Minicon 33 General Committee Meeting

May 11th, 1997 - Painter Park

 

Summary:

 

• See attached list of department heads.

• All checks received to date have been deposited (at least, so we believe).

• Budgets due ASAP.

• Please tell us what your job is. If you don’t know, tell us that.

• Give postmortem responses to the Executive Secretary. Please respond.

• Useful Email addresses:

Deadlines:

 

• Budgets are overdue. Please submit ASAP. Absolutely no later than the next concom meeting.

• Info for PR 1 is due at the next concom meeting. (Registration, hotel, volunteers and GoH Liaison should be most concerned.)

• Job descriptions from each department head due by next meeting.

 

Next Meeting:

 

• 8 June 1997 - Painter Park

 

 

Open Input

 

Wiscon is Memorial Weekend. There will be a Not-a-Reinconation Party Saturday night.

Miniconathon has begun. Shockwave wil be playing all the Minicon opening ceremonies in a row. Well, not quite, Frank Zappa will interupt briefly.

 

Exec Report

Department heads were announced. (List attached.)

There are positions that need to be filled, most especially concom secretary and finance in training.

It is the belief of the exec, based on reliable reports from finance, that all of the checks received so far have been deposited.

We were hoping to get budgets back this month, but it doesn’t look too hopeful. If you have them, that’d be great. If not, we need them ASAP.

The deadline for PR 1 is one month from now. Copies of relevant portions of previous PRs were distributed to relevant people. The departments who should be most concerned are registration, hotel, volunteers, and GoH Liaison.

GoH Update: Dave Langford as Fan GoH, Ray Bradbury requested to be asked again in January of ‘98, and Neil Gaiman as Toastmaster. Note: There turned out to be a scheduling conflict and Neil Gaiman is not going to be able to be toastmaster. This was discovered after the meeting, so, no, you didn’t hallucinate, we really did say that Neil would be toastmaster, but unfortunately, he can’t. John M. Ford has accepted, and will be toastmaster.

Postmortem notes were handed out. If there are responses, please give them to the Executive Secretary. Responding to the postmortem information is important. That has been an area in which we have not done well in the past.

 

 

Department Reports

Art show is here, Kris is not.

Volunteers: these lovely volunteer forms are very important. Please fill them out and get them back.

Publications: Deadline for PR 1 is next meeting. Please remember to use the Grammarian (Pamela Dean Dyer-Bennet). We are looking for volunteers.

Cyberspace: Departments who wish to receive stuff via email, talk to me about getting an offical email address. Please remember to mark “DNW” (Do Not Web) on written items you don’t want on the web page.

Programming: We have a budget. (Cheers). There will be a meeting Real Soon Now.

Dark Star: I have a head in training.

Parties: There was a meeting. There are minutes. Next meeting, 7 June.

Hotel: We have a time line. It will be provided soon. Please hand in your room requests immediately if not sooner. If you need a resume, let Shannon or Ish know. The Raddish manager Marlys Dorfer has returned to work after double bypass surgery. (Cheers)

Interjection and clarification by the Exec (Martin): There have been problems in the past which could have been avoided if people had marked up their hotel resumes. Departments have, in the past, promised rooms or other hotel amenities to vendors or participants and didn’t tell the hotel. This is a problem. If you need anything that involves rooms or hotel amenities, you must tell our hotel people ahead of time. They do not want to hear it at the convention. Shannon worshipped Martin for this outburst.

Minneapolis in ‘73: Subheads are Floyd Henderson and Catherine Crockett.

Treasury: All checks were deposited last friday.

Reconvene for discussion

 

Victor, in his persona as exec, said that we really need department heads to identify someone who will run your dept if you are run over by a meteor. You must, you must identify these people for us. (The bus driver was nominated.) If you are travelling, travel separately.

 

Themes, more discussion

 

Evolution,not entropy

Science fiction fantasy (imagine a robot in a negligee)

If we’re not having fun, we’re not doing it right

Digitally remastered

Do you want to play us backwards.

Timing is everything.

Not completely silly

 

Themes, the Voting:

 

Voting was done using iterated approval. This is in accordance with the voting task force. A person asked if weighted voting had been considered. Martin assured the querant that it had, and that the Voting Taskforce was not a figure of speech.

First round, all in attendance could vote for any they liked, no restrictions. A natural break was found, themes which had received more votes than 10. There were a total of 8. Participants were then allowed to vote for 3 of the 8. The top 3 as a result of this round were:

 

• Heisenberg probably slept here -- 16 votes

• It followed me home, can I keep it? -- 4 votes

• If we’re not having fun, we’re not doing it right -- 20 votes

 

Further theme discussion was tabled until next meeting. At that time, there will be a vote on the top two.