Mn-Stf Board Meeting - August 20, 2003 Present: Dean, Larry, Laura Jean, Scott, Kevin, David Schroth Web page: Has anyone talked to Peter about taking on the Website? The Board will talk to Peter about doing it. Scott will talk to him. Dean wrote and sent a letter to Laurel Krahn thanking her for her past work. Gun Statement: After discussion that happened online, the board unanimously supported the following statement (reproduced below). Kevin will post it to Natter, Scott will put it in the next Einblatt, the Mn-Stf webmaster will link to it and Joe will be asked to announce it at the next few meetings. __________________________________________________________________ 1. Whether guns are allowed in the home where a Minnstf meeting is held is up to the host(s) of the meeting. In cases where there are changing hosts over the course of the meeting, one policy will be agreed on beforehand for the entire meeting. 2. Whether guns are allowed at a particular meeting will be published in advance. Listings in the usual published sources (website, Einblatt and Hotline) will say "No guns" if guns are not allowed and likely say nothing if guns are allowed -- all of this based on the information provided to the editors and webmasters. 3. The Board requests that guns -- when permitted at Minnstf functions -- should be either under the control of the gun's owner or in a secured, locked area inaccessible to unauthorized persons. __________________________________________________________________ The hotline has not been updated since July 31. Scott will resend his request to have them post some message to find out whether or not the hotline is being used. The message should be out there for two months before cutting it. Per last month's minutes, January 1st seems a good time to make the change. Mr. President: The board feels that the president has absolute authority on picking meeting sites and the board will back his decisions. Larry will inform him of his exalted power. Kevin has not talked to Rick Gellman about the Fallcon yet. He was requested to please do so. Dean feels that it should not be a MN-Stf event. The board needs to deal with the checking account if it is not a MN-Stf event. Taxes: Larry asked the accountant about the $25,000 threshold for whether or not we have to file taxes and she said that there is no such threshold. Charmain has not yet given him the information he needs to fill out the form. The co-chairs will get the paperwork from her and get it entered so that it can be passed on to the accountant to fill out the forms. Events List - David says it is moving apace and they have been doing a lot of testing to make sure that it does what they want it to do. Karen wants to makes some changes in the documentation but it is not likely to happen before she gets back from vacation. It should be up by the next board meeting. It could conceivable up by next Saturday. Cost cutting measures: The suggestion was to cut the stipend to $25-$30. The Minicon locker was discussed as to whether or not we could get rid of it. One option is to see if Greg Ketter would do a deal with Minicon to lend his art show panels. If we got rid of the locker, then the board would have to resurrect the quartermaster position to keep track of the organization's stuff. Related to this is the fact that Kay Drache would like to get the Mn-Stf Archives out of her house. If we got rid of the art show panels (and kept the storage locker), we could put the archives in the storage locker. Right now the board is giving $197.30 for parties at other conventions. Traditionally they have done parties at the three local conventions, Worldcon and a few others. The board suggested to do 2 local ones at $100 each and then $400 for out of town conventions besides the world con. In addition the board does the Pool party, the New Year's Party and the picnic. The Pool party should get room cost plus $150 pending finding out what the costs were this year. The picnic costs to reserve the space and some supplies. The board agreed that at a minimum the reservation charge plus standard stipend should be covered. Polly will look into Boom Island. The board will pay $100. It would need to be coordinated in advance so that people would bring things to make it a complete picnic. Cut New year's stipend to $150. (starting next year) World Con : limit stipend to $1000. The board would consider larger stipends in special circumstances on a case by case basis. Pending more study of actual figure from the past. Fundraising Ideas: * Silent Auction at Minicon * Movie Night: Would need to have someone who had a relationship with a theater and wanted to take on the project. People who come to mind are Joe, Elizabeth, and Sybil. We are not sure that we have * Bake Sale: The board discussed maybe having one the first week of November. There was some concern about whether or not we would be stepping on the Tiptree Award by having a bake sale, their traditional fundraiser. Polly (who attends Wiscon and has some feel for the Mother Board, who are the creators of the Tiptree.) feels that since the Tiptree bake sales generally happen at conventions, they will not be too upset about MN-Stf borrowing the concept. The board discussed that usually a bake sale has a captive audience and that the closest we come to that is some place like Dreamhaven or Uncle Hugo's. Questions that came up included: 1. Can we talk either of them into hosting? 2. Can we get MN-StFers to donate baked goods? How many do we need? 3. Is it legal to have a public bake sale (see Potluck law.) * Put a kitty out at MN-stf meetings and convention parties * Reduce the meeting stipend to $25-$30 instead of $50 making it clear to hosts not to feel that they need to spend more than that amount. * Make more chapbooks; perhaps the Lady Poetesses, something from Lois McMaster Bujold or Eleanor Arnason. Steve McDonald would like to continue with the chapbook for a year but would like to get copies for the wholesale cost $7.50 rather than the $9 that we were charging him before. (my notes are not clear to me. Here is what I wrote: "wholesale $9 rather than $7.50. Larry will get back to them. Existing stock for $12. cost was about 10cents per sheet or $4 per book.) Someone needs to ask the web master (Peter) to market the McDonald book on the websites. The next meeting is Sept 17 at 7 pm.