Minutes for Minn-stf board meeting Friday April 25, 2014, 7pm Beth Friedman's house Attending: Beth Friedman, Dean Gahlon, Lydy Nickerson, Scott Raun, and Matt Strait by phone (audio) and Skype (video). Minutes taken by Matt. ++++ Harassment policies ++++ * Minnstf policy: Discussion ensued. Matt fiddled with his AV setup for a long time. At 7:27 he became happyish with it. Expression that we need to be sure to say that we are not setting up a legal system -- no depositions, no trials. Dean prefers a colloquial style for the policy. Scott agrees and says that this helps with the previous point: standard conversational English emphasises that we aren't setting up a legal system. Beth says that, however, we can be colloquial without being overly wordy. Should we keep "brains are squishy", which is part of the language in the current draft? Spirited debate on this point. Dean can take it or leave it. Agreement that we should have a short version and a long version. Dean says that the current short version is too short. Something happens with fur in front of the camera. Matt tries to figure out what's going on. Carding fleece from a sheep, Beth says. Dean points out that we shouldn't ban people from board meetings but also tell people they can contest their ban at board meetings. Lydy says that the ban should specify which things they are banned from, and we might include banning someone from board meetings if they are sufficiently bad, or to only allow them to a specific board meeting to discuss their case. Matt says that we should say "concom meetings" and not "Minicon concom meetings". Or, to use the language from the bylaws, "general convention committee meetings". Lydy would like to keep language about "lack of consent" that Beth has deleted in her version. First sentence of third paragraph. Beth and Lydy discuss. Lydy: We need to define harassment, and this was the core of the definition. We're going to work on this more by e-mail. Beth will make a new draft of the short version to circulate. Lydy will write a long version once the short version exists. The long version can have "squishy brains" in it. Lydy says that the short version must specify what a person desiring immediate action and long-term action is supposed to do. We don't want to answer the question of whether a board member is an officer (technically not, as it turns out). We'll just say both. * Minicon 49 policy: Was agreed upon by e-mail prior to Minicon 49. Matt demands that procedure demands that we ratify e-mail decisions at a meeting, even if they are for things that happened in the past. The ayes have it. ++++ Past conventions ++++ * METHOD Con 1: Matt has asked Patricia to send in the profit of $203.35. We suspect that this hasn't happened yet. We'll push this onto the list of things to ask Carol about. * M49 very preliminary financial report: Matt reports that because we got more members than expected, the outlook is now better and the best guess is that we'll come in $1000 short of the target of $4100, returning about $3100 to Minn-stf. The reason for the shortfall remains the same, which is that we planned for a hotel bill of about $1500, but then learned that we should expect more like $3300. Since the first report that we were probably not going to make our target, some things have turned out to cost more and others less, with a net positive effect on the projection. However, we have not yet seen the actual costs for the big ticket items: the hotel bill, and the consuite. So the estimate of returning $3100 is still very rough. Going into the con, we had considerably over 300 room-nights booked, that being the highest bar set by the hotel. We are hoping to use this as leverage for reducing our costs, but it may well not work. ++++ Future conventions ++++ * METHOD Con 2: We agree to $-200 as a profit target, and we should say to her "if you make money instead of losing it, that is nice. But the goal is to put on a good convention, not to make money." Matt will do this. Patricia may ask for seed money if the hotel wants payment prior to the con. We should receive a proposal from Patricia and post it to mnstf.org/records when approved. * M50 report. We don't know how many memberships were taken yet at M49 since they weren't counted at the Dessicated Dodo as is sometimes traditional. Matt's financial projection remains that it will just about meet its profit target of $-1700. * M51 discussion. There are no candidates at the moment. We should announce somehow - here and on natter and etc other places. And at business meetings. Scott will take care of Einblatt, natter and LJs. We will note that the current co-chairs are planning to take a year off and this is not just a pro forma notice. ++++ Memorials policy ++++ To clarify previous minutes, our policy is that the person in charge of memorials is authorized to spend $50 plus shipping on flowers or something else suitable. The reason for "plus shipping" is that we want to send the same quality thing regardless of how far away the family/friends of the deceased is. The choice of "something else suitable" is left to the discretion of the person in charge. Donation to a charity of the family's choice is noted as a possibility. Later amended by e-mail to $60 plus shipping due to actual cost of flower arrangements. Matt will remind us to ratify this at our next meeting. ++++ Tax-free status ++++ We were turned down for getting MN sales tax exemption because we are not an exclusively educational organization. Is there any hope of appeal? No. We are just the wrong kind of organization. We will archive the document saying so so that we can possibly avoid going through this again. It will go along with our other official papers from the state in the archives. ++++ Minn-stf finances ++++ Matt would like to see recent statements showing our balances in savings and checking. No one on the board has seen any lately. This goes on the list for Carol. ++++ ASCAP ++++ We will authorize Carol to write a check for this. The rules are easier now. As long as we are under 1500 people, that's all we have to tell them. -----====> TODO <===------ Matt: * Inform Patricia of her profit target. Dean: * contact Carol about the two items above. ** We would like a copy of the latest statements from each of our accounts ** Did you get the METHODCon 1 check? ** ASCAP check needed. * [From previous meeting]: Work with Scott to recover the board-chat archives. Scott: * Announce that chairs are needed on Einblatt, natter and LJs. * Resend to the board the PDF of the document saying we can't get sales tax exemption. * Do ASCAP. * [From previous meeting]: Work with Dean to recover the board-chat archives. Ask Kevin about recovering the board-chat archives. All: * Discuss harassment policy as above. ----====> Next meeting agenda items <====---- * Approve previous minutes * Go over TODO list * Ratify $50 -> $60 for memorials. * Can we move the exclusion policy into the bylaws, Matt wonders. * Set date of next meeting.