The musician GOH's chapbook should have stuff he wrote, or has permission to include. Mia will ask Steve how long he would like it to be. For singing purposes a comb binding is desirable. This has practical minima and maxima of 25 and 75 sheets. Beth reported that for Leslie Fish there were 100 copies of a 50 sheet chapbook. Larry asked that chapbooks be completed early to avoid a last minute printing crunch. There was a general consensus that they should be finished ASAP.
The travel agent we have used in the past has quit. Do we need to find another or should we simply make our own arrangements using the on-line services? The sense of the meeting was that we did not need to find another agent.
Online room registration is available. ConCom members should register. A walkthrough is planned for November. Susan does not believe we will be allowed to post notices on the hotel walls. There was some discussion of static cling paper (rather costly) if that were to be permitted. There will be parking at the hotel with in/out privileges. There is also additional parking nearby at the convention center.
Fred reported that we have slightly over 200 registrations so far. The 10/31 price cutoff may produce a small surge at the end of the month.
Fred would like someone else to take over the database in the future. Rachel said there are plans for that.
Past GOH's have lifetime memberships at Minicon. They should be encouraged to come back.
Beth said there were 8-10 people at the first planning meeting. There will be another meeting in November.
Geri and Joel need to see the Apartment suite at the Hotel, a 3 bedroom apartment. Sandra Childres (from ConJose) will be assisting Geri. Geri has a good sense of the available supplies from the Saturday locker inventory. We will have cooler space, so there is no need for a refrigerator truck ($700 savings). We also have a complete corkage waiver ($600 savings).
There is some question about incentives to offer. One possibility was old Minicon T-Shirts. Perhaps those could be sold, but Larry did not think they would sell well. It would help to have a detailed inventory, but that should be done before the con to allow sufficient time.
Badges for volunteers are another possibility, but the cost of lamination is a problem. Another idea is a button as distinct from a badge. Susan suggested some kind of glow-in-the-dark thing [what exactly were they called?] which could be obtained cheaply.
Another suggestion was to give coupon books for Uncle Hugo's and/or Dreamhaven.
David Schroth plans to have Progress Report 3 to be similar to PR2. Mia said that she has a newer bio of Steve M. that could be included, and that she plans to get yet another bio for the program book.
The Hospitality Suite is being staffed (de facto) by Minicon. We will need a new flyer to distribute there.
Laura Jean said that we need help with doing distributing flyers to libraries, bookstores, etc.
Scott Raun said that we will open a Paypal account for advance registrations. This worked well for ConJose. Taking credit cards for at-the-door registrations is too much trouble to be worthwhile (The Art Auction is able to take credit cards, but that is by special arrangement with Dreamhaven).
Registration at the door will be $70. Geri asked about uncashed checks. Scott said he would look into it.
Larry asked about events. There was some discussion of a banquet--do we have enough people for that? Is Sunday Brunch an option? Susan will check with the hotell. We can also pose the question on our web site to see what the membership thinks.