Oct 10, 2015, at JOFCon, 7pm, in Courtyard 3. Attending board members: Matt Strait, Ann Totusek, Scott Raun, Kevin Austin, Lydy Nickerson. Also attending for the Quartermaster section: Joel Phillips. Also somewhat nearby in the room, but playing a game and not obviously paying attention: Clay Harris, Cally Soukup, Richard Tatge, Joe Lima (a.k.a. Brother Joe), Hershey Harris (formerly Lima) (who is consulted during the meeting). Convened at 7:11pm. == Approve previous minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == Not yet completely done: "Ann will gently prod Corwin about paying Minicon 50." Ann has not done this. Corwin has been busy with a new baby. Not yet two weeks old at this point. Ann will use the opportunity of visiting the baby to gently prod him. "Ann will talk to Dean about our solution for meetings." This is the one about sending hosts a canned e-mail for information for Einblatt that also contains information about banned people. Ann has not yet done this, but Dean is here at JOFCon. At this point Ann runs off to get Dean, and hopefully also Joel, so we can talk to him about quartermaster duties. Time passes. Ann walks back in the room, doesn't make it as far as our table, and walks back out of the room. Time passes. Ann walks back in the room, doesn't make it even as far as last time, and walks back out of the room. Ann is having a conversation with someone else in the hall. Ann walks back in the room. Will she make it here? Ah, she says that she is not sure where Joel has gone. Ann has talked to Dean. Yes, he got the money, and he agrees with the e-mail plan for meetings. Dean can simply use the e-mail that Scott sent to board-chat. Scott will resend it to board-chat. Lydy will add the one necessary line and send to Dean. "Lydy or Ann will *send* their e-mail to the University of Iowa about tapes." Not done yet. "Lydy will put together an informational packet for new board members." Not done yet. It is noted that this is not currently urgent, but there is a clear deadline of the voting meeting in March. "Matt and Ann will work on a M51 policies and departments document. Matt will send Ann the Minicon 50 version of this." Second part DONE. Ann has read it, and thought about it this weekend. She will work on updating it for M51. Ann wonders if we can institute more official standing policies for Minicon. We all agree that this is possible, through the bylaws or other policy documents. Some exist already, such as the requirement of a harassment policy and the financial rules in the bylaws. We need specific proposals to discuss and then we can figure out whether and how to do it, and whether what we want is standing policies for *Minicon* or standing policies for *conventions*. Ann will ponder. "Matt will settle M51 -> M50 money." In progress: asked US Bank to send me a check on Sept 28. It hasn't arrived yet. It could reasonably come this week. Has the real M51 checkbook arrived yet? Ann asks Hershey. She checked the PO box c. Sept 23, and the checks weren't in there. She hasn't checked since then. She will. "Scott will ask Carol whether the ASCAP check has cleared." Scott has asked Carol. She told Scott that she would work on Mnstf stuff this weekend. "Scott will see if Carol will move our Ameriprise money as we planned." Ditto. "Scott will follow up with DD-B about Spideroak." Scott reports "Unlikely to have an answer before JOFCon - he's still working on figuring out Spideroak's basic paradigm's in terms of security vs. sharing. He needs to create a sacrificial e-mail address and generate a block of time to work on it." Completely done: "Scott will ping Terry about when she is going to come talk to the board." DONE. We now know what this is about -- see below. "Scott will solicit a 2016 fallcon in the Einblatt, and will ask Dean to mention it at business meetings." DONE. "Scott will ask DD-B to link to the wiki." Scott has asked, and the link is now there. "Matt will ask Joel if he would like to be quartermaster under the now-approved definition, and if so, if he could give a first report at our November meeting [or thereabouts]." DONE, he accepts. "Scott will ask Carol to write Dean a check." DONE. "Scott will talk to Don Blyly about breaking up the Minn-StF Credit of $111.29, which will then be used for awards / rewards at Minicon." DONE -- Scott stopped in at Uncle Hugo's and spoke to Don. He says we can turn it into whatever gift certificates we like - just let him know a month or so before Minicon. It was agreed that doing it now would have too high a probability of the certificates getting lost. "Scott will do our annual Secretary of State renewal." DONE on September 12. "Scott will dig out meeting-hosting instructions and send it to board-chat." DONE. "Matt will start putting the date of the next meeting at the top of the TODO list when he sends it out. Lydy will complain if it isn't there." DONE. Kevin will update the annual TODO list on the wiki. DONE. == Review Recurring Task List == Scott says we got a letter from the IRS saying they hadn't gotten our tax filing for 2014. Scott is following up with Carol. == Quartermaster == Ann goes to try to fetch Joel again. Ann returns with Joel! Do we approve funding to feed volunteers during an inventory? We all approve! Specifically, up to $50. Joel says that there are some things in the storage locker that need to go away. They are being used sorta as shelving and sorta just taking up space and preventing organization. There is the old bar from the big Minicons -- the Darkstar bar? It's a big wooden bar. There are two big objects like this. The dumpster on site is too small for this. We would have to break them down on site, since we also don't have a big enough vehicle to get it away. Joel can find out how easy they are to get apart or if we can find a vehicle to get it out. A pickup truck would be enough. Once these things are gone, it will open up some space, but also the things that have been stacked on them will need new shelving. Joel would like approval to throw some other things out, like the "itty bitty toys that have accumulated there". All of the flashlights have already been given away. If it is something branded Minicon or Minstf, it makes sense to keep, but otherwise, we should ditch it. We also need a place/time to test the Mothership, which we would like to use at Midamericon II (August 2016). Ann already has to rent a truck for personal reasons this week. Would that work? Joel says no. He is really busy this month with work and Windycon. The best days for him are Friday and Saturday in the future, but not this week. Matt points out that renting a truck for a few hours doesn't cost much. Joel will figure out what to do. The board authorizes him to take it apart and throw it away, and Joel will tell us if he needs money. Joel mentions that items to watch out for in the locker are the refrigerator and three roaster ovens, all of which work fine now, but won't last forever. When Joel does the inventory, anything that isn't in tubs, Joel will ask the board what we want to do with. Joel anticipates an inventory sometime before Thanksgiving, or the first weekend of December. That two week window, depending on volunteers. Joel will handle getting the volunteers. Scott will also put something in the Einblatt, if he gets an e-mail from Joel reminding him. Matt reminds everyone that part of the job of quartermaster is to track things not in the locker, such as the paper cutter that Matt has, the tri-folder, which is somewhere, the saddle stapler, which hasn't been seen in years, and the Bluetooth speakerphone that Scott is holding for board meetings. But probably also a dozen other things that we will slowly think of. Discussion of party tubs, i.e. for throwing a party at Convergence. Joel and Ann would like to make sure people can know how to keep them stocked with consumables if they use them. We will make a new address, quartermaster@mnstf.org, for Joel. Scott will ask DD-B to set that up. Let's set up a board meeting that Joel can make after the inventory. He will have the inventory done by Saturday, Dec 12. Ok, we will will have a meeting on Saturday, Dec 19 at 2pm at the Minnstf meeting at Scott's house. We also write down Sunday, Nov 22 at 2pm, and will decide by the end of this meeting if we really want to do that, or can skip it. (We then decided to skip it.) == Archivist report == Boxes from Geri contained various interesting things, notably a copy of the Minicon 1 student activities approval form, and lots of board minutes that weren't otherwise known extant. Matt is working through getting these on the web, with roughly a dozen up so far. == Conventions == * Minicon 50 Two remaining pieces of business: Need to get paid back by M51 -- check should be in the mail from US Bank, and need to get paid by Corwin. Matt sent him a new invoice with a SASE. He owes us $1265. * Minicon 51 and 52 The contract is signed! Ann is very pleased with Keith. (We are back at the Radishtree.) We got everything we wanted. The only thing we didn't get was free meeting space, which we can do without. We don't have a room rate increase for two years. Ann thinks it is the same as last year. ===> NOTE: This is a two-year contract for M51 and M52. It is roughly the same contract as we have had. The first concom meeting is next weekend. * Minneapolis in 2073 Planning to get Progress Report 8 out by Windycon, and throw a party there. * Possible fallcon in 2016 Dean has been advertising at meetings that we want a bid. Ditto in Einblatt. No bids yet. == Terry Garey == In 1991, Rune Press published Time Frames, a poetry anthology. Terry is holding 200+ copies of this, believes that Minn-StF has recovered the costs of printing, and would like to start sending them out a few at a time to be put on convention freebie tables. Shall we authorize her to give away the remaining copies of Time Frames? Yes, we do not think we are likely to be able to sell these at any significant profit, whereas giving them away generates good will and is good advertising for the press and Minnstf (the books have our logo on them). We authorize this. Scott gave one copy to Matt just now for the archives. == Pop machine == Ann would like Minn-stf to buy Kelly's pop machine. It is perhaps $600, which Ann says is worthwhile, since it saves us loads of money when used. Ann would like that this machine be available to other local conventions. We would like this to be stored in the storage locker, which seems to be a fine solution for everyone. Matt will ask Kelly about this. == Next meetings (two) == We look at the TODO list and decide that a November meeting is not needed unless there is a disaster, so just the December meeting is scheduled. Will will have a meeting on Saturday, Dec 19 at 2pm at the Minnstf meeting at Scott's house. Adjourned at 8:19pm. == New TODO list == Scott will follow up with Carol about taxes. Ann will gently prod Corwin about paying Minicon 50. Lydy or Ann will *send* their e-mail to the University of Iowa about tapes. Lydy will put together an informational packet for new board members. Scott will resend the meeting e-mail to board-chat. Lydy will add the one necessary line and send to Dean. Ann will work on updating the M50 policies and departments document for M51. Scott will ask Carol whether the ASCAP check has cleared. Scott will follow up with DD-B about Spideroak. Scott will see if Carol will move our Ameriprise money as we planned. Scott will get DD-B to set up quartermaster@mnstf.org, for Joel. Scott will put a notice in the Einblatt saying that people should register the things they have that are Minnstf's with Joel. Scott will tell Terry that she can give Time Frames away. Matt will ask Kelly if Minnstf can buy Kelly's pop machine.