Minn-stf board meeting, Thursday, June 11, 6pm, by videoconference. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Scott Raun, Eric Forste, Aaron Vander Giessen, Linda Lounsbury. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == No pending TODO items! DONE: * (2020-03) Scott will do some recruiting for getting us a nicer style sheet for our website. Either a volunteer, or paid labor up to $500. We have a volunteer, a newish club member, so this is tentatively done. * (2020-05) Eric will look into whether 8x8 (commercial version of Jitsi) would be useful for us. Eric reports that he hasn't found any compelling reasons to prefer 8x8 to Jitsi. * (2020-04) Matt will draft language for putting the virtual meeting policy into the bylaws. See below. * (2020-05) Aaron will figure out if we need to reimburse Ken Koski for the domain he uses for the Minicon programming database. We don't. * (2020-05) Aaron will get an update on Worst Convergence Ever status from Emily. It's still up in the air, see below. * (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. Postcard sent, got a reply (by text). Yes, she has and she's sending along a bill for Minicon and holding a big box of fanzines for Matt. This turned out to be much more important than we thought, since our post office was burned to the ground on May 29. We probably didn't lose anything. Hershey picked up the mail on roughly the 19, we don't get that much mail (except right before Minicon), and it's possible they moved our mail prior to the riots, although that's very unclear. Matt also talked with Hershey about figuring out how to get our mail now. She's going to try to get it at whatever post office is is now going to and see what happens. Maybe brandishing our key will do the trick. If not, we'll figure it out. * (2020-03) Matt will ask Osce about being Einblatt editor. He agreed! Scott is working with him to switch over. New TODO items: Scott will finish writing up how he has done the Einblatt for Osce. Matt will find out about getting Osce a Dreamhost panel account, or whatever the minimum needed is, so he can administer the Einblatt announce list. == Review recurring task list == * We should remind concoms how voting member status works. Aaron will send out this reminder. * Scott has renewed mnstf.org and minicon.org for a total of $34.40. == Uncle Hugo's (and Dreamhaven) == Uncle Hugo's was burned down in the riots and was a 100% loss. Dreamhaven was looted, but the loss was much more minor. Both are running fundraisers, with goals of $500k and $25k, respectively. It seems like it is legal for us to donate money to a for-profit if the money is earmarked for a particular purchase that relates to our mission and a paper trail is kept that confirms it is spent on that thing. Scott proposes we do three things in order: (1) determine the amount we want to give (2) talk to a lawyer (3) talk to Don to see if our amount is worth the bookkeeping overhead for him. A lawyer could mean asking Jonathan Adams. We agree on $1000. Scott will talk to Jonathan. It does not seem to us that us donating to Dreamhaven, proportional to their need, would be worth it for them, given the small amount that would be and the overhead. == What about Con or Bust or similar? == Matt says, it seems like this would be a good time to support fannish organizations that support fans of color. We've done this a little in the past by donating Minicon memberships to Con or Bust. Can we do that and/or more? Does Con or Bust still exist? Scott will find out. He'll also look into other organizations we might support for supporting fans of color, since none of us know any. Scott will also find out the rules for giving to other non-profits along with the rules for giving to for-profits. == Proposed changes to harassment policy == Matt proposes dropping this unless/until a board members has an interest in pursuing it. No one objects. == Bylaws amendments == On virtual meetings, the current policy is: ***** 1) Minicon meeting virtual attendance counts at the discretion of the chair or their designate. 2) Minn-StF meeting virtual attendance at a physical meeting does not count. 3) Minn-StF meeting virtual attendance at a virtual meeting does count. It will be the responsibility of the host to turn over an attendance record to the Membership Secretary. ***** Matt proposes this language for moving the policy into the bylaws. Insert a new sub-paragraph III.6.b (under III.6, "Recorded attendance at various types of meetings shall count or not count towards voting membership, as follows:"): ***** b) For meetings of one of the types defined in (a) that include the possibility of remote attendance: i) For the regular annual meeting, remote attendees of the business meeting shall count towards voting membership ii) For special meetings of the members, remote attendance shall count towards voting membership by discretion of the board of directors iii) For regularly established social meetings, if the meeting is intended to be primarily attended remotely and/or all social interactions occur through the remote connection platform, attendance shall count towards voting membership, but not otherwise iv) For general convention committee meetings, remote attendance shall count towards voting membership at the discretion of the chair, or their designate For meetings in which remote attendance counts towards voting membership, it shall be the responsibility of the host to provide the remote attendance list to the Membership Secretary. ***** And of course change the existing (b) to (c) and (c) to (d). Eric feels this language is perhaps overly complicated and would like to run it past Laura (outgoing membership secretary) and Michael (incoming membership secretary) before possibly adopting it. That seems reasonable to all. It is pointed out that the language is complex because it is fitting into a fairly complex set of existing rules about meetings, including a type of meetings ("special" ones) that we never have. Matt says the virtual meeting rules could be stated simply as "attendance counts if it seems like it ought to", but he didn't think that was a great way of writing bylaws. We previously agreed 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. == Meetings of the membership == We've now tried a virtual meeting (on Discord on June 6, hosted by Kevin, with a viewing of a silent movie). How did it go? Should we repeat it? Sharon (president) and Kevin (host) liked it and are willing to do it again. Linda thought it went well. Scott thought it went as he thought it would. Eric thinks maybe people should try to come all at the same time. Isaac maybe volunteered to do one in July. So in summary, we thought it was at least ok and are willing to keep supporting the idea. == Officers == We finished filling officer positions at some point recently, and the results, to make sure they're all in one place, are: President: Sharon Kahn First Vice President: Isaac Schneider Vice President in charge of Seconding: Nico Johnson Treasurer: Irene Raun Assistant treasurer: Carol Kennedy Correspondence Secretary: Hershey Lima Membership Secretary: Michael Hagerman Recording Secretary: Matthew Strait Einblatt Editor: Osce Erikson Rune Editor: Matthew Strait and Kelly Strait Webmaster: Clay Harris Archivist: Matthew Strait Quartermaster: Joe Lima Since we now have a lot of new and/or young officers, should we ask them to report at board meetings somewhat more frequently than never? Invite them to all meetings? Ask them to attend at least quarterly? Just suggest that they come sometimes? We don't want to make it an obligation, but we'd like them to know what's going on and for us to know how they're doing. Matt will start sending out the board meeting dates to officers and gently suggesting they attend sometimes. Since we're meeting online, it's possibly *easier* for them to do that. == Conventions == * The ghost of the Minicon in 2020 We still have not heard from the hotel confirming we don't owe them anything. Aaron will continue trying to get an answer from them. * Minicon 55 (now in 2021) Aaron will prod the chairs into thinking about whether a concom meeting is needed, finding out if the GoH are really still planning to come, etc. * Minicon 56 (now in 2022) Nothing to discuss. * Worst Convergence Ever No change. Still waiting for the DNR to set pandemic policy for the dates. As of now, group camp sites are closed "until further notice". * Decongestant 5 Matt is waiting and seeing. He won't cancel it before August. * Decongestant 6 (or Decongestant 5 in 2021) Nothing to report. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing to report. == Next meeting == Monday, July 27, 6pm, on Jitsi. == New TODO list == * (2020-06) Aaron will remind concoms how voting status works. He'll also prod the Minicon 55 chairs into thinking about whether a concom meeting is needed, etc. * (2020-06) Scott will finish writing up how he has done the Einblatt for Osce. * (2020-06) Matt will find out about getting Osce a Dreamhost panel account, or whatever the minimum needed is so he can administer the Einblatt announce list. * (2020-06) Scott will talk to Jonathan about whether we can donate to Uncle Hugo's. He'll also find out the rules for giving to other non-profits. * (2020-06) Does Con or Bust still exist? Scott will find out. He'll also look into other organizations we might support for supporting fans of color. * (2020-06) Eric will run proposed virtual meeting bylaws language past Laura and Michael. * (2020-06) Matt will make a mailing list for officers to announce board meetings to them. >> 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 * Bylaws amendments * Donations