Concom Minutes 4 Nov 2007

Attendees: Keith Malgren, Andra St. Arnauld, Bonnie Somdahl, Chas Somdahl, Seven, Bill Christ, Rachel Kronick, Matt Strait, Kelly Strait, a huge block of chocolate.

Back cover of program book: can we sell the space on the back cover as an ad (would cover some of printing costs) - Reynolds’ new book (The Prefect) comes out shortly after Minicon; Barlowe’s book will have been out; if we can’t get Gollancz/Ace to take us up on The Prefect, maybe Tor.

Film Room: John Grams contacted re: film room; supposed to set up phone conversation; still don’t have someone who’s agreed to run it fully (didn’t manage to talk to Will; Sybil is working 3 jobs? and therefore maybe doesn’t have time; haven’t actually talked to her, though)

Registrations: Carol will pick up mail, send in checks to be deposited; write check number & other info on reg form, then send on to Peer. Do we have (do we need) a Minicon stamp for endorsing? Carol apparently doesn’t think so. Need to decide how many at-the-door badges we want (100? last year).

T-shirts: we should do pre-orders for t-shirts for M44 - need to have at least a mock-up of this for Bill for pre-printed reg forms.

Could we have the shirts earlier? Normally, OffWorld brings the shirts to the con, so we don’t pay for delivery. But we’ve got the art already, so theoretically we could get them sooner (or some of them sooner) and wear them as advertising - but if they print them now, they might have to store them, or we might have to pay the printing cost twice.

Pre-reg forms: also for M44 - we will finally put the checkbox that says “Please don’t list me on the website”, so we can do this list on the website.

Hall Costumes: Bonnie is in charge - thinking some kind of button w/ rosette as award (she has one), or should we do some sort of gift-like thing? How many awards (a lot, we should prob do ribbons; fewer, we could afford gift)? If we’re going to award 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc., need judges. But if we’d prefer to have something more like mobile masquerade, then some number of us have ribbons, etc, and can hand them to people when you see one you like - can grade ribbons (one level to give to all people who have costumes at all, and nicer/bigger/something special to give to particularly good/special/impressive costumes - the “WOW” costume award).

For the website: Minicon would like to welcome costumers back again this year. Hall costume awards will be given out all weekend.

The button could have a picture from the artist or something else like the badges… in some way, the button could/should indicate that it is from M43 and is maybe not just words - rosette around the button, the ribbons hanging down say “Hall” “Costume”

Pictures: we’d like to have more pictures for the website; those by Dave & ddb tend to be of people sitting around not really doing much, which is fine, but not splashy. So how are we going to get better pictures? (Can we get a picture of Seven from the MnStf Halloween party to put up?) –> looking for roving photographers who will take “interesting” pictures at M43 (Seven volunteers; Keith’s friend Matt could also be roped into this?)

Pins: Bill has a contact in China (?) that can make 4-color closinette (?) pins, but you have to order a gross or something before they’ll do it (maybe min 100 says Bill, for $0.40 ea; turn around 3-4 months, maybe?) - if it’s general enough, could use it for more than one year; Chas/Bonnie might make a design for hall costume pin award (maybe this is the general costume thingy); 1.5″x1″ in size maybe; do they do samples? Bill can e-mail his guy to get specifics. (What about lead paint?)

or maybe could do as special edition badge? no additional set-up cost to do it that way

Dealer Dollars - have some bits of art from Wayne already; Keith is starting to work on Dealer Dollars (what we have is very high res); did some scanning to get badge art for John P.; do we have permission to use his art on the website? Keith thinks we can use anywhere. Wayne has two very different styles - the earlier stuff is more natural history-ish, then God’s Demon is more characteristic of new stuff; 300 dpi minimum - usually 8 pieces of art for badges, plus extras

T-Shirts (take two): much talk about what people here at meeting want; this year, we can (a) do what we’ve always done; (b) try to make a guess about how many women’s t-shirts we might be able to sell; (c) in PR2, we could ask people if they want something specific and have them get that info from them; want to get some sense of what we didn’t sell last year to adjust size distribution. Concom shirts: different color probably costs more; different style probably doesn’t cost anything

Some talk previously about an “ask me” shirt (maybe fun hat?) - obviously, none of us want to wear the same shirt for 3 days, and no one will want to talk to us; there doesn’t seem to be overwhelming interest in having a shirt with the same art in a different style, though it is completely unclear if we want/should have a shirt that is completely different to identify us as concom during the conversation

Ops - we’re not going to have an Ops unless someone comes forward to run it; we’d like concom badges to be VERY clearly different so that they’re easy to see (different aspect ratio or something); given the lack of someone to run it, we’ve decided to put in the program book: “If you need help, during the day, please go to registration; after hours, go to the Consuite; any time, you can ask someone with a concom badge”; could put red border around concom badge; also mention/show at Opening Ceremonies, maybe have concom stand up; could have separate badge that says “I’m One of God’s Demons” (ha ha?); sign at registration that shows what concom badge looks like, and in pocket program.

Program Book: a lot of cons have a phrase that reminds you that what’s illegal outside the con is illegal inside the con; response to emergencies should work the same way - if you’ve cracked your head open, please do not try to hunt down the concom - call 9-1-1. Or maybe a half-sheet of paper with Very Important Information (or in pocket program).

also need to include info on how to get in touch with programming walkie-talkie (if you have questions about programming - we’d like to have it so you dial a number and it rings)

First-Aid Kits: apparently we have this stuff in the storage locker; we should have this stuff at registration, in con suite, and obviously the hotel is prepared for this stuff

Registration: we should ask Carol where she’d like it to be - the coat room is maybe a little far away from everything, although the ballrooms are ours, so how far away can it be?

Guest Liaison: Andra has e-mailed 4 guests; Reynolds has responded that okay for Programming to contact directly, waiting for other responses

Science Room: we have A LOT of space, so if they don’t need it all, we can get other people (Science Museum) to come in with stuff

Bozo Bus Tribune: we do have BBT, Sharon’s doing it; nice little room back w/ registration good place for it

Moving Truck: need to get someone to drive truck; Matt could just do it, but doesn’t like to

PR2: next rate change is 2/14; we’d like to get PR2 out six weeks before that - but that’s 1/1, and that hits the holidays; our next weekend (and hopefully MnStf meeting, though sounds like probably not) is 1/5 and it’d be really nice to do it then (or could we get it done for last December meeting 12/15) - even to do it then, would need everything by mid-December; obviously earlier for December meeting

2 or 3 full sheets of paper; 1 is reg form; one side is art, mailing address, etc.
Inclined to cut list for PR2, ’cause it’s bigger, can be smarter about it ’cause we know more specifically about multiple addresses; and need to take list in to post office to be scrubbed seems to be decided that we’ll do it on 1/5 - we’ll find out if we can officially call it a MnStf meeting (Bill thinks that we only don’t have MnStf meeting on 1/5 ’cause can’t get anyone to volunteer to hold it, since right after New Year’s party), or if just has to be “mailing party”.

Pre-reg forms: Bill needs lead time for new pre-reg design, so if we want to change it, need to get that to him; can leave blank spaces for now, fill in w/ appropriate text (t-shirt sizes, etc) later

Programming: initial programming ideas are out - more ideas welcome; want people to sign up, give suggestions, make changes, etc.
History of Natural History/Evolution Debate: contact www.mnscience.org, www.evolution2008.org, Mark Borrello at U of M
Physics Force? maybe Science Museum has hands-on demo things (know two people in 5536 (UMN class number) who have worked there over summers); Bakken Museum
archeology professors?
Connex? Legos? magneto-thingies like at Convivial? chaos machine (from Steve Jackson Games?)? (had some at WorldCon in LA)
posters - banner for bar; pocket-program-style programming grids as poster to put up in halls (Rachel says easy to do; $.50/ft2 with her discount - so about $12 for “huge thing”)
category of panels for Shawna, ideas from guests themselves

Mark volunteered to be “Blimp Head”; world shortage of helium (so maybe need to work on getting some earlier rather than later)
Musings on the helium crisis - are there any lighter than air gases that aren’t flammable or toxic? Why is there a lack? where does it come from (natural gas)? uranium decay?

CO2-powered cars?

Consuite/Bar: Discussion about lights, signage, glass paint, purple/teal color scheme, etc. We need more party bulbs Could we use the room off the bar for something actually, maybe as part of bar identity, rather than just neglected room that some people crash in? Richard’s light show stuff? Projector that shows actual space objects (galaxies, stars, etc) for bar. Seven thinks that the bar should have high quality (but still cheap) boxed wine (”Black Box”).