MN-Stf Board Meeting - April 5, 2004

Present: Scott Raun, Dean Gahlon, Joe Agee, Lisa Freitag, Sharon Kahn,
Greg Ketter, William Ketter

The board discussed Betsy Lundsten's bid for Minicon 40 in 2010. The Board
agreed that they think we should have Minicon 40 in 2005, so will not be
accepting her bid.

Greg Ketter gave his proposal to move a week after Easter in 2005 with Terry
Prachett as Guest of Honor and Jim Young as Fan guest. Greg thinks we should
commit to Easter for the next year to keep our lock on that time and prevent
other local conventions from moving into the traditional Minicon time. Laura
Jean and Larry found that we would not get as good a deal if we move off of
Easter. They were still negotiating for a hotel. Scott is mad at the
Millenium right now anyway. Greg is putting on another convention (Fiddler's
Green) and may have more leverage with them. Greg is willing to put a little
effort into getting another hotel if needed. It all depends on the deal they
can give us. Greg understands MN-Stf's restraints and can work within the
budget. Greg would be willing to split the cost of the plane ticket so that
he can have Terry at the store. Jim, as one of the founders of MN-Stf, is a
good choice for the 40th Minicon and may be a draw for some of the older fans.
The board also talked about being as inclusive as possible. Greg has talked
to Neil about working with him and Greg is interested in Neil's idea about a
film program. A lot of people have offered to help both from in town and
outside; people who would come back on board to work with Greg. Greg says that
they will need a party budget for conventions. They do not necessarily need
to go to the Worldcon. Greg would sell memberships actively at these parties.
Greg would like to see the pre-registration rate stay the same, but drop the
at-the-door to $50. He would still be in favor of one day rates, but don't
advertise them until after the last pre-registration date has passed.
Saturday would be a little more than Friday or Sunday.

Scott feels that Minicon should have $5000 seed money and make $4500 beyond
that to give back to the club. Anything beyond that would be greatly
appreciated. Sharon would like to see less spent on the Worldcon party.
MnStf has a tentative commitment to do the dead dog party at the con in
Boston. Sharon thinks we should only do a WorldCon party if it is the dead dog
party (which is relatively inexpensive because the space is provided and all
the other parties at worldcon donate their left over supplies meaning that
Minicon would have to buy only a few things to fill in the gaps) and it needs
to sell enough memberships to at least break even. It was suggested that
there be a party czar to encourage other fan groups to have room parties. They
could also sponsor some of the suites that we have as part of the consuite.
Greg wants to be out actively getting new members. We should look to get
college SF clubs involved. Joe mentioned that they should look at an auction
for MN-Stf as is happening this year. Sharon is ready to award them the Ducky
box.

Greg is concerned about being responsible for closing ceremonies at M 39, and
there is some history of the next con being a presence at closing ceremonies.
Greg will talk to Dave Romm about doing something for the closing ceremonies.

Neil Belski arrived. He knows that his personality rubs some people the wrong
way, but he feels that he has some interesting ideas to present. There have
been few constants over the last several years. Minicon did not have to get
this much smaller. He thinks that Easter is important because it is a point
of consistency so does not want to give it up. He has done some exploration
of hotels away from downtown. He was approached by the Holiday Inn who has a
24 hour shuttle to and from the Mall-o and the Airport. They would not charge
for function space if we had 200 room nights. Marscon was there with a 700
person convention. They want another SF convention to book with them.

Neil would like to get bang for the buck without putting much buck in it. This
would be putting back some stuff like a video program (but he has some concern
on how to do it legally). He would like to get film schools to enter a film
contest for a membership plus $10 and try to get prizes donated or traded from
local studios for free ads in the program book. It would be for SF, fantasy
and horror and children's films. Neil would donate the use of his surround
sound projector to save money. Lisa had a concern about having too many
categories so that there were not enough films in each category to

He has emailed Chris Moore about the hypothetical guest invitation and was
accepted in 15 minutes. Moore writes humorous stuff. As a person who might
bring in new people he would invite George Chesborough. His stuff transcends
mystery and would get new people in. Chris Moore also goes beyond SF. Neil
says that he is close to a break out as a big writer. Neil admits he has been
negative about Minicon in the past, but it should rise Phoenix-like and go
back to being something bold and innovative. He thinks that a convention is
the best toy that exists (paraphrasing Orson Wells). He has been talking to
Margie and Ben Lessinger, Rick Gellman, and other people who have walked away
in the past. He believes it could make good seed money for the next
convention. Regarding enough restaurants, the con committee needs to do the
work of getting together a restaurant guide and with the shuttle and light
rail they have a lot of choices.

Lisa asked about whether Neil has the contacts with the film schools. Neil has
a list and says that the small fee would ensure that we don't get just any
dreadful film. Polly says that there is an independent film organization that
has an email list where we could put out a request for proposals.

Neil also proposes that we heal rifts by having Don Bailey as fan guest of
honor. He worked very hard for Minicon before he went away and it would be
nice to invite him back.

Sharon suggests a combined convention. Neil is concerned that it would grow
too much from having Prachett as the guest. There are a lot of people who have
problems with Easter weekend. Chris Moore lives in Hawaii so would be
expensive to bring the same year (but would not require Business class). Rates
at Holiday Inn would be $93. Neil looked at a couple of others (Four Points
out by Hwy 280) but public transport is harder there. If we get more out of
town people, then airport transportation is important.

They would be willing to give us a multiyear contract. The Board was clear
that they did not want to give anyone a multiyear contract until we have tried
out their space at least one year.

The board sent the two bidders away to consult.

Lisa asked did the con need a table for Chap book and t-shirt sales and the
board did not know. If Terry would want to do a chap book they would
certainly like to accommodate him, but the board does not feel that Minicon
needs to do it.

The board will not micromanage the convention committee.

The board would like to have Greg chair the convention and have Neil work with
him especially on the film contest. They endorse the principles they both had
of reaching out to past members of Minicon and MN-stf.

Other meeting business:

The board will meet first Mondays and start at 7:30 pm. Polly would like to
be really efficient so that she can leave by 9 pm.

The next meeting will be May 3.

Scott will track people down at Minicon to get the account transferred to the
new board. He suggests that we go away from requiring two signatures since
the bank does not check whether or not there are two signatures. Scott
proposes that we require only one signature. Currently the signers are
Laura Jean, Richard, Larry and Kevin. The board suggests that it go to Irene
(treasurer), Kevin (president), Dean (board member) and Richard (easy to find).

Lisa is email impaired so wants to be sure that people realize that she needs
to at a minimum get a call regarding any discussion that is important. Polly
brought up again the issue of pornographic spam from the board bounce. Scott
will talk to DDB about what options there are to filter it.

Someone needs to talk to David Schroth about being corresponding secretary.
Sharon will talk to him.

Archives - Still need to get the stuff out of Kay's house. Marian Turner will
have them but she needs to do some construction before she could take them.
Sharon tried calling them about this. They may be able to move them in while
we have the truck for schlepping stuff for Minicon.

Lisa said that Greg was concerned about people wanting 24 hour access to them
but Scott and Dean assured her that this was in no way necessary.

So far there is no knowledge of a (Monday) dessicated dead dog party. Dean
will be willing to host it if you don't give it a cutesy name.