Mnstf board meeting, Wednesday Oct 6, 2021, 6pm at Hershey's. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Aaron Vander Giessen, Hershey Harris, Linda Lounsbury, Scott Raun. Attending other: Emily Stewart. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved. == Review TODO list == * (2021-06) Scott will correspond with ASCAP to tell them we had no events in the last year: Scott sent them an e-mail and hasn't heard back from them. Done: * (2021-08) Matt will ask Quartermaster Brother Joe to check on the storage locker -- Brother Joe checked on Sept 22, and it was all good. He sent us a photo. * (2021-08) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. * (2021-08) Aaron will work out what we'll owe the Minicon hotel if we have half the regular number of room nights. Aaron did the math. Half is 165 room nights, which results in a $23k charge, which includes paying for the non-bought room nights plus more for function space. If we got 182 room nights, it is $2.7k less. At that point we get a break on the function space. We'd really like to book 285 room nights, which avoids all of the extra fees. We discussed how room-night attrition works. When will we know if we're likely to get the room-nights we want? It's hard to say. A lot of people registered ahead of the first dates of the con in 2020. There won't be an obvious way of knowing if they are going to come (and get room-nights) in 2022 even though they are still registered. Speaking of which, we should remind them that they're registered. We'll recommend to the chairs that they send an e-mail and/or postcard to everyone who's registered. Matt volunteers to take care of the postcards if the chairs want postcards. == Ratifications == We told Emily that she could use the Minn-stf name for a Perler Bead event in the GPS space. Did we approve this by e-mail? Unclear. If not, shall we now? Yes, we approve it. But Emily doesn't want to do it anymore because of Delta. Maybe she'll do it later. We approve anything along these lines that Emily might want to do later. == Review recurring task list == It's time to pay the rent on the PO box. We should have gotten an e-mail to board@mnstf.org on Oct 1, and maybe a paper bill. It should have been automatically paid. We should check. Scott hasn't gotten an e-mail yet, maybe it's not Oct 1, but just sometime in October. Linda reports that the box still opens and there's no past-due card in it. Hershey will check with Carol that her card gets charged. Theoretically we should solicit bids for the Minicon in 2023. What does this mean given COVID? Well, we have a two-year contract with the hotel still. We should ask Don and Sharla if they want to do the next Minicon. Oct/November-ish we are supposed to get a report from the Quartermaster, but Brother Joe just checked on the storage locker Sept 22, so let's hold off. We should send bills for past due accounts. == Possible donation == Discussion of possible donation that Karen alerted us to. Just now, Matt e-mailed Karen asking for clarification on the terms of the donation. == Conventions == * Minicon 55: covered above. * Decongestant 5: Did we get dates? Hershey thinks yes? She'll get back to us. * Minneapolis in 2073: no report. Will we have a party at Windycon? Will that be possible and/or reasonable? We still don't know! We should have a big party at Chicon 8 (Sept 1-5, 2022)... if COVID has receded... == Next meeting == Wednesday Nov 17, 6pm at Hershey's. == New TODO list == * (2021-06) Scott will correspond with ASCAP to tell them we had no events in the last year. * (2021-10) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. * (2021-10) Aaron will let the Minicon 55 chairs know that we recommend telling people who are registered that they are registered. * (2021-10) Hershey will check with Carol that her card got charged for the PO box. * (2021-10) Aaron will ask Don and Sharla about Minicon in 2023 (56?). * (2021-10) Matt will send bills for past due accounts.