briar_pipe
Hi everyone, and welcome to our final Candidate Chat of 2018!
Once again you’ll have the opportunity to speak with all 4 Candidates: Michelle Schroeder, Natalia Gruber, Lex de Leon, and C. Ryan Smith.
My name is briar_pipe, and I’ll be hosting the candidate side today. On the audience/open_chat side, your host will be my fellow Elections Committee member Jenny.
briar_pipe
Hi everyone, and welcome to our First Candidate Chat of 2018!
In today’s chat you’ll have the opportunity to speak with all 4 Candidates: C. Ryan Smith, Lex de Leon, Michelle Schroeder, and Natalia Gruber.
My name is briar_pipe, and I’ll be hosting the candidate side today. On the audience /open_chat side, your host will be Judy. We’re both members of the Elections Committee.
[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
9. What is something nice that you can say about your colleagues that you’re running with/against?
Running with, definitely! Michelle and I first met and started talking after we found out we shared some fannish interests, and have been friends ever since. It is a pleasure to talk to them both to discuss fannish things and projects we might be involved with. They are organised and proactive, always willing to help, and I’m confident they would be a great addition to the Board of Directors.
I first ran into Ryan in one of our Membership Drives. As a member of our Development & Membership committee, he was quite busy at the time, and it was easy to see he was a committed and hardworking person. Since we started running together, I got to know him better and see how sweet and friendly he is. I would be delighted to work with him in the future.
Asking me to say nice things about Lex is almost unfair. Ever since he joined the OTW, he’s been one of my closest friends. We talk about all sorts of silly and serious things, and he’s been incredibly supportive of me whenever I needed him. Lex is kind and passionate, and always ready to listen to anyone in need. I know he’ll do his very best if elected, because he already does in all of his current projects.
[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
5. What are a couple of major issues that you know the OTW board struggles or has struggled with, and how would you personally act to avoid them if elected?
The board has faced some issues in the past when directors became extremely out of touch with the OTW committees, which I will address in the next question. Another problem was that not only volunteers but also members of the organisation used to have no means to reach out to the Board to address concerns and dissatisfactions about how the OTW was run. I believe current members of the Board have made a lot of progress to improve this situation by communicating with committee chairs and the membership as a whole more openly and transparently. I intend to continue these efforts, and one measure I would like to take if possible is establishing a way in which Board members who are not fulfilling their duties appropriately can be removed from the Board by committee chairs.
[Note: Candidates were limited to 300 words for each answer.]
1. What do you hope to learn in your time on Board?
I would like to learn more about the administrative and legal aspects of running a non-profit, what day-to-day activities Board members do to keep us in shape, and what possibilities and limitations we have for the future, especially regarding our advocacy projects.
Natalia Gruber discovered her first fanfiction by accident while waiting for the last Harry Potter book to come out, and thought for the longest time that it was a wonderful, but isolated idea. Thankfully, she eventually found out that not only was this story not the only one, but that fandom was a lively, rich community full of amazing people and more fic than she could ever read. She lurked for several years reading mostly Harry Potter, until she joined the Tolkien fandom. There she finally started publishing her own works and making friends with other fans, and it’s where she still feels the most at home.
An English teacher during the day, Nat joined the OTW in 2016 as a Brazilian Portuguese translator. A few months later she became part of the Policy & Abuse and Tag Wrangling committees, where she has had a wonderful experience and learned a lot more about the OTW and its work. At the end of 2017, she decided to join Translation staff, working to support and assist translators in their work, and engaging in a lot more inter-committee and managerial tasks.