Minn-STF board meeting, Jan 24, 2023 6pm, by videoconference, on Jitsi. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Aaron Vander Giessen, Scott Raun, Linda Lounsbury. Non-attending board members: Isaac Schneider. Attending non-board members: Stacey Lam == Approve previous meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == The remaining TODO list is: * (2021-06) Scott will correspond with ASCAP to tell them we had no events 2020-2021. Nothing yet. Back on the TODO list. * (2022-10) Isaac'll make a spreadsheet of the storage locker bins and e-mail us a link to all the photos somewhere. Isaac's not here. Back on the TODO list. Done/moot: * (2022-10) Matt and Isaac will work on researching credit unions so we don't have to do the previous US Bank items. Done. They recommend trying out Spire for one of our checking accounts for a while. We approve of getting a non-profit membership and a checking account for Minicon 57. The signers should probably be Irene (Minnstf treasurer), Matt (M57 chair), and whoever Matt finds to be M57 treasurer. * (2022-12) Linda will talk to President Sharon about how she is empowered to make sure that meeting hosts get their stipends/reimbursements. * (2022-09) Isaac will try to access to the online banking. Scott will get Irene to generate a new invite for Isaac. Matt will see if we can get the same mailing address on all our checking accounts. But we closed that account, so these are moot. * (2022-12) Isaac will e-mail Matt numbers for what accounts owe what accounts money and how much we owe Clay. Happened. * (2022-10) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. Happened. == Review recurring task list == * Read this list into the minutes so we have a recent copy if the wiki goes down (done below). * Pay GPS $200 as per our cooperative agreement with them. * Send bills for past due accounts. * Discuss covid policy and affirmatively either keep, modify, or end the policy. We affirmatively keep it without modification. * We need to think about the voting meeting and nominating meetings. The pool party, Feb 11, can be one of the nominating meetings. The other nominating meeting should probably be online. Maybe Feb 25. Voting meeting maybe March 25. (There needs to be at least about four weeks between them for mailing out ballots.) Scott will talk to Sharon about the voting meeting and the other nominating meeting. Here's the whole list: January: read this list into the minutes so we have a recent copy if the wiki goes down. January: pay GPS $200 as per our cooperative agreement with them. Pay the rent on the PO box, annually in October. 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 June 2021, 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. Scott reminds himself to do it with Chrome to make PDF generation easier. https://sa.www4.irs.gov/epostcard/secure/home/ is the IRS page to start on. With the taxes (actual deadline Dec 31): Renew Minicon assumed name (as of 2020, must be paper filed). https://www.sos.state.mn.us/business-liens/business-forms-fees/assumed-n amedba/ is the SoS page to start on. With the taxes (actual deadline Dec 31): Annual renewal with the Minnesota Secretary of State for Minnesota Science Fiction Society. Here's where we do it. May: If we want to continue annual book donations (done 2020-2022), get it going. 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 they have (board-at-mnstf), who needs to confirm information. September: Confirm Give-To-The-Max account so we can get our donations. 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 2020, this is Scott and Irene's house. Feb/March-ish, July-ish, Oct/November-ish: Get a report from the Quartermaster. January, April, July, October: Send bills for past due accounts. Marchish (new board) and first meeting after June 15, Sept 15, Dec 15: Discuss covid policy and affirmatively either keep, modify, or end the policy. June, December: Send notice to concoms reminding them how voting member status works. == Financials == Carol reports that she has reconciled the 11/30/22 bank statement. See above about us getting a Spire Credit Union membership and checking account. Vanguard has $30,200 as of today. That's up. == Conventions == * Minicon 56 Proceeding apace. * Minicon 57 We have a draft contract from the Crowne Plaza, which looks expensive, one from our current hotel, which looks good, and a pretty good outline of a proposal from the RadishTree. * Decongestant 5 The books are closed. We lost $1344.42. We should move this amount from the main checking account to the Minicon account, which temporarily covered the loss. We lost a bunch of money because we had a pre-covid hotel contract and a intra-covid con. We were anticipating 70-80 members and got only 62, of which only 49 attended, and also of which many paid reduced rates, either $10 off for hardship, or partial-weekend at-the-door rates. We were down something like the equivalent of 20 full members in income compared to D4. Each full pre-reg member pays $50 and costs the con around $13. So that's $740. And D4 lost $689.20. Add those up and you get about D5's loss. We paid $450 to have the teen room (that's the total with all everything included), which didn't get very much use, and that was a valid criticism of previous Decongestants as well. Future fallcons anticipating a membership around 50, or even around 75, should probably not do this like I did. It's supposed to be worth it by fostering future volunteers, but there's a threshold below which it's not worthwhile. * Proposal for a convention by Stacey and Hershey in Sept/Oct 2023, CONFelicity We have a draft contract from the same Hilton that Decongestant has been at. The co-chairs would be Stacey Lam and Hershey Harris. The rates are good, just up similar to the inflation rate since last time we got a contract. We're just going to take one large function room for all three days and one large function room for just Saturday, and no board rooms. This will keep costs down a lot relative to Decongestant. Stacey has sent us a draft budget that shows breaking even at around 55 members with an average of $50 paid per member. They're hoping to get a few parties to run in the 2nd floor sleeping rooms that aren't the consuite. They do not yet have someone to run the consuite. Clay will do pre-registration. The dates are Oct 6-8, 2023. Scott and Irene will bring cake; it's over their anniversary. Same rates as at Decongestant 5. Linda inquires about the $10 really-just-an-hour rate. How is that enforced? It's not, but it's better than people ghosting and paying nothing. Aaron suggests dropping the $10 rate, but keeping the $20 just-a-few-hours rate. Or maybe don't advertise these rates, but have them under the table ready to use as needed. Yeah, maybe they'll do that. We approve. They can sign the contract. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing has happened, except that I got an e-mail from our 1000th member correcting the spelling of his name and being generally entertaining. Linda says that we've also received another pre-support by mail. Also 17 bounces from the latest progress report. == Taxes == We'll get our 1099 from Vanguard soon. But it doesn't matter because we're going to be under the threshold for gross receipts for having to file more than the "postcard" return (990N), which is $50k. == Parties == Are any of our groups running a party at Capricon? Nope. == Amazon Smile == It is ceasing to exist, so we won't get our lower two digit bi-annual income from that anymore. Aw shucks. == Next meeting == 2pm on Saturday Feb 25, on Jitsi. == Review new TODO list == * (2021-06) Scott will correspond with ASCAP to tell them we had no events 2020-2021. * (2022-10) Isaac'll make a spreadsheet of the storage locker bins and e-mail us a link to all the photos somewhere. * (2023-01) Scott will talk to Carol to get GPS paid $200 as per our cooperative agreement with them. Aaron will get Scott a new address to have it mailed to. * (2023-01) Matt will send bills for past due accounts. * (2023-01) Matt will get Spire going. * (2023-01) Matt will announce the next meeting to officers and chairs. * (2023-01) Scott will talk to Sharon about the voting meeting and the other nominating meeting. * (2023-01) Aaron will create a pool party announcement for social media.