WaWax will start passing out assignments this week
2025 report
CHORE: Wax to clone the 2024 skeleton to start the 2025 draft now
G&F is no call/no show policy documented?
Per the requirements embodied in the FirePony “Board Responsibilities and Expectations”, FPCS board members agree to:
Sign an annual contract agreeing to the duties and expectations
Prepare for and attend monthly board conference
Prepare for attend committee meetings
Cast votes on important governance matters
Attend the annual board retreat
Report and participate in a timely manner
Notify fellow board members should they not be able to attend to their board responsibilities
AWS
To resume service investigation post-PDF
Lower database tier worked fine for PDF second sale
Chore list
PLEASE review and clean up completed chores (mark complete and drag down)
Events
MALC
The MALC event was held from April 4 through April 6, 2025. The event was successful by all that attended.
A total of 79 participants attended the event, including ticket, at subsidize rates, and a number of volunteers that attended at no cost.
Representation from 12 different states
The Burning Man Project organization had a large presence at the event with Zoom assisted participation by Crimson Rose and David X, especially pre-recorded presentations by Iris and Ra$pa, and in person presentations by Muse
FirePony represented through Jayde Raven, Lotus, and David Wilkes from the FirePony board, and included Guy Chris from PDF and Fusion from Constellation leaderships.
Sharon D’Angelo, the regional contact of record for both PDF and constellation burn, was not only in attendance, but was central to the planning and execution of the event, offering her workplace as venue
The MALC planning committee will be meeting April 14 to discuss a number of items in its post event meeting. It is expected that the financial outcome will be discussed. Those results will be given to the FirePony board at its next board meeting. The event may have operated at a slight financial negative, due to some of the concessions made to increase attendance believe that any negative amount will be
BWB Ignition grant awarded
Received anonymous $1500 donation specifically for community grant through FPCS
Awarded at MALC
Grant management handled by Diane Edbril (helped run MALC) using BWB Ignition grant process
May use observations on BWB Ignition grant process to refine CACE grant process in the future
Minor online kerfuffle re: racial makeup of MALC leadership team
Following PDF, WaWax to reach out to both RIDE attendees and Burners of Color group to recruit for leadership positions
Still waiting for a refund from Event Insurance company
CHORE: Whatever to follow up
Jayde Raven checking on this
Playa Del Fuego
DR FIONA IS A DOCTOR
Contract still not signed. Communications with landowner are ongoing
CHORE: Hatter to continue following up on
Art grants
Almost all contracts signed (1-2 remaining)
Payments sent to all but 3-4 artists
Wilkes would like to understand better the event rules regarding the display of that may be interpreted by some viewers as being not inclusive. He needs to provide a follow up to a long-term member of the fire pony community with respect to the PDF event and whether it will allow such displays which are interpreted by her as being non-inclusive and hateful towards her ancestry and herself.
Firepony is not setting a policy on banning politics/political symbols
Explicit hate symbols (swastikas, upside-down cross, CSA flag) are banned
Fusion has moved planning into Slack, and is using some new features
Wax and RACI planning to work on Fusion charts, just after PDF
Whatever, Jayde Raven, and Fusion have reached out to Teaberry to start conversation, still need to schedule first meeting
Committees
Governance & Finance
Financial accounts invested at Charles Schwab were sizable in March 2025, with losses of $15,000. Additionally, downward markets have lost an additional $30,000 for the first 13 days of April, for a combined loss over the last 45 days of $46,000
FSA, our account manager at Schwab, has moved our money to a safe position, including increase holdings of cash, and “inverse” investments, to safeguard against more declines over the coming days. It is actively managing in a world of turbulence and volatility. Our total holdings at Schwab are currently $642,000.
Our account balances at Wells Fargo total $87,500. These amounts are held in cash accounts and are not subject to market fluctuations.
Overall, we the liquidity that we need to meet our financial requirements for hosting Fuego event in May, dependent upon our checking account at Wells, Wells Fargo to finance our short term needs
Of note, is that our position over the last six months at Wells Fargo is flat, with a one percent gain over that period.
Taxes and Filings
State of MD Annual Report for 2024 has been filed
Request for extension with IRS has been filed as well
Due date moves from May 15th to November 15th
Also removed Smiles and Miles as signers and added Wax
Need to update registered agent with state of MD
CHORE: Whatever to file registered agent update with MD
With respect to securing access to our accounts over at Wells Fargo,
Tovia has completed the process
Hatter has completed returned it to the local Wells Fargo office in Virginia.
Wilkes to meet with Wells Fargo at 1 PM on April 14 to complete the process
Jade Raven the process of completing the paperwork for submission to Wells Fargo for processing
Operations
Operations agreed there was not a need to meet regularly
Do need to set goals for the year
Safety
FPCS
Safety Plan has been standardized and imported into Slite
CHORE: WaWax and MiMichael Fagan to look at the formatting
Action plans were imported as individual documents
CHORE: Someone work out printable export
Also include formatting: what gets printed, in what format, where does it go on site, how many copies are needed
Customizations will be based on the physical site e.g. Royale Farms, Coal Creek, rather than the event i.e. PDF/CB
Hazards grouped together based on mitigation
PDF
Everything set from an intra-department level
Working to help facilitate inter-department coordination
Defining with Rangers what overnight fire patrol will look like going forward
Constellation
Still need to define leads
Will fold these leads into Safety Committee meetings as they're defined
Technology
Second ticket sale went well, no issues
Callboxes nearly ready for PDF, to be open sourced in June
Portal to use Peacock for their ticket sales, WaWax working with their tech team
Quail extended to add support for Incident Reports and logging for Sanctuary team
Additional Chromebook for events purchased (Sanctuary)
Hatter, Jen, Complex and Fusion met to talk new website. Hatter presented a new theme that covered most of the goals of better accessibility and reduced dependency on 3rd party tools. Hatter created a demo site with the PDF colors and format that looked good enough to go forward with. We decided that Constellation would be a good starting point to move forward with, Complex is looking into a good theme as a starting point on his local copy, and once he feels comfortable will present that and we'll get to work on getting that spun up prior to the constellation event. Then we'll work on PDF after PDF spins down (June/July) and the firepony.org site in the off season.
Conduct
Still meeting monthly
Working on last few Constellation cases
Had a MALC breakout on Conduct
Great conversation
Other burns inc Frostburn, Portal had folks in attendance
Discussed setting up a regional network of conduct committees
Information sharing
Penguin - Tech services to help administrate conduct
Wax is waddling through, should have something to look at soon