Minnstf board meeting, May 11, 2020, 6pm, by videoconference. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Scott Raun, Linda Lounsbury, Eric Forste, Aaron Vander Giessen. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == * (2020-03) Matt will ask bright young faces about being Einblatt editor (first) and/or membership secretary (second). -- Michael H has agreed to be membership secretary. Einblatt editor pending. We brainstormed names for Matt to ask about being Einblatt editor. * (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 -- Scott says he has given up. Eric will look into whether 8x8 (commercial version of Jitsi) would be useful for us. * (2020-04) Matt will draft language for putting the virtual meeting policy into the bylaws -- Matt hasn't done it yet, but he will. DONE: * (2020-04) Matt should bug Scott if he hasn't seen the Einblatt by April 24 -- this happened, and the Einblatt went out. == Review recurring task list == Let's read the whole list into the minutes for posterity: (begin list) Each January, pay GPS $200 as per our cooperative agreement with them. Pay the rent on the PO box. Annually, due October 31. We are notified of this by e-mail to board-at-mnstf-org on the first of the month for a bill due at the end of that month. Possibly we also get a paper bill in the PO box. As of April 2020, this is an automatic credit card payment. Proposals for future Minicons: Solicit starting 18 months prior to the desired Minicon, requesting that bids be in to the board by January 31 (approximately 14 months before the proposed convention), with earlier being better. Proposals for next year's fallcon: Solicit at and immediately after the current fallcon, if any, or sometime in the fall if we're skipping a year. Due to the board by February 15, approximately 8 months before the proposed convention. Convention preliminary finances: Due to the board one month after convention. Should include gross income, gross profit, and amount given to the board. Final finances must be done "within six months of the convention or by thirty days prior to the deadline for filing Society tax returns for the tax year in which the convention was held, whichever is earlier", as per the bylaws. ASCAP: Due maybe March 31 for previous year, although they are not very clear. To be done by the MnStf Treasurer at the direction of the board. Voting meeting: The membership secretary and outgoing president should make arrangements for nomination and voting meetings. The board should check over and update the information for new board members. The voting meeting must happen before March 31, typically before Minicon. There are two nominating meetings that must happen before then. At the first meeting of the new board, review the mailing lists and forwarding addresses: The board-chat mailing list is currently administered by Scott Raun and DD-B. Currently the board-at-mnstf forwarding address goes to Scott. Remember to switch the president-at-mnstf forwarding address sometime between the voting meeting and Minicon. Officers: Chosen by the new board at the voting meeting or as soon as possible thereafter. Names and positions of officers should be submitted to the MnStf webmaster. Convention incident info: More than a month before Minicon, and other cons, forward any relevant information about incidents at previous cons to the upcoming con. Taxes: Due May 15. At this point, since we gross under $50k, we only have to file the 990N "postcard." Scott has been doing this. This is done for 2018 taxes (in 2019). Scott reminds himself to do it with Chrome to make PDF generation easier. Every December (this timing is arbitrary): Review what address we have on file with the state of Minnesota or whoever else won't use the PO Box. As of 2019, this is Scott and Irene's house. Every December, or earlier: Renew Minicon assumed name (due by 12/31 of year in question, as of 2020, must be paper filed). Annual renewal with the Minnesota Secretary of State for Minnesota Science Fiction Society: Deadline is Dec 31, but can be done anytime in the year. Done for 2019. Here's where we do it. Before the end of June: Annual domain registration renewal and contact information verification through GANDI. Current domains are mnstf.org and minicon.org. GANDI sends notifications to the address on file (board-at-mnstf), who needs to confirm information. Feb/March-ish, July-ish, Oct/November-ish: Get a report from the Quartermaster. January, April, July, October: Send bills for past due accounts. June, December: Send notice to concoms reminding them how voting member status works. (end list) We're coming up on needing to renew our domains. We haven't gotten the reminder yet. It goes to board-at-mnstf.org, so Scott gets it. Do we need to reimburse for the domain Ken Koski uses for the Minicon programming database? Aaron will figure this out. It is asked whether Hershey has picked up the mail lately. Matt will ask her, by postcard, of course. == Minnstf meetings during the pandemic == Linda has some ideas. What if we roped off 6' square sections of her front lawn and each person sat in one square with a mask on? But it would be very much herding cats. Discussion ensues. It would only be 6' apart if everyone sat in exactly the center of their square. So you'd need 12' squares? Clever arrangements of aisles? Sounds more fun as a puzzle than actually doing it. What if we all each drove our cars to some big parking lot and waved at each other? Would that constitute a meeting? What about one of these drive-by things people do now? No one is against any of these ideas, but we're not entirely sure how well they'd work either. For the drive-by, we'd probably not call it a meeting. We'll also keep seeing if anyone wants to do a videoconference meeting. == Picnic == Is it going to be possible? Is it going to be advisable? We don't (of course) know if it's going to even be legal. Aaron hazards 60/40 against. The orders making it illegal are scheduled to expire, but they keep getting extended. We'll wait a month and evaluate again. It doesn't have to be in July, either. It could (weather-wise) be any time through September. Historically it has been July because it was right after Convergence, so we could advertise it there. But (1) Convergence is in August this year and (2) they're totally going to cancel Convergence this year. == Proposed changes to harassment policy == Propose tabling this again. No objections. == Minicon assumed name == June 2014 minutes say that we had this registered, good through 2019. But that's wrong. Our 1999 registration lasted for 10 years, but after that expires, you have to renew it annually. It's lapsed and we have to pay $25 to reinstate it. Scott has started this process. We approve of this expense. Added to the recurring task list (see above). From now on, renewing is free if we remember to do it every year. == 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 Tabled for now. == Conventions == * The ghost of the Minicon in 2020 We still have not heard from the DoubleTree SLP to confirm that they agree about force majeure. Aaron continues trying. * Minicon 55 (now in 2021) Nothing new to say. * Minicon 56 (now in 2022) Nothing new to say. * Worst Convergence Ever It's not looking good pandemic-wise. The orders that would prevent us from having it legally are scheduled to expire, but they may be extended, and we probably don't want to have it anyway. Aaron will ask Emily what she thinks. How many people are registered? Would Emily reschedule it for next year? Aaron will ask her. * Decongestant 5 Not sure we're going to be able to have it. Or worse, that we will be legally allowed to have it, but won't want to have it. Penalty if we cancel now through May 29 is $810. Maximum penalty, if we cancel after Sept 1, is $1350. So not too bad, but we'd rather not eat it if we don't have to. Force majeure clause is interesting: "The performance of this Agreement is subject to acts of God, government authority, disaster, declared war in the United States, acts of terrorism in the meeting locale or the location of origin of a material number of registered attendees, or other cause beyond the parties' control, which make it commercially impracticable, illegal or impossible to perform as originally contracted under this Agreement provided that at least 70% of registered attendees will not be able to attend. The Agreement may be terminated without liability for any one or more of such reasons by written notice from one party to the other." It's clearly written with sudden events in mind. The stuff about 70% of registered attendees doesn't make much sense for a slow pandemic. People just won't register in the first place. Also not clear if being in a vulnerable group counts as "will not be able to attend". Matt doesn't plan to make a decision soon, but will see how things go for another few months (it's 5 months away still). Shadow chair Isaac concurs. If we choose not to have it, we'll call it a postponement to next year, like what Minicon did. * Decongestant 6 (or Decongestant 5 in 2021) Our contact for the potential hotel, Marriott West Minneapolis has been furloughed until June 15. So we'll hang loose on this for a while. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing new to say. == Storage locker == Aaron asks if Brother Joe has gone to the storage locker since becoming Quartermaster. Not that we know. Is there some reason he should? Well, Matt says, it would be good if someone checked that our stuff was still there since we didn't check by having Minicon. Storage lockers have the irritating habit of randomly threatening to throw all your stuff away for non-payment whether or not you've missed a payment, and sometimes losing your contact information simultaneously. Aaron and/or Emily will go drop off the t-shirts and accomplish that check. == Next meeting == 6pm Thursday June 11. We'll use Jitsi again, same meeting ID as this time. >> New TODO list * (2020-03) Matt will ask our last bright young face about being Einblatt editor, then will ask some old hands. * (2020-03) Scott will do some recruiting for getting us a nicer style sheet for our website. * (2020-05) Eric will look into whether 8x8 (commercial version of Jitsi) would be useful for us. * (2020-04) Matt will draft language for putting the virtual meeting policy into the bylaws. * (2020-05) Aaron will figure out if we need to reimburse Ken Koski for the domain he uses for the Minicon programming database. * (2020-05) Matt will send Hershey a postcard to ask her if she's picked up the mail and if there's anything in there we should see. * (2020-05) Aaron will get an update on Worst Convergence Ever status from Emily. >> 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