Minnstf meeting, Thursday April 16, 6pm, by videoconference. Attending: Matt Strait (recording), Aaron Vander Giessen, Scott Raun, Linda Lounsbury, Eric Forste. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == * (2020-03) Matt will ask bright young faces about being membership secretary and/or Einblatt editor -- Matt has asked Isaac about the former (he refused) and the latter (waiting for an answer, but probably that means no). Matt has asked Michael H about membership secretary and is waiting for an answer. Are there other bright young faces that are reasonable candidates? We discuss possibilities. * (2020-03) Scott will do some recruiting for getting us a nicer style sheet for our website -- Scott reports this is in progress. We had one person volunteer to convert it to a content management system, but that's not what we want. * (2020-03) Scott will look into whether Zoom has special non-profit accounts. Scott would like this to stay on his list for one more meeting. * (2020-03) Scott will handle the ASCAP bill -- He has filled in out and dropped it off in Carol's mailbox. He's also picked up the storage locker check and mailed it off. * (2020-04) Linda will talk to Sharon about meetings -- Linda did talk to Sharon. Sharon is reluctant to deal with tech issues for virtual meetings, but would moderate meetings set up by others. Discussion ensues of pros and cons of Zoom and Jitsi. If you don't pay for Zoom, meetings are limited to 40 minutes. It's a for-profit enterprise. Jitsi has no such restrictions, but we're not sure if it is feature rich (waiting room to filter participants, dividing into subgroups?) and provides high enough quality audio to handle a Minn-stf meeting. We are using Jitsi for this meeting now, and it's fine for 5 people with a formal structure, but that's not enough of a stress test. Scott just looked it up, and Jitsi recommends no more than 35 people in a meeting for a good experience, with a hard cap of 75. But how many people would we really have at a virtual Minnstf meeting? Maybe under 10. Scott proposes a structure/schedule for virtual meetings. Discussion ensues. It's possible we aren't actually going to have any virtual meetings and this is all moot. DONE: * (2020-04) Scott will do the taxes -- Done. He also did the Secretary of State renewal. * (2020-03) Matt will ask Hershey if she'll continue being correspondence secretary -- Matt has sent Hershey a postcard -- she replied yes by postcard. * (2020-03) Matt will ask Brother Joe if he'd like to be the quartermaster -- He said yes. * (2020-04) Scott will get the list from Laura of how many meetings people went to last year -- he got it and sent it to us. == Review recurring task list == Besides things already on the TODO list: * PO box should have been paid automatically by Carol's credit card. Did this happen? Scott found out from Carol that we only pay annually, on Oct 31, not semi-annually. Matt updated the task list to reflect this. == Ratify inter-meeting decisions == Matt proposed asking Isaac to be VP or recording secretary: Matt, Linda, Eric, Scott approved by e-mail. Ratified! == Proposed changes to harassment policy == Matt moves to table again, because he hasn't thought about it at all. Eric points out that it won't be relevant for a while either, as we are having no meetings and no conventions. Tabled. == Bylaws amendments == * paper ballots We agreed on language for this already. It is to add a sentence at the end of III.3: "Only hand-marked paper ballots shall be used." Let's keep copying this into each set of minutes until we adopt it. * virtual meeting attendance Should we write our existing policy (that all-virtual social meetings can count towards voting membership) into the bylaws? Discussion occurs about whether this is necessary/desirable to be in the bylaws as opposed to just a policy. The bylaws currently don't define "meeting" one way or other for whether they are in-person. We seem to tentatively think that we might want it in the bylaws. Matt will draft bylaws language for this. == Guidance to new membership secretary to reduce barriers to voting == Eric proposes a requirement that a printed ballot be mailed to all voting members. Scott: this implies three weeks between the last person accepting nominations and the voting meeting. Matt: But if that's true, then we should have had that much time already, since people were already supposed to be able to receive their ballot by mail and mail it back. Scott: Well, that's probably true. -> We should space 2nd nominations and voting by 4 weeks. -> Matt proposes mailing a ballot with a SASE to everyone, with no attempt to get people to opt out of receiving one. (This amends Eric's proposal.) The cost of Matt's proposal is $50-$100 a year (2 stamps per person) plus someone has to stuff 50-100 envelopes (however many voting members we have). We think about that a little, and no one objects to it. Does anyone approve of it, though? Scott abstains. Eric agrees. Aaron agrees. Linda abstains. We will pass these two pieces of guidance/requirements on to the new membership secretary, when that person is identified. Speaking of identifying officers, Scott says that Matt should ask bright young faces to be Einblatt editor before membership secretary. Also, Matt should bug Scott if he hasn't seen the Einblatt by a week from tomorrow. == Conventions == * The ghost of the Minicon in 2020 The hotel has not responded to Aaron's questions about whether they agree that force majeure has occurred. Maybe they are all furloughed. At least they haven't billed us! Aaron's not sure what happens with our $600 deposit for this year. Aaron might consider calling them. Nothing is changing at this point. We already didn't have the event. But we'd really like closure, i.e. the hotel just saying that they agree we don't owe them. * Minicon 55 (now in 2021) No board business at this time. We did discuss whether registration is still open (yes) and whether a new deadline has been published (sorta: it says "sometime in 2021"). * Minicon 56 (now in 2022) Aaron will ask Don and Sharla in a couple of months if they want to chair. * Worst Convergence Ever There have been no changes to the rules from the Department of Natural Resources. The state parks remain open. This convention is still legal to hold on the dates it is scheduled for. * Decongestant 5 Nothing new to report. * Decongestant 6 Aaron is still trying to get information from a potential new hotel. He'll keep trying. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing new to report. == Next meeting == May 11, 6pm, on Jitsi, set up by Scott. >> New TODO list * (2020-03) Matt will ask bright young faces about being Einblatt editor (first) and/or membership secretary (second). * (2020-03) Scott will do some recruiting for getting us a nicer style sheet for our website -- Scott reports this is in progress. * (2020-03) Scott will look into whether Zoom has special non-profit accounts. * (2020-04) Matt will draft language for putting the virtual meeting policy into the bylaws. * (2020-04) Matt should bug Scott if he hasn't seen the Einblatt by a week from tomorrow (April 24). >> Perpetually recurring items for next time * Approve last meeting's minutes * Review TODO list * Review recurring task list * Conventions * Next meeting >> Tabled/continued items for next time * Proposed changes to harassment policy * Bylaws amendments