Hello Florida Burners, the Burnt Oranges board hopes your new year is off to a great start! We anticipate some of you are busy getting ready for Love Burn, so we’ll cut to the chase: along with beginning to plan AfterBurn 2020, we need new board members! Read on for details…
We have board members we’d like to promote to participant AND we’d like to expand from a five-person board to a seven-person board. Although this is an unpaid volunteer position, we are pretending like it’s a job and want to make sure whoever joins is a good personality fit with the remaining board and shares our current short- and long-term goals. Here’s what we’re looking for:
Progressive leadership experience would be great! We’re community members and participants just like the rest of our burn community. But we have the extra responsibility of having to make critical decisions. You should be able to do so while also working with your fellow community members to lead the charge. Please be good at leaving your ego at home.
While the Burnt Oranges mission doesn’t actually mention AfterBurn, we have come to recognize that it is currently our one primary time and place to gather the community. We feel that we need to work with our event committee to make sure the framework is in place for future community members to run future events before we can seriously move into other activities. A larger board may allow us to work on AfterBurn and other fundraising or outreach activities, but AfterBurn is the priority for now.
That does not mean you’ll need to be on every single planning call – we’re planning to have a liaison or two handle that and report back to us – but you will need to help out with AfterBurn. Ideally you’re able to take time off from your work and life to help with build (Wednesday & Thursday pre-event assuming we return to Camp La Llanada) and/or strike (Monday post-event). You will also be working during the event as a Board of Director on Call. The number of attending board members will determine how long this shift is – we worked 12 hour shifts at AfterBurn 2019 including overnight shifts. If your radio will wake you up, you can actually nap during your shift! Basically, if the event leads need to escalate an issue – typically rejections or 911 calls – they’re going to call you. We also want to set a good example, so plan to work in a normal 4 hour (at least) volunteer shift during AfterBurn.
If you have skills with bookkeeping (we use Xero), developing meeting agendas and note-taking, nonprofit fundraising, or anything else you think may be relevant, we’re especially interested! We currently utilize a CPA for our actual financial filings, but one lucky board member will work directly with Morgan to eventually take over treasurer responsibilities.
We do also have monthly board meetings. These can be as brief as 30 minutes, but some times they can go for three hours. They are typically weekday evenings. If you can’t make one or have to miss part due to life, we understand, but it can’t become a regular occurrence.
If you are selected to join, we have tentatively planned our annual in-person board meeting for February 29 at Catpult in Lakeland. Unless you or someone you love is a leap year baby, it’s an extra day that we hope is free. We are also expecting to begin AfterBurn 2020 planning the following week and would like all board members to plan to attend the kick off meeting. Our 2019 event committee has indicated a desire to return for 2020 and they’ll be doing the event planning, that’s why we don’t all have to be on every single AfterBurn meeting.
You need to be a team player! We’re aiming for a seven person board and a roughly equal sized event committee, plus we have even more team leads at AfterBurn and an entire community of volunteers. If you don’t play nice with others, please contact the DPW/DOGS team for volunteer opportunities.
Now that you know what we want from you, here’s what you get from the position:
- An all expenses paid reasonably priced lunch during our in-person board meeting!
- Dinner at a board members’ home in Lakeland after our in-person board meeting!
- The ability to put “board member of a nonprofit” on your resume!
- Use of a radio for part of AfterBurn!
- Financial assistance to attend the South East Round Table (SERT), most likely in April and pretty darned close to home!
- Tons of new friends!
- Your very own @burntoranges.org email address!
- Coverage on our liability insurance plan!
- Lots of Slack notifications!
If this is as exciting sounding to you as it is to us, here’s what you need to do:
- Fill out our board member intake form.
- When #1 is done, send your letter of intent to board@burntoranges.org. For inspiration, consider including a description of yourself, what you think you bring to the organization, and what you’re looking to get from this experience.
- Do your best to keep February 29 clear and begin thinking about how you’ll get to Lakeland for a long day of fun if you’re selected.
Steps #1 & #2 need to be completed by February 14. After this date, you are still encouraged to apply, but you will be considered for the next round of “hirings” at a future date. The current board will sort out any obvious “No” votes (sorry, if you have a lifetime event ban we can’t really have you on the board) and conduct interviews – ideally in person as a group, but we have creative ideas if that won’t work – prior to our February 29 in-person board meeting.
We look forward to seeing your applications!