Minn-StF board meeting, Feb 16, 2022, 6pm, on Jitsi. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Aaron Vander Giessen, Scott Raun, Hershey Harris, Linda Lounsbury (starting where it says "Linda appears!" below) Attending other: Issac Schneider. == 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. No progress, back on the TODO list. * (2022-01) Scott will ask Carol to pay GPS $200 as per our agreement. Asked. Don't think it has happened yet. Scott will follow up. * (2022-01) Aaron will ask Don and Sharla/Grenevic about Minicon in 2023 (56?), again, at the next concom meeting, in January. They are reluctant to commit after having taken three years to plan this one. But they didn't say no. See later for more discussion. Done: * (2022-01) Matt will ask Brother Joe to check on the storage locker in January. Joe checked the locker on Feb 12 and it is all good. * (2022-01) Scott will buy N95 masks for meetings: 100 ordered on Feb 10, should be here in time for the Feb 26 in-person (outside) meeting. They have shipped, but have not yet arrived. Matt will bring a box of 25 masks to the Feb 26 meeting. He already has it. * (2022-01) Scott will talk to Sharon about the nominating and voting meetings, and also about having a meeting in March in general. * (2022-01) Matt will send bills for past due accounts. * (2022-01) Matt will write down a concrete in-person meeting covid policy. * (2022-01) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. == Review recurring task list == Nothing this month, except to start stressing out about Minicon 56 (see below). == Grant application for Vibrator Girl == We received an application for a $1000 grant towards production of a SF/horror short film called Vibrator Girl. It includes "ideas about medical anxiety, anhedonia, body dysmorphia, social isolation, and technology." This is being directed by Matt's sister, Kara. Therefore, Matt recuses himself from voting. Scott, Hershey and Aaron all like the idea. Aaron is just worried that we may be paying a lot of our savings to the Minicon hotel this year if we only fill half the room block. Hershey is of the opinion that one grand either way doesn't make much difference if that happens. Scott says that the last grant anything like this, it was TOTU. It wasn't that much like this, though. What do we get for it? They are running a Kickstarter-like fundraising campaign and $1000 gets you "Associate Producer credit". Also a bunch of other stuff that doesn't make a lot of sense for an organization to receive. Approved 3-0-1. Hershey asks if we should also be supporting Uncle Hugo's, which is getting ready to move into a new location. Well, we haven't been directly donating to Uncle Hugo's, but we have bought a big chunk of books from them (and also Dreamhaven) the last two years for donation to local schools. And we plan to continue this. Linda appears! Linda is not enthusiastic about Vibrator Girl, but bows to the three votes in favor. How will we be able to see the results of our grant? Can we have a showing at Minicon? At Decongestant (and then Minicon)? Matt will find out. It would also be nice to get our logo in next to our "Associate Producer" credit. If we did show it at a con, we'd want to know what its approximate rating would be, if it were rated, which it definitely won't be. Obviously it deals with sexuality, but it's not clear how that will be handled on screen. == Covid and in-person club meetings == Should we buy air purifiers for use at parties? We discussed this last time and decided we needed to think about it. Does it make more sense to buy them for Minicon rather than for parties? Then there's not the probably-unrealistic expectation of hauling them around from house to house. But they would really get used in the consuite at Minicon. And they could get pulled out of the storage locker for use at Minnstf meetings if desired, which would be a bonus. It's logistically difficult to move them directly from one meeting to another, unless there's a single person responsible for moving it who is going to be at the beginning and end of every meeting. It's not even very reasonable to assume that the host of the next meeting will be at the end of the previous meeting. For Minicon, Hershey would like two purifiers, one for each side room of the consuite where people will be allowed to take their masks off to eat. Scott likes two also, because then you can carry one in each hand. Matt: that might work with some models, but not his, which are two-handed carries. We should make sure they're rated for at least 300 square feet, since the side rooms of the consuite are probably between 200 and 300 square feet.. Hershey volunteers Clay to research a good model for us, and to buy two of them and two sets of replacement filters for each. Matt proposes this language for our in-person covid meeting policy: 1) Those who attend in-person Minnstf meetings must have had all the covid shots that the CDC recommends for their age group and that are medically possible for them to have. 2) Meeting hosts may set and enforce additional covid mitigation rules, regardless of whether the meeting is being held in their house. 3) Members that do not satisfy a meeting's covid requirements are allowed to come to the door of the house, or closest equivalent, and have their attendance recorded without entering. This shall be deemed as attendance for voting purposes. 4) This policy does not apply if both Hennepin and Ramsey counties are listed as "low" community transmission by the CDC. 5) This policy will automatically expire upon the election of a new board unless that new board reapproves it. Discussion: What is "low" transmission? It is under 10 cases per 100,000 per week, which is VERY low. Hennepin never got this low even at the best point last summer. Ramsey was "low" for about a week last summer. Why are we requiring both to be "low" at the same time? What if Ramsey is "low", but Hennepin isn't, then the policy is still in place? Yes, because the general sentiment seems to be that people want a pretty conservative rule. What if Ramsey and Hennepin are both "low", but adjoining counties have high transmission? Some people might come from those. Well, we can't avoid all risk all the time. Policy approved as written above. Matt will post it online. == Conventions == * Minicon 55 Aaron's getting excited. He has at least two hotel rooms personally. Matt heads off minutia: What do we need to talk about that is board-level, not our opinions about Minicon internals that the concom can handle? Matt says he's only concerned about two things: (1) the room block, but we have no control over that and (2) there's no concom meeting schedule. Aaron will talk to the chairs and encourage them them to schedule the next meeting. * Minicon 56 We usually line up the hotel contract and GoH over a year in advance, and also accept memberships for the next year at the current year. So it would be really nice to have chairs soon. We do already have a hotel contract, because our two-year contract has slid along with covid cancellations. It's now for 2022 and 2023. We're hoping that Don and Grenevic will want to run it, and we're going to give them some time to actually run a con and start having good feelings about the outcome. We're also completely committed to having Minicon 56, so someone will step up to be chair in any case. We will go ahead and accept memberships for 56 regardless of exactly where we are on chair selection, appointing an interim chair if needed. Back to M55: Discussion of getting a Teen Room head. Isaac is now 21, definitely not a teen. AJ's 20th birthday is the week before Minicon, which is maaaaaaaarginal. The board declares that this is an item of minutia that the board is interested in that Aaron should bring up with the chairs (but we're not issuing any directives). * Decongestant 5 The chair (Matt) and shadow chair (Issac) are here. Everything is in place. We agree that we're not going to do anything until after Minicon. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing to report. == Next meeting == Will be of the new board once they are elected March 19. == New TODO list == * (2022-02) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. * (2021-06) Scott will correspond with ASCAP to tell them we had no events in the last year. * (2022-01) Scott will follow up with Carol about paying GPS $200 as per our agreement. * (2022-02) Matt will find out how we can arrange for a screening of Vibrator Girl at Minicon. Also how to pay the grant. Also if we can get our logo in. Also what the approximate equivalent rating would be, for purposes of thinking about our screening. * (2022-02) Hershey will tell Clay he's been voluntold to buy air filters. * (2022-02) Matt will post the covid policy on the website. * (2022-02) Aaron will talk to Minicon 55 chairs and see if he can get them to schedule a concom meeting, and ask them about the Teen Room.