Minicon 37 Post Mortem Minutes 4/14/02

Hotel:

There were some communication failures since Tracy (Hotel staff) and Scott Raun didn't get a chance to sit down and go over things. As a result Scott's room somehow ended up on the master account. He will reimburse this appropriately ASAP. We will not know the final room pick up for another month or so.

Registration:

565 warm bodies
643 total registrations
Fred will mail out a report to natter mid week. Registration ran very smoothly.

Publications:

Things in this department also went well but really needs to get started before December 15th. David Schroth states that he could be more vigilant about deadlines but this does allow programming to be very current.

Operations:

Communication went well, the bridge went well.

Parties:

This went well thanks to Geri, states Michael Burgess parties Head. The ordering for food and supplies was right on. People commented on really liking having more real food, healthy food and the timing of putting it out in between meal times worked very well. Planned on having low staff numbers so ordered chopped veggies to help with this. It was not much more expensive and well worth what little extra it cost. The new signs were also great, and should last the next several years. The spaceship was a big hit. People are suggesting it travel to other conventions. Things to consider for travel: the ship is 20 feet across and 8 feet long, weighing 60 pounds. It takes approximately $200.00 - $250.00 to keep it inflated through Friday, Saturday and into Sunday. The left over chips and caramel corn Scott will pick up from the Burgess household and bring to the next MNstf meeting. The logistics for dividing function and party space worked out well but parties was short staffed. Need to delegate early on to prevent this if possible.

Liaison liaison:

The guests were well used on programming, if not a little too busy at times. All of the guests seemed to have a good time.

Programming:

Programming went well although needed more staff. Complaints were that too many good program items were scheduled against one another. The 1 and a half hour blocks worked well.

Treasury:

The hotel bill was much smaller than expected.

Other discussion after the present departments briefed everyone present about the convention.

There could be better coordination of the dock. Perhaps we should have a person in charge of logistics or a dock master to coordinate with the loading dock for trucks, deliverers and Hucksters.

Corwin has the idea that instead of keeping our current storage locker we switch to having a POD deliverery and drop off service. It would be a bit more expensive but may help since we wouldn't have to rent the truck and have volunteers to pick up and drop off. This may be a good idea because our volunteer resources are lower than they used to be. Charmaine Burgess did some research and has printed up figures of the cost but did not talk to anyone with the company.

Neil Rest - pointed out that the bridge appeared to be left unattended very late into the night at some point.

Fred A Levy Haskell - The concom email list should get used more to let people know what's going on. Perhaps monthly maybe have departments post comments.

Andrew Bertke - Not all committee members are email savvy especially important for us to all show up at the meeting to facilitate good communication.

Susan Levy Haskell - Artist Guest of Honor Rick Berry was very happy with the badges and two of the covers but a little disappointed in the reproduction of the cover with the dancer on it.

Fred A Levy Haskell - Points out that Liaisons need to get in touch with Guests of Honor sooner and begin facilitating with programming to allow for more time to plan.

Mike Von Maltzan - States that he had trouble getting a hold of a chair a couple of times when he really needed too.