Concom Minutes 24 June 2007

Minicon Concom Meeting – Sunday June 24, 2007

Agenda:

CONvergence party
Ben Huset
Meeting time
Refer-a-friend
Music
Reg stats
Sub-committees: space, roast
Hall costumes
Reg space – coat room needs to be in contract

Stamps – can we get our own MnStf stamps? How much does it cost? Does USPS do it too?

Refunds from last year – Coke $280, Hotel $180

Function space – Carol is out of the country; room nights – right now, it sounds like we need 300 room-nights – are we going to have trouble meeting this? 150/night might be high – last year, didn’t make room block (300) 10 days before convention → $4500 pre-payment to hotel (about a dozen room-nights short) – picked up missing room nights during convention (don’t have final number of room nights, but essentially just over 300). Thus, in the end, we paid ~$4300 for guests of honor room, etc. Got a complimentary room night for every 50 or so, so that covered Green Room…

Concluded that we’ll take coat room w/ ballroom; Keith, Matt, Rachel, and Chas may take field trip down to Sheraton to look at function space (might be okay to look @ CONvergence, but need to do it as organized look-around, not just each indiv wandering around during con); Rachel still has a small concern re: if we actually fit in pool-half stuff

CONvergence Party: we have 2nd floor cabana room, Fri & Sat nights; Fri 6pm
We’ll bring blinkie Peeps & Peep lights
Sharon & Richard will bring lights & cushions
We definitely want our chair
Sharon will take bigger reg box
Need to check with Beth re: meatballs or chicken wings from last year
Matt & Kelly will handle blog – 2-3 full recipes, maybe some extra juice
S&R will arrive & be ready to start setting up around 4
Sharon (&Kelly?) will find out about room number – check e-mail
Minicon party fliers – Kelly will handle – maybe get graphics from Keith
(Remind Greg re: wayne barlowe books at Dreamhaven)

Film room – Cybil Smith (?) has offered to help run film room; can we casually check around CONvergence (Cinema REX) re: legalities about showing, or maybe see if there are people who might also like to help w/ our room?; also talk to Eric Heideman (movies at Diversicon party) – if he’d be interested in helping? → could be a room-party type of room

Rachel hasn’t asked Ben specifically about Science yet (Rachel will see if he wants to come; once confirmed, Keith/Matt could send e-mail asking if he’d like to be “science head” or something like that officially listed for concom) – still wondering about space for them. Still in holding pattern re: space – everybody’s free on Tuesday. Concerns re: noise came from outside concom before – Rachel’s experience at WisCon suggests that it’ll be fine. 2:00 by front desk – make sure we’re not interrupting anything – Keith will call on Monday

Check that Chas is on concom e-mail list? He responded to list, got e-mail back: something that says it’s been forwarded to moderator (we assume that’s Laurel) – check on list members again

We’ve decided Shipside for sure for music concerts – 2 sets of signs: one pointing toward the door, one in main area pointing toward area (?) – not a necessarily obvious location

MUSIC: Chas started LJ community – kinds of music circles, invitational party; currently planning on some concert slots – some equipment will have to be rented/borrowed; need ~$260 for sound system, etc; assume some regulars (e.g. Riverfolk) will perform; Eric Coleman (?) will be attending – mentioned he’d be at Minicon – has been GoH at Archon, dementia at Mars, plays at Demi, Duck

Music programming: song-writers panel; jamming 101 (to model bad jamming behavior); performance critique panel?; Rachel & Chas will need to coordinate some re: scheduling; Chas will take care of finding people for panels

Invitational party (Dave Perry) vs. open filking/jamming (NOT Shipside; thinking about one of the rooms w/ airwalls – would only be at night; co-opt one of the panel rooms) – hotel did not want “noise” in short tower, due to non-convention guests

Dave Perry – has indicated to Chas that he’d like to have a party, one night only; last year, it wasn’t clear that there were private parties – was next door to open filking room, which was closed for some reason, not well-signed → people who walked into private room thought they were walking into open room → Essentially, just needed better communication, signage, etc. – no Minicon music functions will be in pool-side sleeping rooms, so should be clearer (want to be directly opposite consuite); chas has ideas for designing something attractive for musicians who are not invited to the Perry party, hopefully to smooth out some of the things left over from last year

Can Matt get reg info from Peer? Is there some “high-tech” way to have this info available? Unitless thermometer on website (ha-ha?)? linkless page on website? Esp would like to be able to keep track of regs from parties

Carol is the one who checks the PO box – she’ll be back soon-ish? Can get additional keys – Peer should definitely get one, we think; Matt will check back on e-mail from Carol re: many ways to do this

Keith thinks we should send out whatever refer-a-friend thing we do w/ PR1 – no objections

We think the 3:00 actually came from Beth & Joel; everyone seems to like 3:00 – we’re going to keep it :-) Maybe we could try to schedule one of the meetings at a time that the Vikings aren’t playing…

Andra brought t-shirt design – font doesn’t have numbers – suggested that we could use Roman numerals (although we did do that for 41); Rachel would like to communicate w/ Barlowe re: programming ideas directly; Keith is thinking dark red for t-shirt color; right now we’re thinking picture on front, other writing on back… maybe we could have 2 colors, though that might make things more complicated than we really want, or maybe “girl” cut & “normal” – we’ve gone to 4X (half-dozen or so) → conclusion: 1 color, not black, 2 cuts, “girl” cut in “central” sizes. Marilee kept tick-marks; we’d put the order in in Feb; might be a good idea to change order from “what we’ve always ordered” to something that actually represents what we usually sell; should consider post-order procedure before-hand, though may not need it in practice; Matt happy to let Keith do whatever he wants, so long as it says “43” somewhere

Still looking for Art Show, Volunteers; also casually looking for Green Room, but seems less pressing – Rachel says @ Wiscon, panelists actually meet beforehand
Suggestions:

  • Keith has maybe asked his friend Matt re: volunteers, no answer yet?
  • do we actually need a Volunteers head? When minicon was bigger, we didn’t have one – dept heads got their own; do we have slots that we sign up for anymore?
    • Music doesn’t need random folks
    • Gaming would benefit, but doesn’t need
    • Consuite DEFINITELY needs them (also before & after)
    • Really prob need to start badging consuite/bar – who do badgers report to if we don’t have ops? Is there a specific way to recruit badgers?
  • Does anyone actually check the “volunteers” box on the forms? Is there a better way to handle volunteers before con?
  • Do we send out an e-mail right before con? We could mention in this e-mail (or an earlier one?) re: volunteer needs – should send out something (e-mail or card or maybe both) one month before
  • Stress volunteering in PRs
  • Sign-up sheets at MnStf meetings
  • Bar tenders should actually check for badges too when serving
  • David has list of artists who submitted last year – would any of them be suitable to approach? Matt will ask, or Chas will see him next weekend
    • It might be nice to know in some sort of official way exactly what is involved in running art show – David could maybe come to next concom meeting? UNDERSTUDIES!
  • Casually ask around convergence – other art volunteers

Can e-mail Bonnie at Chas’ UMN e-mail