Mnstf board meeting, 2pm Saturday June 25, 2016 at the house of Carol Kennedy and Jonathan Adams. Attending: Board members Scott Raun, Aaron Vander Giessen, Lydy Nickerson, Hershey Harris, and Matt Strait (actually sitting here). Also attending: Emily Stewart, Carol Kennedy. == Approve previous minutes == Matt, Aaron, Scott and Lydy have approved by e-mail. Ratify? Ratified! == Review TODO list == * (11-2014) Lydy will put information for new board members on the wiki. All the information is created. Some blanks need to be filled in, like the URL for this and the specific number for that. Lydy is very busy and stressed. Matt volunteers to take this task over if Lydy will send him the latest version. Lydy agrees. --> TODO for Matt and Lydy. * (11-2015) Scott will make sure that the 2014 taxes get filed. * (02-2016) Scott will get the 2015 taxes filed. They aren't done, but he is making progress. He doesn't need any assistance or information. That goes for both 2014 and 2015. He says that the cutoff for having to use the more complicated form is $50k, and we were at $45.6k or so in 2015. So we do the easy form, which the IRS calls an "e-Postcard" or Form 990-N. The next form up is called the EZ, so probably it would not be a big deal even if we went over $50k. We don't feel in great danger about not having filed the 2014 taxes yet, because there is no way we are going to owe them anything. * (07-2015) Lydy will send an e-mail to the University of Iowa about tapes. [Draft circulated to the board] Lydy is ready to send, but needs to find the e-mail address to send to again. She knows that she has the address in her inbox, but just has to do it. * (02-2016) Scott will do our Secretary of State renewal that needs to be done by the end of the year. Still to be done. Deadline to turn it in is Dec 30. Scott says this will take 5-10 minutes. * (05-2015) Scott will continue following up on Spideroak. Scott still needs to talk to DD-B. Matt wonders if we are not actually sufficiently motivated to do this, since we thought of it at the fallcon in 2014. Matt suggests doing the paper solution instead: keep a copy in a sealed folder in the archives. Lydy objects that this is much more difficult to access. Matt says that he is the archivist, does a pretty good job of it, if he does say so himself, and has no plans to stop keeping the archives no matter where he lives. Lydy worries that this would not allow us to access the materials quickly. But she doesn't have a scenario in mind where we would need them quickly. And upon saying it out load, she now thinks that probably this is a silly concern. Scott suggests keeping a USB stick with all the documents. Aaron thinks this is a 1995 solution. Why not use Spideroak or something? Matt says that we seem to be having an incoherent discussion because we are lacking clear goals. After some discussion we unanimously agree that we are going to put this sort of information in a non-web directory on Dreamhost instead, since it is easier and we can tolerate the slightly lower security. Matt volunteers to keep this directory. Lydy will send Matt the big book of harassment from Minicon 51. TODO. Note: the board is supposed to review the summary, and can look at the detailed reports if they want to. Lydy recommends that people not read the detailed reports unless they have a reason to. * (04-2016) Scott will make sure the check from Corwin gets deposited. Carol said that it was! * (04-2016) SOMEONE will talk to Beyond Conventions about their payment plan on or about July 15th. Scott will talk to DD-B about it. TODO. * (04-2016) Lydy will talk to DD-B about getting Beyond Conventions' statement on what they think their total debt to us is. [Informally, they agree with our number. Waiting for an official answer.] We haven't heard a more formal agreement on the total. Scott will include this in the payment plan discussion. Note: July 15 was set because it was enough time for Corwin to settle into his new job, and that it was about 90 days after Minicon. * (04-2016) SOMEONE will work on our convention code-of-conduct policies. Matt: I don't remember what we were trying to accomplish here. Aaron: Is there any way we can modify the policy to prevent the problems we had at Minicon 51? Others: No, probably not. That was an implementation error on our part, not a failing of the written policy. Well, Matt calls out the first sentence of the latest "Action" section as problematic. It tells people that they have to stop doing anything that someone asks them to stop doing. Example: someone could be quietly reading a book about WWII in the consuite which has a swastika on the cover. We do not intend to empower people to tell others that they can't do this. We think that the best way to fix this problem is to simply strike the sentence. We will recommend to Minicon 52 that they send us the Minicon 51 policy with that sentence struck. Matt will TODO this. * (04-2016) Hershey will talk to Dean about the storage locker: update his contact information with them, get the list of authorized people for review. [Hershey has talked to Dean. Dean will go, but wants us to tell him who we want on the list first.] Yes, that's still where we stand. Ok, so the list is: Joel Phillips, quartermaster Patricia Zetelumen, because she always volunteers, and Decongestant consuite Dean Gahlon, as storage locker liaison Jim Porter, Minicon 52 logistics Kelly James, as Minicon 52 consuite head Continuing TODO for Hershey. * (04-2016) Scott will make sure that Carol pays ASCAP. Carol is right here. She has not yet paid, but just got another form from Hershey from ASCAP. Scott will help fill out the form today. Continuing TODO for Scott. Done: * Matt will draft a multi-year policy for banning people from one or more future conventions and a hand-off procedure between conventions and the board for records of reported incidents. [Matt has sent a draft to the board. See below.] * Lydy will send Emily the now-definitely-approved Mnstf meeting info e-mail. [Sent, initiating a discussion of policy. See below.] * Aaron will find us a good investment option. [He did. See below.] * "Scott will tell Carol that we authorized Joel to buy shelving and that we approved $1250 towards a party Matt and Joel are planning at Worldcon." Matt and Joel have decided not to run this. * "Scott will put an announcement in the Einblatt that we are looking for Minicon 53 bids." Done. * "Matt will communicate with Joel and Jim Porter about the storage locker." Done on April 24. * "Matt will draft a letter of apology to the affected parties of the Minicon 51 code of conduct incident." DONE. It was approved by the board and is sent. * "Matt will update the Minnstf harassment policy on the web." Done. * Matt will ask Quartermaster Joel for a list of dates that he can do the storage locker inventory, and then will advertise this date and wrangle people to show up. [Date set for May 22. Volunteers wrangled. Reminder sent on May 18. And it happened. And it was good.] == Review Recurring Task List == Only active item is the domain renewals, which has happened. TODO for Matt: make this list less redundant for Minicon and fallcon. == Quartermaster == * Joel would like to buy up to $275 of shelving. Matt, Lydy, Aaron and Scott have approved by e-mail. Ratify? Ratified! * Joel might want to rent a truck. Authorize up to $50 for this? All approved by e-mail. Ratify? Ratified! * Joel in fact spent $75 on a dumpster and $84.28 for volunteer food. He determined that we don't need more shelving. Do we retroactively authorize these expenses? Matt, Scott, Lydy and Aaron approve. Ratify? Ratified! == Meetings == * Discuss Emily's objections to the exclusion policy. Emily objects to sending e-mails to party hosts telling them that they have to exclude certain people from their houses during Minnstf meetings. She feels that no matter how we phrase it, if she does the sending, it appears that she is personally requiring the exclusion. After much discussion, we agree that we will post the whole content of the e-mail that she would send, including the list of excluded people, on a password-protected webpage. She will refer hosts to this page. Matt will ask DD-B to make such a page that we can drop the content into. Matt will do the dropping. As a side note, Emily would like a PDF version of the "Minn-stf here" sign. TODO for Matt. == Archivist == * Matt is interested in revisiting our policy on web-display of copyrighted material in our publications. The board unanimously agrees that we can amend our policy to let Matt display fannish works from before routine web posting when he has tried to contact them and have not gotten an answer. Matt will write up a formal revision of the policy. == Conventions == * Discuss and possibly approve the draft of a multi-year policy for banning people from one or more future conventions and a hand-off procedure between conventions and the board for records of reported incidents. Here's the draft: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Draft policy for harassment information transfer between the board and conventions and multi-year bans from our conventions * Within a month of a convention, the chair or appropriate department head shall send the board all records about incidents of harassment and/or other bad behavior, a reference list of all involved people, and a summary report of these incidents giving the number of incidents, types of interventions, and general sense of things. * Each convention will report to the board if it feels that someone ought to be banned from one or more future conventions. It will also report on people whose behavior might warrant a ban later if it proves to be a pattern. * The board will review these recommendations and potentially institute a ban that covers one or more future conventions. * The board can institute bans without any convention recommendation. * Each convention is free to ban people regardless of a board ban. As with all convention decisions, the board can override this by a 2/3 majority. It is expected that bans are not instituted lightly. * The board will provide relevant records from previous conventions to upcoming conventions no less than a month before the convention. The board will use its judgement as to what records are relevant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ All approve policy presented with the added sentence in the fifth bullet for clarity: "A convention may not override a board ban." TODO for Matt, put on the web. * Matt would like to bring up the way we structure conventions in the bylaws. Currently each con (i.e. single few day event) is a new entity that requires separate board approval and does not automatically share anything with any previous con. Is there a desire to institute official convention series? And/Or to institute Minicon, officially, as a standing event on Easter weekend? Or make other changes? Aaron would like more time to think about it. General agreement that we like the current situation of convention freedom and anarchy. What about the policy of Minicon giving past GoH free memberships? It's a little awkward because we can't promise anything about the future. No one is bothered much by this. Various people ask what problems would be solved by changing the structure. Matt says that, for instance, this whole policy about transferring records of harassment records is much more complicated because Minicon isn't a standing body. All: Yes, but Minicon has been really bad at keeping institutional memory, so it's much better to have this policy that ensures that everything flows through the board. Matt points out that he's not advocating that we change the structure. He just wants to put this out for discussion, because certainly our current structure has some awkwardness. But another structure may not be any better. What about if a convention wants to pay GoH? Lydy in particular really doesn't like the idea that one of our cons might do this. Matt: but do you want a board level policy that prohibits it? Lydy: No. All board members are completely happy with the status quo. (Including Matt.) But Scott says that certainly we'd listen to anyone who came to us who had a proposal for changing the rules. Matt points out that one consequence is that he is going continue emitting complicated sentences like "Ok, so we will recommend to M52 that they copy the M51 harassment policy, with one change, and propose that to the board" rather than "M52 should use M51's policy with one change". All agree that this is a price worth paying. * Decongestant Hershey and Matt are going to visit the hotel today (Hilton Bloomington). Matt reports that we have an art show. Why? Because it is, in part, a training con, and allows for more freedom. Matt will be soliciting more things like this. * Minicon 51 The books are closed, and the profit has been returned to the board. Matt will write up a formal report of the finances soon. * Minicon 52 Aaron and Scott report that we are are missing a gaming head, a programming head and a music head. We will panic on Sept 15 if there is still not a programming head. We will panic again on Dec 1 if no progress report has gone out and no visible other progress is happening. * Minicon 53 Kevin Austin and Emily Stewart and working a proposal for M53. In this proposal Terry Hughes will be the gaming head and Sharon K will continue as programming. The board advises them to put the proposal into the board anytime starting now, and very preferably well ahead of M52 in any case. * Minneapolis in 2073 Matt says that due to lack of a Midamericon II party, and other recent lack of parties, the treasury is at the highest level ever of about $450. He'd like to spend some money so as not to go over $500, at which point he had promised to not just keep all the money in his own bank account. Lydy suggests asking Geri for a design for branded things. Emily advocates throwing a party at Helsinki next year. Matt's good with this. == Finances == * Where to put our savings? (Aaron) He proposed Vanguard funds. We all approve the use of the fund he recommends. The next step is to empty the Ameriprise money into the Mnstf checking account. If it turns out that the money is not currently liquid, we will wait until it is a good time to move it out. Scott will work on moving the money out of Ameriprise. TODO. == Next meeting == July 31, 2pm or programming block time at Diversicon Sunday afternoon after getting permission therefrom. Matt will ask Diversicon 24 chair if we can have a space and if it is ok for 2 of us to be unbadged. == New TODO list == * (11-2014) Lydy will send Matt the latest information for new board members. Matt will fill in the blanks and put it on the wiki. * (11-2015) Scott will get the 2014 taxes filed. * (02-2016) Scott will get the 2015 taxes filed. * (07-2015) Lydy will send an e-mail to the University of Iowa about tapes. * (02-2016) Scott will do our Secretary of State renewal that needs to be done by the end of the year. * (06-2016) Matt will make a non-web directory in our Dreamhost account for us to keep documents about harassment or whatnot. * (06-2016) Lydy will send Matt the big book of harassment from Minicon 51. * (06-2016) Scott will talk to Beyond Conventions about their total amount due and their payment plan on or about July 15th. * (06-2016) Matt will tell Minicon 52 that we recommend that they strike the first sentence under "Action" in the Minicon 51 harassment policy when they, presumably, propose reusing that policy for Minicon 52. * (06-2016) Hershey will talk to Dean about the storage locker: update his contact information with them, give him the new desired list of authorized people: Joel Phillips, quartermaster; Patricia Zetelumen, because she always volunteers, and Decongestant consuite; Dean Gahlon, storage locker liaison; Jim Porter, Minicon 52 logistics; Kelly James, Minicon 52 consuite head. * (04-2016) Scott will make sure that Carol pays ASCAP. * (06-2016) Matt will make the recurring task list on the wiki less redundant for Minicon and fallcon. * (06-2016) Matt will ask DD-B to make a password-protected webpage where party host info can be put. Matt will populate this page. * (06-2016) Matt will make a PDF version of the "Minnstf here" sign. * (06-2016) Matt will write up a formal proposal for revision of our copyright policy for old documents. * (06-2016) Matt will put our new multi-year ban policy up on the web. * (06-2016) Matt will write up the Minicon 51 financial report. * (06-2016) We all will panic on Sept 15 if there is still not a Minicon 52 programming head. * (06-2016) We all will panic on Dec 1 if no Minicon 52 progress report has gone out and no visible other progress is happening. * (06-2016) Scott will work on moving all our money from Ameriprise to our checking account. * (06-2016) Matt will see if we can have our July 31 meeting at Diversicon without all having memberships thereto.