Hello everyone!

The Spring Open Staff Meeting will take place on Sunday March 23rd, from 9:30am – 4pm at Earthdance in Plainfield, MA.

The open staff meeting gives you, the enthusiastic Spring attendee, the opportunity to see and participate in the inner workings of making Spring happen. Staff will present some of the big changes and decisions on the table this year, and listen with attention and gratitude to your feedback and ideas about Spring. This year we decided to try hosting the Open Staff Meeting at a potential alternative conference site called Earthdance ( http://www.earthdance.net ). If you’d like to hear a little more about why we decided to do this, and how its being paid for, you can check out this news post on the Spring website:

http://www.springsummercamp.org/open-staff-meeting-2014/

Directions to Earthdance can be found here:

http://www.earthdance.net/visit/directions

Here’s a look at our current agenda for the meeting:

• 9:30: Quick check ins
• 10:00: 2014 staff gives updates
  • Financial update
  • Auction
  • Some newly written policies and guidances
    • Payment of Professional Support Guidance
    • Changing the Mission Statement Policy
    • Staff Scholarship Guidance
    • Prudent Reserve Policy
  • Communications update
  • “Lost Members” survey
  • Searching for a new site
• 11:00: Questions and Brainstorming topics for post-lunch discussions
• 12:00: Tour of Earthdance
• 1:00: Lunch (also rank your interest in discussion topics)
• 2:00: small group discussions
  • topics TBD, but may include:  “Umbrella” organization, “Off-Spring”: Spring community + kids = ??, any of the information presented earlier
• 3:30: small groups present to the large group
• 4:30: wrap up and a quick clean!

If you would like more details about any of these items, please feel free to drop me an email and I’ll be glad to tell you more. Likewise, if you have any additional items you think should be added to the agenda, please let me know and we’ll try our best to fit it in (being mindful of the limited amount of time we have available).

We’ll start with a ring-style check in, and then move on to the scheduled agenda. At some point in the middle we will break for a lunch prepared by the Earthdance staff.