Minutes for Minnstf board meeting Wed June 26, 6:30pm, Scott's house. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved! == TODO == * (2019-05) Scott will look to see if we got an inventory from Terry. Scott e-mailed the link to the Google doc. It does not seem to have been updated post-Minicon 54, although we're not sure we can recognize if it was changed. Maybe Terry has the inventory still on paper? Aaron will communicate with him. * (2019-05) Scott will get ASCAP done for 2018 and 2019. The paperwork is filled out. The check requests are filled out. Scott needs to hand them to Carol. Done: * (2019-05) Scott will tell Carol of her new extended cheer powers. * (2019-05) Matt will tell the M55 chairs of their $3200 profit target. * (2019-05) Matt will ask our new quartermaster candidate if they'll do it. * (2019-05) Matt will make sure Don and Sharla know about the GPS agreement requirements for Minicon, and ask them to make sure to inform concom members of how voting eligibility works. == Fundraising and concessions == Scott reports that there's this company that has the scheme where you go and sell hot dogs at a baseball game and get a cut of the proceeds for your non-profit organization. We are not sure that anyone in Minnstf would be interested, but neither are we sure that no one would be interested. Scott will post the opportunity on natter and such. == Emily's proposal for bylaw amendment == Emily proposes to amend the bylaws to change the list of meetings that count towards voting eligibility as follows: --- begin Emily's proposal --- i) The regular annual meeting of the members [unchanged] ii) Special meetings of the members called pursuant to paragraph #2 above. [unchanged] iii) Up to five (5) meetings regularly established for social purposes. [currently uncapped] iv) Up to five (5) general convention committee meetings [currently four] v) Up to three (3) parcels of volunteer time, each in increments of two hours. A potential voter may volunteer up to one parcel per calendar day. This volunteer time may be outside of, or during a convention, but the volunteer time should be specific to at least one convention. [new] --- end Emily's proposal --- Two other proposals on the table: * Reduce the total meeting count required from seven to five. Allow up to three of them to be concom meetings. This reflects that the number of meetings is down from when we set seven in the 1970's. Back then there were 26 or more social meetings, and now we have 22ish. And back then Minicon had more like 14ish concom meetings to the recent 8ish. * Keep seven. Allow up to four (or five) to be social meetings or parcels of non-convention volunteering and up to four (or five) to be concom meetings or parcels of convention volunteering. This is a simpler and more symmetric version of Emily's proposal. (Scott asks if Decongestant has ever had a concom meeting. Matt says yes, one open concom meeting in 3 and a half years. Maybe there will be one this year.) Here are some problems that some people (including Emily and the board, and probably others) are trying to solve: * Some people are very active in Minicon and can't vote because they don't attend social meetings. * In order to become a voting member, one needs to attend at least one house party, since you need three social meetings and we have only been holding two social meetings annually in public usually -- the pool party and the picnic, although we occasionally have also been using the GPS meeting space. The board does not uniformly find either of these to be problems or not problems. Whether or not we modify the voting rules, Matt proposes that we try to have more public meetings. It does not seem like we really like the GPS space for meetings. We've already allocated funds to use it, which Matt suggests redirecting at a second annual pool party. Or something like that, but we already know we like pool parties and know how to run them. Eric notes that the mean age of people who attend our social meetings is substantially higher than the mean age of Minicon department heads. By favoring the former in the voting pool, we may be discouraging some people from joining the Minicon concom. There is a general sense that we don't want to take on the bookkeeping of tracking volunteer hours as part of voting eligibility. Clay asks if there are really people clambering to be voting members who are locked out because of the current rules. Others answer that we don't think so, but there are people who *we* want to be voting members because it would make them feel more included, boost their participation, and contribute positively by voting. We all seem happy with reducing seven (total meetings) to five and four (concom meetings) to three. Or four of us are happy and Clay is ambivalent. Matt proposes that since this is strict reduction in requirements, we could implement it mid-year, but also because there's no urgency and this is a constitutional-level change (informally, it's just part of the bylaws, but it seems like a relatively big deal), we table it until the next board meeting and think about it before changing the rules. Matt will communicate with Sharon about the idea of having a second pool party and not more than one GPS-space meeting. == Quartermaster == Emily would be willing to be quartermaster if we found someone to prep the storage locker for Minicon move-in. She wants it to be the board's responsibility to ensure that this other person does this. Preferably this person should drive the move-in truck and help with move-in. Matt points out that the description of quartermaster does not include doing *anything* about Minicon move-in/move-out. For Minicon it only says that the quartermaster should understand which items in the locker are used by Minicon and coordinate when some other function wants to use an item that's primarily for Minicon. It's Minicon's responsibility to get prepped for Minicon and do the move-in/move-out. The fact that Terry did some of this was him going above and beyond. We all think this is fine. We will tell Emily we'd be happy to have her be quartermaster under the terms that she's not in charge of Minicon move-in. The board is not going to directly take on organizing move-in, but we will also remind the Minicon 55 chairs how quartermaster relates to move-in/move-out and that it seems another person needs to be found for the latter. == Review recurring task list == The wiki is back up, so we can do this item. Matt maybe should copy the recurring task list into the agenda ahead of the meeting so we don't have this single point of failure. Scott renewed mnstf.org and minicon.org. We got the notifications on schedule. No other recurring tasks need attention at this time. == Rune == Matt has produced one page of Rune 91. He did it in hecto, 40 copies. More pages to follow. == Archivist == A little while ago Aaron gave Matt a bunch of stuff that showed up at the GPS office for us. They were old papers. Matt organized them and put them away in the archives. Matt responded to an e-mail from a fan wanting to donate t-shirts to us, saying we'd be happy to have them. == Conventions == * Minicon 54 Two people need to get Matt receipts. Clay needs to submit his final report. It looks like we are going to be very close to the profit target, since every update since the last report has added money relative to the estimates. * Minicon 55 It exists. Clay says that he's going to make the first deposit the first week of August. * Decongestant 4 Some registrations have been tricking in. Matt asks if there are any hints about how many Arcana folks are coming. Not yet. * Minneapolis in 2073 Nothing to report. == PayPal == Clay wonders where we are on satisfying Paypal's demands for documents. Matt has given up. Maybe it's just better to have our money go right to the bank account anyway. We'll try it and if it's awful, we can put in the work to satisfy their unreasonable demands for very specific documents. == Vanguard == Aaron checked the account on Monday and it is up $900. It goes up and down a lot, of course. Aaron would like to know if there's a point where we want to sweep money back to checking. No, it's only half of our money, we are happy to accept the risk of leaving it there and the higher average return of doing so. == Next meeting == How about Aug 28, 2pm, at Diversicon, assuming that Diversicon is ok with having us meet there without us all being members. Matt will ask. == New TODO list == * (2019-06) Aaron will ask Terry about the inventory. * (2019-05) Scott will finish off ASCAP for 2018 and 2019. * (2019-06) Matt will communicate with Sharon about the idea of having a second pool party and not more than one GPS-space meeting. * (2019-06) Matt will communicate with Emily about quartermaster. * (2019-06) Matt will point out to Don and Sharla that Emily will be quartermaster, but that doesn't mean Minicon move-in/move-out, and that probably at least one more person is needed for that job now. * (2019-06) Matt will ask Diversicon if it's ok for us to meet there with only two and a half of us being members. == Here's the recurring task list, copied from the wiki, not often edited == Each January, pay GPS $200 as per our cooperative agreement with them. Pay the rent on the PO box. Twice annually, Apr/Mayish and Oct/Novish. We are notified of this by e-mail to board-at-mnstf-org on the first of the month for a bill due at the end of that month. Possibly we also get a paper bill in the PO box. As of November 2018, this is an automatic credit card payment. Proposals for future Minicons: Solicit starting 18 months prior to the desired Minicon, requesting that bids be in to the board by January 31 (approximately 14 months before the proposed convention), with earlier being better. Proposals for next year's fallcon: Solicit at and immediately after the current fallcon, if any, or sometime in the fall if we're skipping a year. Due to the board by February 15, approximately 8 months before the proposed convention. Convention preliminary finances: Due to the board one month after convention. Should include gross income, gross profit, and amount given to the board. Final finances must be done "within six months of the convention or by thirty days prior to the deadline for filing Society tax returns for the tax year in which the convention was held, whichever is earlier", as per the bylaws. ASCAP: Due maybe March 31 for previous year, although they are not very clear. To be done by the MnStf Treasurer at the direction of the board. Voting meeting: The Membership Secretary (currently, Laura Krentz) and outgoing President should make arrangements for nomination and voting meetings. The board should check over and update the information for new board members. The voting meeting must happen before March 31, typically before Minicon. There are two nominating meetings that must happen before then. At the first meeting of the new board, review the mailing lists and forwarding addresses: The board-chat mailing list is currently administered by Scott Raun and DD-B. Currently the board-at-mnstf forwarding address goes to Scott. Remember to switch the president-at-mnstf forwarding address sometime between the voting meeting and Minicon. Officers: Chosen by the new board at the voting meeting or as soon as possible thereafter. Names and positions of officers should be submitted to the MnStf webmaster. Taxes: Due May 15. At this point, since we gross under $50k, we only have to file the 990N "postcard." Scott has been doing this. This is done for 2018 taxes (in 2019). Scott reminds himself to do it with Chrome to make PDF generation easier. Every December (this timing is arbitrary): Review what address we have on file with the state of Minnesota or whoever else won't use the PO Box. As of 2019, this is Scott and Irene's house. Annual renewal with the Minnesota Secretary of State for Minnesota Science Fiction Society: Deadline is Dec 31, but can be done anytime in the year. Done for 2019. Here's where we do it. Before the end of June: Annual domain registration renewal and contact information verification through GANDI. Current domains are mnstf.org and minicon.org. GANDI sends notifications to the address on file (board-at-mnstf), who needs to confirm information. Feb/March-ish, July-ish, Oct/November-ish: Get a report from the Quartermaster. January, April, July, October: Send bills for past due accounts. June, December: Send notice to concoms reminding them how voting member status works. ========================================================================