These minutes were copied, by Matt Strait, out of a clean PDF in 2020. The text should be exactly as it is in the PDF, up to minor formatting tweaks to make it look nice in plain text, and Matt looked it over just in case. Full lines of dashes signify page breaks in the original. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Minn-Stf Board Meeting Minutes Fragments for the Meeting of 17 July 1997, at the home of Eileen Lufkin Attending: Margo Bratton, Dean Gahlon, Polly Peterson, Martin Schafer, and Geri Sullivan (Da Board); and Beth Friedman and Mitch Pockrandt (Interested Parties). Eileen Lufkin wandered through, serving carrot sticks, grapes, and Dole frozen fruit treats. (Thank you, Eileen!) Dearly missed: Fred A. Levy Haskell (OHD&RS), who was afraid he was gonna spew chunks--not because of the meeting, y'understand, but just 'cause he Didn't Feel So Hot. Geri attempted to take notes in Fred's absence. The meeting fell into order around 7:15 PM. Designated Quote: "Now that you've taken it out, it's not missing." --Margo Bratton, 9:05 PM. Agenda: - Art Show Panels. - By-Laws. - Computer Things. - Domain Bill. - Photocopier. - Survey. - Minicon 32 Finances. - Other Stuff. Business: 1) Art Show Panels Someone contacted Polly a week before a local Beauty and the Beast convention, which was held the weekend of July 12th. They wanted to borrow the Minicon art show panels for use there. Polly called both Geri and Martin and made other efforts to comply with the request even though she was very busy getting ready to leave town at the same time. To the best of the Board's knowledge, we did not loan the art panels this time around. The lack of advance warning meant we weren't able to make appropriate arrangements. Also, the panels are buried deep in the overcrowded storage locker--getting them out is a major operation. We believe the requesting convention was a nonprofit, and we are inclined to loan our panels to future such conventions presuming we have enough notification and the resources to get the panels out of storage. 2) By-Laws Martin has reviewed the By-Laws and suggested several places where they need to be changed. We're right on schedule, given that the By-Laws were written in 1972, rewritten in 1980, and rewritten again in 1989. Martin went over his recommendations with the Board and we discussed them as needed. Martin will write up the agreed-upon changes by our next meeting. Geri will try to get him a computer file of the current By-Laws. Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 29 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Suggested changes include: By-Law I -- Members 2b) Could include voting member changes here, but will probably simply do it later, in By-Law II, section 6d. By-Law II -- Meetings of Members 3) Add e-mail notification option for meeting notice 6d) Change to read "General convention committee meetings, except that convention meetings can only count toward four (4) of the seven (7) meetings needed to vote." By-Law III -- Board of Directors 4a) This probably doesn't need to change, but it sounds like the officer selection meeting is supposed to take place the same day as the voting meeting, which rarely happens. By-Law IV -- Officers 2) President description perhaps needs to be changed. Dean Gahlon pointed out we need to check statutory requirements on this. 3) We may want to specify the VPDP position 4c) Strike references to club bulletin board. 5) Treasurer's report at the voting meeting has not happened in recent memory, but we'd like it to, so we'll leave the clause in and notify the treasurer to prepare a report for the voting meeting. This clause implies the club treasurer is responsible for riding herd on convention treasurers. By-Law V -- Checks, etc. No changes By-Law VI -- Conventions 3) Martin thinks we can get rid of entire section. Geri wants to keep everything after first sentence in second paragraph. We agree section 3 needs to be drastically rewritten rather than axed. By-Law VII -- Library Axe mostly, change appropriate references from library to archives. FYI, Polly has the Minnesota Collection. Kay has archives. We think Joyce has fanzines, but should check on this. We need to decide what we want done with fanzines. Beth suggests we possibly not formalize what happens to fanzines sent to the club, but simply say "as the Board shall direct." By-Law VIII -- Names Used by the Society Geri suggests she'd like to get rid of all MN spellings, but seeing as our domain name is mnstf.org, acknowledges that probably isn't practical. By-Law IX -- Mailing List 2) Strike entire clause (about members using bulk mailing permit) End of By-Laws discussion. Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 30 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3) Computer Things The Camel has been found sans keyboard. It's a 486, with a PCI bus. The power supply immediately turned to toast. Beth Friedman had it replaced by the Geek Squad for $150. They also warned that the video card may be about to go. Martin may have a video card that would work. Dean will instruct Julie to reimburse Beth $148.84 for the power supply fix. Jeff Berry and Janet Moe have an unopened copy of FileMaker Pro for the PC that they purchased under Thomas' direction. Martin will get it from them. He hopes to do some FileMaker Pro OTML development work before school starts in the fall. Mitch volunteers to help Martin. The OTML exists, at least in flat file format. Kate Carey said she entered most of the at-the-door registrations. Margo has boxes of registration materials from Kate, and will try to figure out what was entered. Beth expects to give Laurel Krahn a copy of the OTML in better form in another week or so. The registration database will have export capability to the OTML, but will not actually be the OTML. Polly will give Minn-Stf's Okidata dot matrix printer to Margo for label printing. Bruce Schneier has loaned Minicon the use of an A/B box. Beth will hand it on to Margo. (We will return it to Bruce if he asks for it back.) Beth is concerned about Minn-Stf using FileMaker Pro. She thinks it is orphaned software, especially for the PC. She also reminded the Board that Minn-Stf needs to buy a computer when it can afford it. (The Board agrees.) 4) Domain Bill Our annual domain fee ($50) is due to Internic. Dean will pay through First Virtual (electronic cash billed to his credit card) and get reimbursed by Julie. 5) Photocopier The Minn-Stf photocopier needs repair. (It's at Kay Drache's and currently always has toner on the drum. Kay has tried the phone repair route; it's made things worse.) Polly will talk with Kay and suggest she check with: 1) Michael Pins, who is working for Xerox these days and may have a connection. 2) Timothy Julin and/or Thomas Keeley, to see if Copy Sales can help with the repair, or can recommend someone. If the repair is expected to cost more than $100-150, we should probably just buy a new copier. 6) Survey Geri hands out draft of survey. Board suggests a different first question, and one additional question. We agree to distribute with the August Einblatt, and to have it on our web page. (Name must be included with responses to the web page.) We will figure out phone follow-up at our next meeting. Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 7) Minicon 32 Finances Kay Drache hand-delivered the Minicon 32 Visa receipts to the credit card processing center Thursday morning (July 17th) after they had been returned once again, this time for having been sent to the wrong address. Geri is concerned that we might not yet have the whole picture on Minicon 32 finances. In particular, she cannot find where Minneapolis in '73 expenses were paid. No actual decisions or actions here. 8) Other Stuff Tax info due to Judy Gallas. Concern expressed over Minicon information being available. Martin will follow-up with Mark. We will also copy Glenn to gain his support in getting information from Mark. Meeting adjourned sometime around 10 PM. Most Board members sat around trading Minicon gossip for some time afterward. There seems to be an absence of bright and cheery Minicon news these days. Geri still needs to call Doug Friauf and tell him of the $150 approved for a Minneapolis in '73 party at LoneStarCon. Submitted by Geri Sullivan, for the absent Fred A. Levy Haskell. Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 32 ------------------------------------------------------------------------