Two weeks ago we had our 2013 AGM, and many fine Hand Eye Society members were good enough to spend a few hours inside on a lovely spring day to participate in our organization’s governance.

Prior to the AGM, there was a presentation. The slides and notes are here, but in brief it was about:

• Refocusing: With the Hand Eye Society turning 5 in February, we wanted to take the opportunity to reassess what the community needs now. A lot of great projects have started since 2009, and the existing game community is well served with events happening all the time. So we’ve decided to discontinue the Socials in favour of a more outward-looking approach that will be both international in scope and cross-media. In practical terms, it means we’ll be starting to connect Toronto game folk with international communities, as well as continuing to connect the Toronto game community with other arts communities within Toronto.
• Refreshing: We are looking to create a process of cycling in board members who share the vision of a stable arts organization, while keeping the sensibility we’ve established.  As we have no base funding for staff, we have a “working board” — each board member needs to take on the coordination of a project or initiative, so that those who are doing the work are also making the decisions. We are transitioning from a system where the board members are appointed (we recently appointed Alex Hayter and Sagan Yee to the board) to a system where board members are voted on by the membership (Emma Scratch was our first nominee, and was voted in unanimously).

The minutes for the AGM proper are available here, and our by-laws are available here. The 2014 AGM will be in January, and in November we will be doing a call out for proposals for initiatives or projects for the new year.

Thanks again to the participants, to the Academy of the Impossible for hosting, and to Kaitlin Tremblay for processing membership and photography.