These minutes were copied, by Matt Strait, out of a clean PDF in 2020. The text should be exactly as it is in the PDF, up to minor formatting tweaks to make it look nice in plain text, and Matt looked it over just in case. Full lines of dashes signify page breaks in the original. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Minutes of The Emergency Minn-Stf Board Meeting of 26 June 1997, at the home of Eileen Lufkin Attending: Margo Bratton, Dean Gahlon, Polly Peterson, Martin Schafer, and Geri Sullivan (The Right Honorable Minn-Stf Board); Fred A. Levy Haskell (Official Happy Deadwood & Recording Secretary); Mark Richards (Minicon Treasurer); and Don Bailey (Interested Party). The meeting was Called to Order at 8:45 PM. Business [skunk] The Minicon 32 Financial Mess. Geri: Requests an overview. Mark: The overview is: - Riverside Bank sent us a notice that the Minicon 32 account was about $5,000 short of covering our hotel check (for about $9,700). They paid the hotel, since they knew we had money in the Minicon 33 account, but they wanted us to get the Minicon 32 account up to snuff as soon as possible. - This happened because I double-entered the art show checks--the records showed about $5,000 more than we actually have. - We are still expecting to receive about $4,800 from Visa and $1,500 for shuttle service. - In the past, the soda pop distributor demanded cash in advance and then would refund for the amount we didn't use; this year, they were willing to have a post-Minicon billing instead. So, unlike previous years, we won't have a refund check coming from them. Polly: Why is the "total in" for the Art Show less than the "total out"? Martin: A lot of the art was charged to Visa, which is entered separately. It works out. Geri: It looks like there were about 300 people at the door (if we figure $17,600 divided by $60 is 294). But the $17,600 also includes conversions, so.... Martin: Or it could be 200 at-the-door (which is pretty low) and 400 conversions. Geri: Overall, can you see what's out of line that might have caused the problem? Martin: Well, $6,000 less than expected at the door would be a chunk. GoH is $6,000. NASA ate up a chunk (we bought nonrefundable airline tickets for them, then had to redo one ticket at full-fare). Ops seems out of line. GoH room charges seems out of line. Martin: I have a copy of Minicon 33's initial budgeting. It's basically Minicon 31's budget with a few things massaged. Doing a comparison: M31/M33 Budget M32 Actual Difference Art Show .............. $300................ $700 ................ $400 Awards.................. -0-................ $400 ................ $400 Program Book ........ $4,200.............. $5,700 ...............$1,500 Jump Start ............. -0-.............. $7,000 ...............$7,000 Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 25 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Geri: Was there a budget document? Mark: No. Tom either didn't have or didn't share a budget. It's my understanding that department heads weren't told what their budget was. Martin: Ops looks way out of line. GoH looks $2,000 low. Dean: Looking at page 8, Ops "Other" description, First Aid classes seems high. Margo: This was a result of stupid/nonexistent scheduling. People were sent out to classes one-by-one rather than being assembled and bringing an instructor in. This is a very expensive way to do it. Dean: I wonder what the "Janet Moe Insurance" line is. Mark: It's because they lost a microphone. The amount was less than the deductible on the insurance, so we just paid it and called it an "insurance" expense. It's reimbursement for lost equipment. Polly: Let's not spend the whole evening doing this--going over every little detail line by line. Don: What's the projection for when we might have the Visa money in? Mark: Maybe next week. It's the third time I've sent it in--the first two times they bounced it for using the wrong form. Polly: Does Riverside Bank handle Visa? Mark: No. The Regional Visa processing center is First Bank. We submit it to them, and then they deposit it into the designated account. Polly: So there's still $5,000 still floating out there? Mark: Yes. Minicon 33 should get the Visa payment: about $4,800 less 2%; which is about $4,704. Geri: Based on everything we know, how much money did Minicon 32 make or lose? Mark: Minicon 32 lost... assuming no other surprises... well, there's about $9,000 in expenses, and we're still expecting about $6,200 in; therefore Minicon 32 lost about $2,800. Board: So, a rough guess is that we lost $3,000 on approximately $119,000 total cash flow. Geri: Besides registrations at the door, do any other income spots look odd? Martin: There's $1,100 in bounced checks, which isn't that unusual, but we should be aware of it. Minicon's policy is that people must make good plus $15. Some may have been made good at the door. The Board, after some discussion, determined: Assuming 3,600 or 3,700 people, Minicon collected about $26 per person. The Board speaks: [hand pointing right] If there really was no budget, this is a major problem. Action Item: [hand pointing right] We need a Registration report. It should contain both financials and headcount. Don: I'll try to get in touch with Kate to get all the information. Question: Could there be a batch of missing checks? Answer: Uncertain, but probably not. Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 26 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark: The cash register tapes reconciled, more or less. Don: Do we need to add money to the Minicon 32 account? Martin: Maybe a smidge. $500 or so. Board Direction: [hand pointing right] Transfer $7,000 from Minicon 33 to Minicon 32 to cover the current problem. [hand pointing right] Minn-Stf will pay (or has paid) the Kinko's bill and will not bill Minicon for its portion of it. [hand pointing right] Since Minn-Stf has about $6,000 in the checking account, it can put $5,000 toward Minicon as follows: $4,500 to Minicon 33, the rest ($500) to Minicon 32. [hand pointing right] When the Visa receipts come in (about $4,800 less 2%; which is about $4,704), Minn-Stf will retain that money instead of passing it to Minicon. [hand pointing right] Polly will see that these things happen. Martin: The Board ought to set minimum target for Minicon 33 to turn over to Minn-Stf. Board: [hand pointing right] This was not your fault, so don't take this as punitive, but shoot for $20,000. Revising Minn-Stf's Budget. Board: We had budgeted about $10,000 for Minn-Stf expenses this year. We need to identify $6,000 in basic expenses, and cut it back to that. [hand pointing right] Minn-Stf will not buy a computer this year, and the $900 computer allocation needs to be revised. [hand pointing right] The money for RUNE to be cut back. If Tom can put it out for less than $1,000, including postage, he should go ahead. [hand pointing right] Minn-Stf will give Doug Friauff [sic: Friauf] $150 for a Minneapolis in '73 Party at the Worldcon (LoneStarCon) instead of the $300 we approved before. [hand pointing right] Eric can go ahead with the current TotU for Diversicon, but the next issue should not be scheduled until December, 1998. [hand pointing right] Don should buy FileMaker Pro IBM for Beth. This will cost approximately $200. [hand pointing right] This should leave us some "safety cushion." Polly: Don can borrow my PC to do cross-platform investigation. Mark: I'll email the board if there are any further surprises. Meeting adjourned at 10:45 PM. Submitted by: Fred A. Levy Haskell Official Happy Deadwood & Recording Secretary, Minn=Stf Minn-Stf Board Minutes--Page 27 ------------------------------------------------------------------------