Board Minutes 2010-01-30 In attendance: Seven Anderson, Dean Gahlon, Carol Kennedy, Betsy Lundsten, Matt Strait, Scott Raun, David Waldorf (who took minutes) MNSTF Accounting: - We now know, to the penny, how much money MNSTF has in its accounts. - Carol advised that the board could know this information at any time with just a phone call or email. - Matt indicated that one of the Ameriprise accounts has check-writing privileges, but as this was a surprise he wonders how it is we've been getting money out of it. - Carol indicated that she knows nothing about the check-writing capabilities. - Carol said that she can get the name of the Account Representative. - Scott mentioned that Irene is on the Ameriprise account and would be willing to help straighten everything out. - Also, Greg Larsen is an account rep at Ameriprise and we might be able to get the account transferred to him. - Matt was wondering how we're managing to keep a positive balance in our checking account when Minicon has been losing money or breaking even. - Carol indicated that the positive balance is a result of the merging of accounts. - Carol is still content being Treasurer. - Dorf paid for the new MNSTF Dreamhost account and is not interested in being reimbursed the $10 it cost him. - Seven suggested an email account for the Treasurer, and the switch to paperless statements. - Matt & the rest of the board strongly prefer to not switch to paperless statements. - What about online banking, should the board have access to that for our accounts? Consensus was no, because this conflicts with the principle of requiring two signers for checks; these systems would allow any one person full control. If there were read-only online banking, that would work, but we doubt this is available. - Carol is willing to scan all the statements each month and make them available to the board by way of the website. She will email them to Dorf who will put them up on the site. Convivial/Fallcon Account: - Matt wonders if the remainder of the Convivial account should go to Kevin & Laurel Krahn. - Carol believes that the account was started with money from MNSTF - Scott recommended that a check should be written for the remainder of the account, and then the account should be closed. If Kevin and Laurel later ask for money, we can still give it to them. General agreement. - MNSTF requires the fallcon chairs to return any profits to the club, but indicated that they recommend that the con keep the registration cost low enough so they break even. - Matt thinks that the Fallcon Chairs for fallcon 2010 should open an account and the Convivial account should be closed. - Scott thinks that a bank that has account types for condo associations would be a good option for that. - Carol is fine with this, so long as the con chairs are also fine with it. - Matt thinks that it should be possible, if necessary, to give seed money to the fall con. But it should be done only if the Hotel needs money up front. Also, if the convention is given seed money, that should come back to MNSTF. - POLICY ITEM: Matt asked if the board will vote on allowing the fallcon chairs to set up and handle their own banking without the requirement to report the arrangements to the Minn-stf Treasurer. The board unanimously approved this, but only under the conditions that (1) if they receive seed money, the board will want to know the details of their banking, and (2) in any case, the board will want to see at least a simple accounting that shows how much money the con made and spent. MNSTF Accounting: - The board also agreed to raise the meeting stipend to $75, effective immediately. - The board also approved $50 to $100 to purchase a duplexer for the MNSTF printer, and also approved the purchase of a new toner cartridge for the printer as well. However, the board wants to charge Minicon for its printing. It was agreed that the club charges Minicon a flat per page cost for printing. It is not terribly important that the charge exactly match what toner costs; the main idea is to make sure that Minicon does not consider printing to be free. - MNSTF has about $40,500 in its accounts. - Matt states that $20,000 is roughly the most money Minicon could lose in a year if something catastrophic were to happen. This is the hotel penalty under our current contract if we cancel the con at the last minute. - Matt also proposes spending the other $20,000+ over the next 10 years on worthy causes, such as keeping Minicon cheaper, the Gordon R. Dickson Fund, raising meeting stipends & other positive fannish pursuits. - Seven recommended supporting other local fannish community stuff - Matt suggested telling the Fallcon to not aim to break even, but instead to have them aim at losing $200. - Dean notes that our institutional memory is bad. How will future boards remember what we're trying to do? - Matt suggested adding a bylaw. But the board did not think this was sufficient because of the risk of the extra spending becoming habitual and going on past when it was appropriate. - Scott asked how much we are willing to raise the profit target for Minicon 5-10 years down the road when we are done spending money. - Scott recommended that it be a yearly decision, to prevent institutional memory. - The board decided that a better way to word this potential bylaw is that if the balance of the club's account is comfortably above the cost of Minicon catastrophically failing, the club should aim to (usefully) spend enough that year to lower the balance by $2000. - Do we, as a non-profit organization, want to ask others for donations, including our members? - Scott, on having heard that the Minicon Checking Account is linked to the Minicon PayPal account, wants it disconnected for security reasons. - Seven proposed a quarterly report on the board's activities to the membership. - Matt agreed with the idea, though he mentions that the board minutes are posted online. - Scott recommended possibly CCing the announcement about the board minutes being posted to web to the general membership. - the board agreed that a summary is better than the straight minutes. - Seven amends her proposal to be an annual report, instead of a quarterly report. - Matt endorsed the idea again, and, because of the nature of fandom, Seven gets to prepare it.