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August 2023

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Seeking Feedback on the Firefly Board of Directors and Candidates
by The Firefly Official Announcement List 27 Aug '23

27 Aug '23

(tl;dr: Please provide your feedback, particularly on candidates, via [ https://forms.gle/8P66SmPyeCTQUNwYA | ] [ https://forms.gle/r6221QViiGwvcwCf7 | https://forms.gle/r6221QViiGwvcwCf7 ] by Sunday, September 17th!) Dear Fireflies, Earlier this spring we sent out our periodic open call for interest in joining the Board of Directors of Firefly Arts Collective. We received a number of enthusiastic responses, asked for and received thoughtful feedback from the Firefly Planning team, and invited several participants to meet with the current board and participate in 2023 event organization to better understand how we operate. We would now like to solicit community feedback on the current round of candidates under consideration for joining the Firefly Board via the survey linked below. We also welcome feedback on current board members, to help keep us accountable to our community. For the participants listed below, please consider the following thoughts as you write us: 1. Do you feel that the candidate or board member is well-suited for participating on the Board of Directors, based on your experience and board duties as described in our bylaws ( [ http://fireflyartscollective.org/about-fac/firefly-bylaws/ | http://fireflyartscollective.org/about-fac/firefly-bylaws/ ] )? 2. What are some qualities in the candidate or board member that would assure success as a member of the Firefly Board? 3. If you have worked with the candidate or board member on a project before, what was that experience like? 4. Is there anything else you would like to share about the candidate or board member? Our Board can be between 7 and 21 active members, so any and all of the candidates could join our board. There's no need to rank candidates in your feedback, just tell us what you think individually. When considering your feedback, keep in mind that beyond the yearly camping festival, there are year-round activities of Firefly Arts Collective. The board works to build long-term plans to further our community values, and we are hoping to expand the year-round activities of Firefly Arts Collective. We seek members who are excited not just in helping coordinate our festival, but who also have the time and energy to expand and strengthen our regional community. Candidates for August 2023: * Tristan Brown * Meytal Kotik * Iva Gishin Active Board Members: * Jon Evans * Jered Floyd * Carly Nix * Peter Salomone * Dan Snyder Non-Voting Board Members (formerly “active board alumni”): * Alexander "Spencer" DeFelice-Kent * Brian “Bendy” Endy * Frank Gerratana * Brian Gowdey * Forest Handford * Liz LaManche * Sage Kochavi * Sharon Kubo * Mike “Magneto” MacHenry * Kendra Pugh * Lia Rudolph * Julia Vilner-Shimoni Non-Voting members are past board members in good standing who have chosen to participate in an advisory role, but are no longer able to fully meet the participation responsibilities of a board member. We haven’t previously noted the tenure of these participants, but are now doing so for increased transparency. Please provide your feedback, particularly on candidates, via [ https://forms.gle/r6221QViiGwvcwCf7 | https://forms.gle/r6221QViiGwvcwCf7 ] by Sunday, September 17th. You may also send comments to [ mailto:board@fireflyartscollective.org | board(a)fireflyartscollective.org ] if you do not want to use the Google form. (If you wish to send feedback anonymously, feel free to relay it through any board or community member that you trust.) We welcome feedback on the Board at any time. Thank you for your participation and we look forward to seeing you in the woods in 2024! Sincerely, The Firefly Arts Collective Board of Directors

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Remembering Dennis Zografos; Community Grief Resources
by The Firefly Official Announcement List 16 Aug '23

16 Aug '23

Remembering Dennis Zografos It is with heavy hearts we share that long-time participant, Art Cluster Lead, and Firefly Board member Dennis Zografos passed away at the age of 35 on August 4th 2023, at his home, after struggling for the past three years with an epilepsy diagnosis. A member of the Firefly community for more than a decade, Dennis created VJ, projection, and LED art at Firefly and beyond, founded theme camp Virtuality, and grew dedicated to the growth and management of Firefly’s art grant process, which quadrupled in budget during his time overseeing Art Grants. He became Art Cluster Lead in 2016, supervising and organizing all of Firefly’s formal art activities, and joined the Board of Directors in 2021. Over the past two years Dennis was enthusiastic about instigating and supporting plans for Firefly’s continued growth and maturity, including being instrumental to the creation this year of Nuthatch Collective to provide sustainable stewardship to part of the land that Firefly occupies for our yearly event. We will miss his energy and commitment to building upon what our community has created over the past 20 years, and seek to follow through with our collaborative plans in his memory. A full obituary can be found [ https://www.dohertyfuneralservice.com/obituary/dennis-zografos | here ] , and his family will announce a Celebration of Life at a later date. Community Grief Resources Our community has seen more than its share of pain this year: Dennis Zografos this last week, Ian Denhardt’s untimely passing on Burn Night, early art grant leader and former board member Sean Stevens’ ongoing battle with cancer, the loss of Rocio “Rossy” Elliott (Ranger Penguin) earlier this year, and other public and private challenges and sorrows. As we continue to come together to support each other, here are some additional tools and resources organized for us by Burning Man Project: * [ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tPDgGfGNBFgGe9GOa3VJWxRQmtWtgGglpOrEIAM… | Grief Resources Starter Page ] - An index of online and phone resources for immediate assistance in a crisis, professional and peer support groups, and resources on how to understand, navigate, and cope with grief and loss. * [ https://drive.google.com/file/d/18QvTxid1aPYypZCJwu-Jq1bDpYvu9hSL/view | Grief Counseling Resource Guide ] - A handbook by the New York State Office of Mental Health developed as a guide for both individuals who are grieving as well others who wish to help. If you are feeling personal trauma from these, or other, community or personal events, you are not alone. Please reach out to the resources in these guide documents, as well as to our community and friends. We will share more information about community support gatherings as it becomes available.

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