Members present:
Claudia Reynders
Christian Schaefer
Wim van Iersel
Jewwy Qadri
Arjan Eising
Rowdy Rabouw
Thijs Reigersberg
Edwin Martin
Daniëlle
Anneke Sinnema
Josee Wouters
Koen Willems
Notes
Claudia Reynders kicks off the ALV with a short intro and the program/agenda.
Conference
Christian Schaefer takes over, talking about Fronteers Conference.
Conferences are still having hard times. Lots of cancellations and difficult ticket sales.
Rowdy Rabouw confirms and can name many more conferences in rough waters.
If we would like to continue with the conference, we need to change some things in organizing, to make it a bit easier to break-even. That does mean we need to make some concessions, like no lunch and less international speakers.
Claudia Reynders adds that during the sailing trip some ideas were added too.
Marcom:
Newsletters are doing good, looking at the statistics. Click rate is still a bit down.
Using social media more for sharing information, with BlueSky as the newest addition.
The social media channels are "hosted" by multiple volunteers.
Meetup is also being used to promote some events through emails.
Apart from that, we've also been working on implementing the new brand & styleguide. Based on that, we've created new stickers and banners. Together with that, we launched the new, redesigned website.
One of the future events is going to be "12 days of Xmas". Anneke Sinnema explains there are 13 people working on blogs, with a deadline half of December. The blogs will be posted starting at Xmas Day.
The committee set some goals for 2025. Mainly focused on sharing much more and frequent content. The idea is to also start setting up and using a content calendar.
All Committees:
Thanks to Josee Wouters we now have a monthly meeting with volunteers, to exchange ideas and stimulate being a volunteer.
Activities:
Looking for new volunteers for this committee. Fronteers would like to host more meetups, but without volunteers it's hard. Potential solution is to split up the work in 2 groups: 1 for coordination/communication and 1 for representation of Fronteers.
Arjan Eising mentions it's a recurring thing, with organising meetups. It's good that we already have a list of locations and speakers. Maybe it's an idea to also create a pool of people who can represent Fronteers for that second group.
Belgium:
Currently still with 3 members, but Ibe is there for support, Thomas is taking a break. So Claudia Reynders is mostly on her own right now. Most meetups were now hosted close to Claudia Reynders’ location. On average around 40 people join these meetups.
For 2025 goals were set for the Belgium committee. Mostly focused on expanding the team, the amount of meetups and the amount of possible locations.
The Belgium committee also experimented with a new concept, the Fishbowl discussion. 2 circles of people, with the inner circle discussing a topic and the outer circle listening. If they want to join in, they can request a seat in the inner circle and join the discussion. This was a way to differentiate the type of meetups we organise.
Workshop:
Workshops were rebooted and Peter Kassenaar approached us with an idea for a workshop, together with Rowdy Rabouw. The idea was to set up one workshop per month in a central location on a Friday. Low prices, with a discount for members.
Through a coincidence another speaker approached us for another last-minute workshop. Short notice (3 weeks runway), English spoken, specific topic. This was advertised on social media and in newsletters, which was seen by quite some people, but there were hardly any registrations. This would make us break-even with the location, so no budget for the trainer, (hotel and travel expenses). Thoughts afterwards were that maybe it was too short notice, too specific topic and maybe English was also an issue to some.
After summer vacation Fronteers tried again, a full day workshop in Dutch about JS. Also advertised twice on all social media, Slack and newsletters. Peter Kassenaar also shared a blog about it, but this still resulted in only 2 registrants. Apparently the previous issues were wrong assumptions, because it also didn't work in a different language and with a longer runway.
After that we cancelled all future workshops and the locations.
After checking on Slack (and on the sailing trip), there was some feedback that people didn't receive the messages. Some people mentioned that they are still reluctant to travel, for example.
Now a new, free workshop is planned. Maarten Hus saw the messages about the cancelled workshops and offered to do a free short Dutch workshop about Typescript. Because it was free, we added it on Meetup and that already resulted in 33 registrants so far.
Christian Schaefer talks to Rowdy Rabouw who mentioned he is not a big fan of giving online workshops, because it's hard to get the participants to actively participate. Rowdy Rabouw joins the free workshop to see how it goes, so he can have a look if it might be something for him to consider too.
Arjan Eising adds to not give up on the physical workshops, because these might have not been the right topics or dates, for example. There is an audience for them, we just need to find them. Thijs Reigersberg adds that a longer runway might work better than a short runway, based on his personal experiences with his colleagues.
Finances:
Revenue and purchases decreased, because of cancellation of conference (and lack of job board), expenses increased because of volunteer appreciation.
The Audit committee approved the administration.
ALV gives discharge for the financial administration
Looking for new members for the audit committee, next to Sander Vink.
Edwin Martin and Arjan Eising volunteer.
Finances 2024: no conference, no revenue from the job board yet. Decreasing number of members. Current operating result we are aiming for is 0 euro, but still some bills are coming in.
Thijs Reigersberg asks how many members we still have. Wim van Iersel says it's currently 157, with some cancellations beginning next year. We'll start 2025 with 109 members.
For 2025 we expect income coming from the new job board. Apart from that the budget for the Belgium committee was adjusted downward, hosting of the website is much cheaper and hopefully the new to be planned activities will result in new members. Goal is to maintain the reserves at the current level.
Wim van Iersel shares the budget and realisation numbers from 2024 and 2025.
Arjan Eising asks a question about the membership decline. Logical because he thinks members are still connecting the membership to the conference discount. Any plans from the board to try to change that? Would be a shame to continue this trend and burn through the reserves in the next couple of years, that way.
Wim van Iersel mentions this was discussed during the sailing trip and some ideas popped up there, but we need to figure out how to turn it around. Claudia Reynders mentions that maybe we need to send out a survey to ask the (non-)members how Fronteers can create more value for them, to stay a member. Christian Schaefer adds that Fronteers also tries to get discounts for other conferences, but those discounts are not always working out, based on past experiences. Josee Wouters mentions that maybe we can also look into book discounts, but she didn't know there is for example a discount for Polypane. Thijs Reigersberg mentions that the benefits are not listed on the registrations page. Claudia Reynders also wants to get a foot in the door at schools, because that's where the newer generation of Front-end devs are. There is a short discussion where and how to find new members.
Board positions:
Claudia Reynders checks if any of the participants want to become part of the board. The board will be here next year, Wim van Iersel position as treasurer will end in June next year.
Anneke wants to join as a general board member. ALV gets to vote. ALV voted 100% yes, Anneke will be added back into the board.
Proposal:
In 2016 the board proposed a change to hire 3rd parties to organise the conference. Proposal was accepted, but even after so many years, it's still noticed that this caused a divide in Fronteers. The proposal is to not revert it, but to change the rule in a way to hopefully reunite Fronteers again.
The proposal is to minimize the amount of conflict.
A discussion takes place about the contents of the altered proposal. It might be a bit too strict in the proposed setup.
Koen proposes to add a cooling-down period in the altered proposal.
Based on input from multiple ALV participants, the proposal was changed slightly, before going up for a vote. Proposal was accepted with 100% approval.
Thijs Reigersberg proposes the board to define what a volunteer is, because of the proposal.
Q&A:
- Thijs Reigersberg: Talked to PPK about organising a Jam Session before CSS Day next year. He is in for that.
- Arjan Eising: Meetups are gathering more traction. Maybe interesting to look into getting 1 or 2 more known speakers for these meetups too, to get more people joining. Thijs Reigersberg volunteers to help out with setting up those meetups.
- Christian Schaefer: Paul from Tito organises events called IO (Invite Only). Get some well-known speakers and then only invite members, for example. Maybe that's an idea for Fronteers too.