Mn-stf board meeting, November 12, 2020 at 6pm, by videoconference. Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), Aaron Vander Giessen, Linda Lounsbury, Scott Raun, Eric Forste. Also attending: Don Stremski, Sharla Stremski. == Approve last meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == * (2020-07) Linda will continue working to buy a pile of books from Uncle Hugo's and figuring out where we can donate them. Delivered the ones from Dreamhaven to Roosevelt High School. Some of those will go to North High, as the librarians at the two schools work out. That's about 22 books. Huzzah! Linda talked with Don. He's having trouble getting publishers to sell him books, but it will happen. That will be about 50 more books. Sharla notes "Mahtomedi High School does still want books for their library if you have them to give away." * (2020-09) Matt (and Scott?) will suitably alter the Einblatt webpage. Matt will do this, by mutual agreement. Scott will focus on the directory. Done: * (2020-09) Matt will convert the website to the new look. Linda notes that the Einblatt is stale. See above and below. Matt will put Einblatts on the webpage using his role as archivist, since our arrangement with Osce is that he doesn't have to touch the website. The primary distribution methods are now e-mail and Google Calendar. Linda also thinks the mountain things on the homepage look too generic. But at least mostly the rest of us like the mountain and moon things that slide around as you resize the window. * (2020-09) Matt will communicate with Osce on the Einblatt. Osce likes the new job definition. Matt got him access to the Google calendar, made sure he has the email list instructions, and got him the list of birthdays. Osce got out the October Einblatt on Sept 30, Yay! And the November issue has gone out too. * (2020-09) Scott will dig out 'whoever's essay on "why aren't these people cancelling their events?"' * (2020-09) Scott will sign the bylaws, make a scan and send the original back to Matt for the archives. * (2020-09) Matt will post the new bylaws on the website. * (2020-09) Matt will announce our next meeting to our officers. == Review recurring task list == We should have automatically paid the rent on the PO box by credit card on or before Oct 31, and gotten an e-mail saying so. Did that happen? Scott checked with Carol before the meeting, and it did. $288 and Carol will have Irene countersign a check to reimburse herself. We should 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. Scott is currently happy for it to remain his house indefinitely. (They are no longer planning to relocate.) Have we done our annual renewal with the Minnesota Secretary of State? (We renewed our assumed name "Minicon" in June.) Yes, Scott did this in April (at the same time as the taxes) and sent Matt the PDFs showing that it happened. Shall we get a report from the Quartermaster? Maybe not necessary. Quartermaster Brother Joe confirmed in September that our stuff was safe in the storage locker, and nothing else should have moved around lately either. All agree. Maybe he should check again next month, that would be a quarter since last time. We like the idea of quarterly check-ups since this is the place that decided we were behind on the rent even though we'd been paying every month. Matt will ask Brother Joe to check on it in December. We should send bills for past due accounts (put on Matt's TODO list). == Conventions == * Minicon 55 (2021?) Sharla and Don have drafted a statement to go on the website which says that COVID isn't going well, etc. Matt notes that Fauci "says that he hopes by April, May and June 'the ordinary citizen should be able to get' a vaccine." (AP) Easter is April 4, so that's not very helpful for Minicon. The statement will note that we'll handle memberships the same way as when we postponed from 2020. But we will not officially cancel now because we can't yet invoke force majeure without a state order that clearly covers Easter weekend. Sharla will e-mail Matt the statement to put it on the website. An to Aaron to post it on the Minicon and Minnstf pages on the book of faces. Matt will tell Aaron when it's on the website so he can tweet it out. Aaron talked to the hotel a while ago, and they have no information we don't have. That was before the huge uptick in COVID cases starting about two weeks ago. Matt thinks we should get a contract for Minicon in 2022. Others are not quite so sure we should commit. But Matt doesn't want to let it slide, or we might lose the date. Ok, we'll discuss it about Easter. [At some point in here, Linda's connection got bad and she probably didn't hear anything else.] * Decongestant 5 (2021?) As per Fauci's statement, October will be ~5 months after the vaccine becomes available to most people. Matt is hopeful that, if distribution isn't a total disaster, that means a good fraction of people will be vaccinated and we can have a small con. Anyway, if we get the contract we had before, the total loss if zero people attend and we can't do force majeure is $1300. The board is ok with Matt going and getting a contract. * Minneapolis in 2073 Rich Price will hold a virtual party at virtual Capricon. Since Matt is working on Rune (to appear sometime this decade), he may include a progress report. == Next meeting == Do we need a meeting in December? Not too much is happening. We quickly review the recurring task list to see if there's anything that's going to come up that we haven't just dealt with. There's also "Send notice to concoms reminding them how voting member status works." Aaron will do this. Actually it will not just be a reminder, since we recently changed things. Are there any Minnstf meetings scheduled? Yes, there's one on the 21st. So that's all going fine too. Ok, no December meeting needed. Next meeting: Jan 7, 2021, 6pm, on Jitsi. == New TODO list == * (2020-07) Linda will continue working to buy a pile of books from Uncle Hugo's and figuring out where we can donate them. * (2020-09) Matt will suitably alter the Einblatt webpage. * (2020-11) Matt will announce our next meeting to our officers. * (2020-11) Matt will send bills for past due accounts. * (2020-11) Matt will ask Brother Joe in December to go check on the storage locker again. * (2020-11) Aaron will update the Minicon concom on how to be a voting Minnstf member.