Minnstf board minutes for Sunday Feb 23, 6pm at Scott Raun's. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Scott Raun, Clay Harris, Aaron Vander Giessen. Not-attending board member: Eric Forste. == Approve last meeting's minutes == We do! == TODO list == * (2019-12) Aaron will find out about GPS cross-promotion possibilities. Aaron has learned that the only possibility for cross promotion is to send them stuff to put on their website. Eventually, they may have a newsletter again, in which case we can put things in there. * (2020-01) Scott will ask Carol to pay GPS $200 for our cooperative agreement. Scott has asked Carol to do this and she said "Will do". It got mailed. These all also happened: * (2020-01) Aaron will ask Carol to send Jane a get-well card/flowers/etc. * (2019-12) Aaron will tell Don and Sharla that the Minicon 56 profit target is $3200. * (2020-01) Matt will send bills for past due accounts. == GPS agreement == We now have all the information we were looking for. We will get more information at Minicon as to how the auction went and how much the GPS film license was used. We will table the question of whether to continue the agreement until after Minicon. == Discussion of Pool Party space == There has been some confusion as to whether it is the Minicon Pool Party or the Minnstf Pool Party. Scott has researched how it has been advertised for the last some years, and in the Einblatt we have always called it the Minnstf Pool Party or just the Pool Party. Of course, Scott writes the Einblatt, so that's not definitive. However, Scott's memory also corroborates the intent that it is a Minnstf event, and is a fundamentally a Minnstf meeting, not a Minicon party with a Minnstf meeting attached. The board is of the opinion that it has been the MNSTF Pool Party, and anyway should be that whether it has been or not. The upshot is that decisions about space usage go to the Minnstf president or the party host rather than to the upcoming Minicon chairs or their designees. It, of course, has something to do with Minicon, because the way we've always gotten a good rate on the rooms is through the upcoming Minicon contract. But we could rent rooms in a non-Minicon hotel too, and this is under discussion as a possibility. Scott is interested in the history, aside from what we are actually doing now, and is going to ask Carol Eschweiler about it. Anyway, would we currently allocate $200 for the rooms and $200 for refreshments. There have been discussions that the pool party could use more space. It was rather full this year, even though we got extra space for gaming unexpectedly because the hotel didn't make us move out of the Summer room after the Minicon concom meeting ended. Should we increase the room budget? We know we could get the Superman space ("Upper Atrium") for $200, and we may be able to get the Summer Room on purpose for free again, or not free, but less than $200. If we held it at the RadishTree, we could rent the old consuite with both side rooms for $510 plus tax (so like $590). That's just the rate they are advertising to the general public, since we have no relationship with them anymore. We decide to allocate another $100 for the space, so $300 for space, $200 for budget. Matt will affirm with the President that it's a Minnstf event, so the President decides where it is within this budget (probably consulting others, of course). We had previously authorized $200+$200 for up to 3 generic expensive parties. We have changed this to $300+$200 specifically for the pool party and $200+$200 for 2 other generic expensive parties. == Recurring task list == Nothing to do right now. We will watch for the ASCAP bill. == Policy on convention member banning == Clay brings this issue up. What is it? Clay will tell us shortly. But Matt keeps reading out loud as he types. Clay relates a story in which he was banned from a non-Minneapolis convention because an ex-girlfriend of his lied to that convention's concom about how she had a restraining order against him, when she didn't. Said concom didn't look into it at all, but just took her word. Clay says that the Minicon concom currently claims that they wouldn't do this without getting a copy of the order to confirm. But at Minicon 54, Clay, as pre-registration head, was directed to ban someone because of a restraining order, but the chair did not have or would not provide the restraining order to Clay. Clay says that this same restraining order was provided to Marscon and Convergence. Restraining orders are matters of public record, so Clay says there are no privacy concerns involved. Clay would like to see a Minnstf policy which says that that our cons can't directly ban anyone, that only the board can ban people. And he'd like to see it explicitly stated that if someone is banned for a restraining order, that we see that order. Currently our harassment policy (whose name is not very accurate as it covers more than harassment) allows con chairs to ban people, and doesn't set any restrictions on that power, although it says "It is expected that bans are not instituted lightly." Discussion ensues. After much discussion, Matt proposes two separable changes: 1) We amend the harassment policy to say that convention bans proposed without urgency (i.e. a substantial time ahead of the con) can only be done by the board. 2) We write a new clause saying that the board will require all pertinent documentation (for example, restraining orders) in order to consider banning someone. We note that not all cases will require documentation. Rationale: (1) It is important that con chairs, or their designees, can act quickly when there is trouble at, or just before, their convention. The board is slow because it can only act if 2/3 of its members are assembled (which means 4/5 in practice). (2) Matt wanted to make this more general than just singling out restraining orders. And it should also be clear that we can know someone is a problem even if no legal process has produced documentation. We do not see a need to change the policy on the urgent case. If a ban/ejection needs to be done at or near-con, we are happy with the policy that the con chairs/staff do this and inform the board. Matt will draft new language for the board to consider. We will need to inform the current con chairs of any policy change. == Conventions == * Minicon 55 Had a concom meeting yesterday. It was useful. All of the departments are staffed, and without the same person covering several major departments or anything. No board-level concerns. * Worst Convergence Ever Emily has started taking registrations. It's happening! * Decongestant 5 It's fine. We're partnering with Arcana again. * Minicon 56 It exists. We have a hotel contract and chairs. We're not worried about anything. * Decongestant 6 We are investigating hotels to see if we can get Columbus Day weekend. But we may end up at the same hotel on another weekend. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing to report at this time. We didn't have a party at Capricon, because Matt wasn't there, because he was at a physics meeting. == Next meeting == 6:30pm on March 20, location TBA. == New TODO list == * (2020-02) Scott will ask Carol Eschweiler about pool party history. * (2020-02) Matt will let Sharon know that we have clarified the nature of the pool party. * (2020-02) Matt will draft an amendment to our harassment policy. * (2020-02) Matt will check on the location for our next board meeting.