections they made for mentoring and networking. There were a number of solid business connections formed with "on the calendar" work! We discussed the new Circle platform that we are developing to support our "Forum" purpose. We are hopeful that it will provide a way for ongoing discussions and delivering value to our members. We reviewed our strategic plan with our core purpose being to serve members. There was also discussion of how we can represent the value of our practice to businesses who have particular expectations of websites. We noted that the 2026 summit will be in Capetown, South Africa, and we will be seeking proposals from our members about hosting future summits as well as Regional Meetings in the odd numbered years. Tul will be hosting a Thai summt in Bangkok August 1-2, and NovaScribes will be hosting a regional summit in Washington DC. We invite others to talk with us about hosting regional meetings. Our OLS has a number of good sessions coming up, and appreciation was expressed for the recent business development sessions. Markus continues to manage our social media, and noted that our followers are fairly well distributed over age ranges, which is unusual and positive. We expressed appreciation to Launa for her work over the years and thought togther about her plans to reduce hours in 2025. Finally, we noted that the Institute had relesased the Visual Practitioner Competency Model and materials about the certification at the summit. Overall, we recognized that we are coming out of this summit with a new focus on delivering value to our members and promoting the value of our practice to potential clients.