------------------------------------------------------------------------ I (Matt Strait) propose to chair a Minnstf convention called Decongestant 4 that more-or-less follows the established fallcon format most recently used by Decongestant 3. It may include a partnership with Arcana, which would make it slightly more complex. Committee so far: Chair, treasury: Matt Strait Hotel: Hershey Harris Consuite: Susan Philbrook and Brian Lundgren (Ok, to be honest, they deflected the question instead of saying "yes", telling me that it seemed to early to ask, but I think it's going to be a "yes".) Pre-registration: Clay Harris At-con reg: Beth Friedman Friday dinner: Scott Raun and Irene Raun Unfilled positions: Badges: I'll ask Bill Christ Programming: I will see if Laura is interested, and I will also gauge Isaac's interest, since he is generally interested in gaining con-running experience. Videos: I'll ask Kevin if he is interested. It's not mandatory to have videos. If we do it again, we'll have to try harder on the A/V setup. Teen Room: I'll see if some combination of AJ and Isaac are interested. (I think they're both still teens.) Saturday dinner: To be worked on. It's ok if we don't organize dinner, too. Program book: To be worried about later. Expected membership: 70. This is based on a simple analysis of historical fallcon data going way back to the ancient days of 2010. The trend line says 72, but that is bigger than any modern (post-Minicon breakup) fallcon, excluding METHOD Con 2, which had author guests of honor. With Minicon membership currently dropping, I'm not so bullish as all that. The biggest modern fallcons (Decongestants 1 and 2) without invited GoH had a membership of 70, so let's assume that again. Hotel: Hilton Bloomington, just like Decongestants 1-3. We like them. We plan to rent out the entire second floor, like we did last year. This includes the second board room, which can be used for overflow programming or overflow socialization, as needed. Also see below for how we'd use space if we partnered with Arcana. Dates: The hotel has offered us Sept 27-29, and we have a draft contract in hand to sign. This was our second choice date, with no one who was at a previous Decongestant telling us about any conflict they had, except that Rosh Hashana starts Sunday night. It misses the State Fair, Yom Kippur, Icon, and Jo Walton's Scintillation. It does overlap the final weekend of Ren Fest. The Midwest Comic Book Association Fallcon has not announced dates yet. (Our first choice was Oct 11-13, which was bad for a few people, but a four-day weekend for Matt's kids.) Rates: Exactly the same as Decongestants 2 and 3: Full adult membership, pre-reg: $50 - Can be self-discounted to $40 for cash-short fans - Can be discounted lower with chair approval - At the door $60/$50/ask Full 13-20 membership, pre-reg: $10 - At the door $20/ask Full 0-12 membership, continuously supervised: Free Full 0-12 membership, free range: same as 13-20. Partial memberships: - Day: $40 - Just a few hours: $20 - Really just one hour: $10 The partial rates are based on actual observed usage and are meant to encourage people to pay _something_ rather than ghosting. They worked well at Decongestants 2 and 3. We will not comp anyone, with one possible exception mentioned below associated with Arcana. Expected income: * Regular memberships: $42.82 (average) x 69 = $2950 This is based on the average paid for Decongestants 2 and 3 which had exactly the same rates. * Sucker GoH: $500 We've already received a $200 down payment. Total: $3450 Expected expenses: Hotel: $2820 (programming rooms and consuite) Consuite: $875 ($12.5/member) Badges: $105 ($1.50/member) Programming: $100 Teen Room: $50 Misc: $50 Total: $4000 Estimated profit, therefore: -$550 As I said last year, I know that the board would like this to be -$200, but that doesn't seem to work out. Each additional member gets us $28.82 in the above estimates, so 12 more members would make up the difference. That doesn't seem likely, unless we join with Arcana, see below! Seed money: We will not need to pay the hotel until after all the pre-reg money has been collected, so we will not need any seed money. \_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/-\_/ Possible partnership with Arcana: Greg Larsen and I have talked about running Decongestant as a joint con with Arcana in some fashion. After 47 years (16 of them as Minncon), there was no Arcana in 2018, and there is none scheduled for 2019. However, the organizers are still interested in continuing it. Having them gather at Decongestant is a possible way to maintain interest in having a full Arcana in 2020, as well as helping us out and making Decongestant more interesting this year. Greg's proposal is that we give Arcana space and we take all the money. This means no arguing about how to arrange finances. As an exception, possibly there would be an auction with the proceeds going to Arcana, as this is one of their traditions. Greg believes we could get another 20-40 members from the Arcana crowd. He would take care of advertising to them. Assuming that we do not conflict with the MCBA comic con, Fastner and Larson have said that would do "a presentation or two". I would comp them if they did this, as an exception to the "no comps" rule above. If excuses are needed, the excuse will be that they are both former Minicon GoH and also currently functioning as GoH, or at least as honored guests. (But excuses aren't needed.) With our existing space, we can accommodate Arcana running nearly a full track of programming. Most of our regular programming can comfortably fit in the second board room, so they can run larger panels in the Jefferson room, which seats up to 40. If we want more space for some items, we can work it out with them. If we want more space than the 2nd floor rooms, the hotel has told us that the ballroom is probably NOT available because they do weddings all September. It's not crazy to think that a quarter of it (Salon B, say) could be available during some hours at some point if we needed it. Also, there is the Kennedy board room on the 1st floor, which is small, but possibly useful if we are overflowing. Financial impact: With 20 more members, the estimates above say that we would make a small 2 digit profit. With 40 more members, we'd have a profit of $600, assuming we rented no additional space. But if we did have 40 additional members, it would probably make sense to rent additional programming space at $150/room/day for at least two room-days, so it's unlikely that we'd really come out $600 ahead. Consuite impact: The consuite has not seemed overly difficult to navigate with 70 members, so I don't think it would be a problem to have 90-110 members. (Frankly, I think closer to 90 is more likely.) I will discuss this with Susan and Brian when I try to get them to say "yes" out loud at some later date. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ / \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \-/ \- Proposed external harassment policy: [Verbatim from Decongestant 3] Please play nice. If you don't, we may take action, up to and including removing you from the con without a refund, and no one wants that. We expect that our membership already understands what playing nice means. If you are not sure, ask a member of the con staff. We won't attempt to precisely define "harassment", since this is subject to rules-lawyering. Repeated unwelcome behaviors are likely to be harassment. You are welcome to contact the con staff if you feel this policy is being violated. Proposed internal harassment policy: [Verbatim from Decongestant 3] All staff members are empowered to tell members to cut it the heck out if, in their judgment, said warning would be appropriate and helpful. Warnings must be documented and communicated to the chair at the first convenient time. A second warning will include a specific statement that if it happens again, the person will be ejected. If this does not resolve the problem, the con chair will be rousted out of bed to decide what to do. This policy covers behaviors which do not constitute an immediate physical risk to our members or others. If such a risk arises, everyone is empowered to deal with it as they would outside of a con, e.g. by calling the police. (This is a statement of the obvious, and not properly a con policy.) Proposed accessibility statement: [Verbatim from Decongestant 3] Decongestant is a small con with minimal programming and minimal financial resources. Panels and other activities are expected to be reasonably accessible by virtue of being very small. With this in mind, if you anticipate needing accommodations in order to enjoy the con, please contact us and we will see what we can do. ------------------------------------------------------------------------