MN-stf board meeting, Thursday Sept 28, 7pm, by videoconference (Jitsi) Attending board members: Matt Strait (recording), David Dyer-Bennet, Scott Raun, Linda Lounsbury. Non-attending board members: Isaac Schneider. == Approve previous meeting's minutes == Approved! == Review TODO list == * (2023-08) Scott will ask Carol for confirmation that the latest bank statement, July 31, has been balanced. Has asked today, has not gotten a response yet. And now we can ask about Aug 31 as well. * (2023-08) Scott will check with Magenta that she now sees meeting announcements. He has, and she does. Good. DONE: * (2021-06/2023-07) Linda will send ASCAP that letter and check. And she has corresponded with them and they agree that we didn't have events in 2020 or 2021 and we do not owe them any money. == Review recurring task list == * Confirm Give-To-The-Max account so we can get our donations. Scott has already done this. * Discuss covid policy and affirmatively either keep, modify, or end the policy. At the very least we need to switch metrics, because the metric we switched to most recently has also stopped existing. We could start using UMN Wastewater SARS-CoV2 Surveillance Study, and we'd have to pick some new level, because the units are different from the Met Council wastewater data. Matt moves to abolish the policy, because he does not sense any interest in having one from the membership, based on the most recent picnic. DD-B: there are people who won't come to meetings because they don't think our policy is strict enough. Matt: if someone won't come to an outdoor meeting where everyone is vaccinated, we can't have any policy that will cause them to come to meetings. DD-B: perhaps that is true. Linda: masking is important and vaccination doesn't reduce spread. DD-B: when you get vaccinated now, they don't write anything down, so we can't really check vaccinations anymore. Linda: well, we can just say that vaccinations and masks are recommended. Matt: saying something is recommended isn't a policy. Matt: I'm concerned that if we switch metrics, we'll just end up having this third metric vanish out from under us like the last two did. Just about everyone is vaccinated, we can't check vaccinations, and no one wants to mask (except people who won't come regardless of what policy we make). Matt calls the question, insofar as that's a thing we do. Everyone reluctantly agrees to abolish, or at least doesn't have a better idea, and agrees that the motion passes. For posterity, and so that it is as easy to resurrect as possible if it is needed, here is the policy that we are ending now: Updated June 1, 2023: Those who attend in-person Minnstf meetings must be up-to-date as defined by the CDC at their "Stay Up to Date with Your COVID-19 Vaccines". (Find your age group, then pull down the type of vaccine for the definition.) Meeting hosts may set and enforce additional covid mitigation rules, regardless of whether the meeting is being held in their house. Members that do not satisfy a meeting's covid requirements are allowed to come to the door of the house, or closest equivalent, and have their attendance recorded without entering. This shall be deemed as attendance for voting purposes. This policy does not apply if the 7-day average metro wastewater viral load is below 25M copies/person/day as measured by the Metropolitan Council. This policy will automatically expire upon the election of a new board unless that new board reapproves it. Additionally, the board must discuss this policy at their first meeting following each June 15, September 15 and December 15 and affirmatively either keep, modify, or end the policy. Matt has updated the webpage to remove it. == Financials == Linda wonders if we can get more frequent statements of what all our balances are and what we've taken in and spent. We currently ask Carol for these annually. Is doing it more often just printing a thing out, or is it actual work? Scott: it's actual work. Well, not just the balances, but the other part. Should we ask for the balances quarterly? Checking and Vanguard? Yes, this seems reasonable. We'll ask for Carol to tell us the balances as she balances the checkbook. Matt has added a recurring task for Vanguard. == Book donations == The school didn't want the older titles that we tried to donate. Unless it's a "classic", they only want things from the last 20 years. What should we do with those books? Give them away at Minicon? Yes, Linda will do that or otherwise dispose of them in some way that seems proper. == Officer reports == * Einblatt, and also general discussion and assignments for disseminating meeting information to social medias, e-mails, etc. Isaac isn't here to talk about the Einblatt, etc. * Rune, archivist, FANPA, etc. Matt found Rune #11 in Denny's boxes. This is a heretofore unknown issue and could be the only extant copy. It has a fascinating discussion of possibly having dues, and whether dues of $1 per quarter would be unreasonably high. As Linda and DD-B recall, we never did end up having dues. DD-B says he is bringing the magic slideshow box to CONFelicity to show many FANPA photos, including those from Denny and Terry's collection. The slideshow box is now interactive. There are buttons to go back and forward and pull up metadata. * Correspondence Secretary Linda has some mail for Matt. Postcards saying that flyers got to cons, and the NESFA Instant Message, of course. * Membership Secretary Scott is completely caught up on entering attendance data. == Conventions == * Minicon 56 All transactions have happened. All checks cashed. The con made exactly zero dollars. No profit, no loss. Matt will write up a report soon. Since all transactions are done, the bylaws' six month deadline is probably already satisfied, but Matt would like to have it written up anyway for reference. * CONFelicity Board members should register. Matt is. Scott is. DD-B must be, because he's going to show a slideshow. No mail-ins found in the PO box today. It's looking bad financially, since we only have about 30 registered so far and the budget was for 60 people. Why would we be down by almost half from year? No reason that we know of. * Minicon 57 Things are proceeding apace. * Minneapolis in 2073 Matt bought about 400 Peeps and we're going to have a party at Windycon. == Next meeting == At the Halloween party at Dreampark. Let's say 3pm. Matt has asked Sharon when her house (and backyard) opens for the meeting. We'll have it outside unless the weather is really nasty. == Review new TODO list == * (2023-08) Scott will ask Carol for confirmation that the bank statements of July 31 and following, inclusive, have been balanced, and for the latest checking account balance.