Mentor The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated -- Number 119, October/November 2002

Minutes of the October Corporate Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Tuesday, October 15, 2002. Arisia Storage, Somerville MA. Called to order at 7:25 PM.

• In Attendance

Dave Belfer-Shevett, Tom Coveney, Joel Herda, Lisa Hertel, Walter Kahn, Ben Levy, Claudia Mastroianni, Skip Morris, Tom Murphy, Paul Selkirk, Nicholas Shectman, Carsten Turner.

• Proxies

Colette Fozard to Skip Morris, Cris Shuldiner to Skip Morris, Rachel Silber to Carsten Turner.

• Corrections to the Minutes

Walter Khan is not on the Long Range Planning Committee.

Brendan gave his keys to Joel. Phi made a new set of keys for Lisa Hertel.

• President's Report/Eboard Report (Joel Herda)

I've been too busy to have a real report. If there are any burning issues, I'd love to know about them.

• Vice President's Report (Noel Rosenberg)

Not present.

• Treasurer's Report (Nicholas Shectman)

No report.

• Clerk's Report (Paul Selkirk)

Please sign in. Dues are $22; however, if you were previously a voting member, and wish to retain voting rights without sitting on your hands for this meeting, you must pay the full $24 for retroactive continuous membership.

Anyone making a report is strongly encouraged to do so in writing, or suffer gross transcription errors.

• Arisia '02 (Noel Rosenberg)

Not present. We (the corporation) haven't yet given up on them closing their books on their own.

• Arisia '03 Report (Skip Morris)

We had concom meeting and div-head meetings on Sunday at the Park Plaza, with no fatalities. We toured some areas of the hotel, most of which were closed.

The budget was discussed and refined, and there will be motion to amend budget as published. We talked about the fact that most departments have asked for increases; each increase individually makes sense, due to inflation, the larger size of the convention, or being something cool and/or useful. However, it adds up to a large bottom line. The budget as printed does not make enough money. We need a $4000-5000 surplus to fund corporate activities. This budget a bit more accurate.

One thing this budget includes is an automatic adjustment based on attendance. We can accurately estimate attendance in advance - we assume 48% pre-reg. The base budget is based on 2500 attendees, and has adjustment rules for 2000-2700 attendees.

The div heads have recommended changing the at-door Saturday rate to $30. This would increase revenue in two ways - by directly getting more for Saturday day memberships, and encouraging more people to buy weekend memberships.

The president opted to defer both the budget and the rate increase to New Business.

• Old Business

The motion to change the Print Shop rates, effective Arisia '04, was left on the table.

• New Business

Tom Murphy has written an online hotel reservation system. However, we are not ready to take credit card information, because we do not have a security certificate. We seem to have two options: getting a Verisign certificate, or making a self-signed certificate. The meeting moved into a committee of the whole to discuss the issue, with 10-minute limit.

Moving out of the committee of the whole, it was MOVED to create a committee to recommend a secure method of accepting credit card information via the Internet, and to authorize the Eboard to approve the recommendation of that committee. Motion PASSED on a voice vote.

At this point, Joel Herda left, giving his proxy to Ben Levy. In absence of the Vice President, the Treasurer, Nicholas Shectman, assumed chairmanship of the meeting, and called a 10-minute recess.

A concern was raised about the laws and licensing of FRS radios. Phi will refer this to the lawyer to investigate.

MOVED to entertain the Arisia '03 Budget as printed in Mentor. All subsequent motions should be understood as amendments to this main motion.

MOVED to raise the Saturday one-day at-door price to $30. Motion PASSED 11-3 on a hand vote. Clerk's Note: This is a one-year override of policy, not a permanent change to policy. If no other action is taken, the rate in question will revert to $25 for Arisia '04.

MOVED to amend by substitution the hand-out budget for the budget printed in Mentor. MOVED to reprint the budget in Mentor, and table consideration to the next meeting. Chair rules that the scope of the changes are not sufficient to change the spirit of the motion. MOVED to overrule the chair; FAILED 2-9 on a hand vote. Motion to amend by substitution PASSED on voice vote.

MOVED to consider the baseline budget and scaling rules as a single motion; PASSED on a unanimous voice vote.

MOVED to cut each line item under Registration Income by 50%; FAILED for lack of a second.

MOVED to amend Registration Income to reflect whole numbers of registrations - add $10 to pre-reg-30, $20 to weekend-40. Objection to Consideration FAILED to get 2/3 majority by 8-5 on a hand vote. Motion PASSED 9-3 on a hand vote.

MOVED to reduce Prereg-30 income to $14,250; FAILED on a voice vote.

MOVED to reduce Weekend-40 income to $19,000; FAILED for lack of a second.

MOVED to create an income line item for 'Babysitting - $30', and to transfer 6 memberships from Babysitting-40 to Babysitting-30 (resulting in $180 for Babysitting-30, and $760 for Babysitting-40). Motion PASSED unanimously on a voice vote.

MOVED to approve the attendance-based budget adjustments, including the rules on page 2 of the handout. Motion PASSED on a voice vote.

There was much discussion on badges and badge holders, but no motion to change the budget for them.

At this point, Tom Coveney gave his proxy to Lisa Hertel.

MOVED to increase Program Guide to $1200; FAILED for lack of a second.

MOVED to change Program Guide to $0, and Pocket Program to $2500; PASSED 7-3 on a hand vote.

MOVED to produce the Program Book Color Insert for sale at the Arisia Sales table instead of distributing it in the Program Book; FAILED for lack of a second.

MOVED to change Color Insert to $2000, provided we have a projected attendance of at least 2300 people; PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to change Elevator Operators to $0. Friendly Amendment to change the line item to $200 with no attendance-based adjustment. Motion FAILED 3-7 on a hand vote.

MOVED to change Paid Security from $2500 to 'fill in the blank'; FAILED for lack of a second.

MOVED to change Babysitting Salaries to $750; PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to change ASL Signers to $0; FAILED 2-8 on a hand vote. Phi will consult with the lawyer regarding the Americans With Disabilities Act.

MOVED to change Legal Expenses to $500; PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to make ASL Signers contingent on getting 10 deaf attendees by November 30; FAILED 2-6 on a hand vote.

MOVED to change Cloissone Pins to $0; FAILED 2-9 on a hand vote.

MOVED to accept budget as amended; PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to raise the membership cap to 2650. After some discussion, the motion was WITHDRAWN.

Skip has been asked to allow Security to have their own T-shirts. However, no motion was made in this regard.

• Announcements

Remove your food and wrappers.

On behalf of the Eboard, the Clerk would like to thank everyone who stayed through the entire 4½-hour meeting.

• Meeting adjourned at 11:50 PM.

Minutes of the November Corporate Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Sunday, November 17, 2002. MIT Building 66, Room 168. Called to order at 4:13 PM.

• In Attendance

Chris Amshey, Bridget Boyle, Joel Herda, Lisa Hertel, Alex Latzko, Ben Levy, Claudia Mastroianni, Skip Morris, Tom Murphy, Noel Rosenberg, Paul Selkirk, Nicholas Shectman, Rachel Silber, Carsten Turner, Walter Kahn, Regis Donovan, Karen Purcell, Tom Coveney, Pat Vandenberg, Allan Kent.

• Proxies

Colette Fozard to Skip Morris.

• President's Report/Eboard Report (Joel Herda)

The Eboard met on Monday November 4.

The action from the last corporate meeting was the creation of a committee nicknamed the Online Reservations Committee, to come up with an electronic method to accept hotel reservations via our website, so that fans could get their information to us, and we could pass this information to the hotel. The decision of the Eboard, out of the report of the committee, was that an end-to-end secured system would be acceptable, something that used SSL for the website portion, and something that used an encrypted file for the storage of the actual data, also that the data would not be left for a long time on the server. The Eboard has authorized the conchair to move on this. More details will be presented in the committee report.

The only other agenda item for the Eboard was that Noel asked for a couple of committee appointments. The new members of the Grant Committee are Claudia Mastroianni and Walter Kahn.

At this point, Joel left to build sets for The Pirates of Penzance, and gave his proxy to Regis Donovan, and chairmanship of the meeting to Noel Rosenberg.

• Vice President's Report (Noel Rosenberg)

The Grant Committee will meet immediately after the corporate meeting. If anyone else is interested in being on the committee, please let me know.

• Treasurer's Report (Nicholas Shectman)

The Budget Committee has not met.

The Corporate Sales report is that we have agreed to sell Looney Labs merchandise at the Arisia Sales table at the con.

The Online Reservations Committee had a number of email discussions, but did not meet in person, and does not have a formal report at this time. We did, however, produce two reports, one of which will be our final report, and the other of which will be a minority report - we have not determined which will be which.

We determined that there was a way to securely get information from the fen all the way to the hotel - actually a couple of ways. One of them involves equipment that we don't have - a fax-modem attached to arisia.org. One of them involves extra sheparding on the part of an individual, but no such individual has yet been identified, and we have secured a promise from the conchair not to go ahead with this until such an individual has been identified.

• Clerk's Report (Paul Selkirk)

Please sign in. Dues are $20. Anyone making a report is strongly encouraged to do so in writing, or suffer gross transcription errors.

I went to Cris Shuldiner's bachelor party last night. See above about gross transcription errors.

• Arisia '02 (Noel Rosenberg)

Nicholas Shectman, Chris Amshey, and Noel are going to try to close the books. Phi expects to have some time to work on it in early December.

• Arisia '03 Report (Skip Morris)

We had parallel divisional meetings today, which seemed to be productive.

There will be budget amendments at some point. We're starting to get some real numbers in, and I want to adjust the budget to reflect actual numbers already spent. For example, the mass mailer came in way under budget, and the art show mailing came in way over budget.

We've been using a mailing house in Worcester to do all the printing , addressing, folding, and sealing, and will even deliver to the post office for us. The money we spent on this service was made up by postage savings from delivering to the office in a presorted, automatable format, and we didn't have to spend hours at the annual meeting assembling the mailing. The downside is that we're not driven by the deadline of the annual meeting, and things tended to slip.

Another budget adjustment will be for 35mm projectors. It was originally requested that we add a $1000 line item for rentals. We thought we were unlikely to find projectors that cheaply, so we took it out of the budget, but Scott managed to find them, so we'll find the money somewhere.

The film rental budget will be going up slightly. For example, the restored version of Metropolis is a $400 rental, not a $200 rental. (This will be our silent movie with live organist.) The total increase in film rental will be somewhere between $500 and $1000.

On the other hand, there is more money coming in for Souvenir Book ads. We already have $1850, versus a $500 line item, and that's before the 251-piece mailing to advertisers.

We have been offered, and have accepted, use of the Origins Game Library. Many game manufacturers donated hundreds of games to the Origins gaming convention. They split this library up into 4 separate pieces, each with somewhere on the order of 75-100 games, which rotate around the country. This section is coming up from Philcon, to Arisia, then going to Vericon, Lunacon, and other cons. The games need a home - possibly gopher hole - and someone to manage them.

The hotel has started processing reservations.

We're probably going to have Arisia Sales sell parking coupons for the Boston Common garage. Each coupon is good for overnight or all-day parking. We're going to field test this at the Concom meeting at the hotel on December 1.

We're actually going to have an Internet Room. Benji Kline is making a lot of progress. The hotel is willing to let us use their wiring system, so we'll put a router in their wiring closet, and hook it into our internet room. The hotel is also giving us access to their T1 line, for what it would cost us to install a DSL line. The T1 is already there and working, so it's more reliable by definition.

We're looking into ways to make phones cheaper. We're trying to use more cell phones; I've bought some more pagers.

Logistics has 7-8 new crates on wheels, thanks to Linda Nee.

We still have some openings - Program Ops, Student Art Contest coordinator, Press Liaison, Party Czar. (Most of these were reported already filled, or were filled on the spot.)

The next meeting will be in the hotel on December 1. The hotel should be pretty empty that weekend, so we should be able to see most the rooms we need to see.

• Arisia '04 (Carsten Turner)

There's really nothing to report as yet. I'm working on who the Guests of Honor are going to be, and being Skip's trusty understudy.

• Old Business

Phi has not yet talked to the lawyer.

The motion to change the Print Shop rates, effective Arisia '04, was left on the table.

A very old motion, to fund some massage training classes, was left in a box under the table.

• New Business

MOVED to set the February meeting date to Sunday 2/16. Motion FAILED for lack of second.

MOVED to set the February meeting date and time to Tuesday 2/18, at 7:30 PM. Motion PASSED 13-3 on a hand vote.

MOVED to set the February meeting location to the Vandenburg/Kent residence in Mendon. MOVED to set the location to the Murphy residence in Somerville. Mendon was decided 10-4 on a hand vote.

• Announcements

Go see the new Harry Potter movie, and sit through the credits to the end.

Anyone interested in the two active grant proposals is invited to meet next door after this meeting.

• Meeting adjourned at 4:52 PM.

Directions to the December Meeting

The December meeting will be at the home of Alex Latzko and Bridget Boyle:

For directions, go to http://www.lazy-booklet.org/ and follow the link for "directions", or call the number above.

Notes on Budget Adjustments in Arisia '03 Summary Budget

Registration numbers based upon past years registrations & scaled to number of attendees and automatically adjusted up/down for every 50 total registrations.

Attendance estimate based upon pre-registration numbers as of December 26 for past few years. Estimate of actual attendance based on estimated 48% pre-reg rate.

ConChair/Admin Expenses:

• No adjustments since all funds spent ahead of time.

Treasury Expenses:

• CreditCard Fees slightly modified ($0.40/attendee) since fees will go up or down depending upon how much is charged via credit cards.

Convention Services Expenses:

• Elevator Operators adjusted by $100 (four hours of express elevator service) for every 50 attendees staring with $100@2300, adjusted with $150 increase for every 50 attendees above 2500.
• Paid Security Details adjusted by +/- 100 for every 50 attendees.

Member Services Expenses:

• ConSuite, Green Room, Staff Den adjusted (total) +/- by $2/attendee.
• Registration Badges/Clips adjusted +/- $0.50/attendee.
• ASL Signers adjusted +/- $1/attendee.

Guest Expenses:

• No adjustments since number of guests doesn't change.

Marketing Expenses:

• No adjustments since all funds spent ahead of time.

Publications Expenses:

• Pocket Program, Program Guide, Restaurant Guide adjusted +/- $1/attendee.
• Program Book cost adjusted +/- $1/attendee (fixed setup cost).
• Program Book color interior pages eliminated below 2300 attendees ($2000 reduction).
• Program Book color cover eliminated at 2050 attendees ($1000 reduction).

Hotel Expenses:

• No adjustments since all items difficult to adjust or contractually obligated.

Hotel/Banquets Expenses:

• Hotel Banquets overall adjusted by +/- $2/attendee.

Exhibits Expenses:

• Films adjusted by +/- $0.50/attendee.

Events Expenses:

• Overall events adjusted +/- $1/attendee.

Programming Expenses:

• No adjustments since all items difficult to adjust or spent ahead of time.

Membership/Subscription Information

Subscription to Mentor of Arisia is included with Corporate Membership to Arisia, Incorporated. Membership runs from September 1st to August 31st and costs $24. Dues are pro-rated on a monthly basis for members joining during the year.

Executive Board

Storage Facility Key Holders

Committee Members & Corporate Appointed Officers

Membership Roster

Calendar of Events

Sunday, December 1, 2002, 2:00 PM
Arisia '03 Concom Meeting
Location TBA

December 13-15, 2002
Philcon 2002
Center City Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA

Thursday, December 26, 2002
Arisia '03 Concom Meeting
Location TBA

Monday, December 30, 2002, 7:00 PM.
Arisia Corporate Meeting
Latzko/Boyle residence, Milton MA

January 17-19, 2003
Arisia '03
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston MA

Sunday, January 19, 2003, 4:00 PM
Arisia Corporate Meeting
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston MA

Tuesday, February 18, 2003, 7:30 PM.
Arisia Corporate Meeting
Vandenberg/Kent residence, Mendon MA

January 24-26, 2003
Vericon
Harvard University, Cambridge MA

February 14-16, 2003
Boskone 40
Sheraton Hotel, Boston MA

February 16-17, 2003
Science Fiction Film Marathon
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Brookline MA

February 28-March 2, 2003
Intercon C
Radisson Hotel, Chelmsford MA

March 21-23, 2003
Lunacon 2003
Rye Town Hilton, Rye Brook, NY

ARISIA, Incorporated
Building 600, PMB 322
1 Kendall Square
Cambridge, MA 02139