Mentor - Volume 33, Issue 302 Dec 2022

Mentor The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated Volume 33, Issue 302 Dec 2022 519 Somerville Ave #371, Somerville, MA 02143 + 1-917-7ARISIA (+1-917-727-4742)

Contents About the Next Meeting    Executive Board Treasurer's Report Membership List   Committees Reports   December Meeting Summary   Announcements Subscription and Dues Information   Calendar

About the Next Meeting

The next corporate meeting of Arisia, Inc. will be held on January 15,2023 at 1:00 PM in person at the Westin Boston Seaport District hotel. Unfortunately, there will be no zoom option for the January meeting. The agenda will be distributed over the corp-announce email list in advance of the meeting and available online via Newsdesk. The quorum for the January corporate meeting is 16, based on 51% of the average attendance of the last three meetings ((34+40+25)/3×0.51)=16.32 ). 

Please send all proxies for the January corporate meeting in advance by email to corp-proxies@arisia.org, and CC the proxy holder.

meeting called to order at 7:03pm

Membership List / Attendance

Meeting attendance in bold


Nightwing Whitehead
Jan Dumas
E.J. Barnes
Rick Kovalcik
Vivian Abraham
Ilene Tatroe
Ken London
Rebecca Brumberger
Melissa Kaplan
Phi Shectman
Ellliott Mitchell
Fred Bauer
Regis Donavan
Allison Feldhusen
Alex Morgan
etana
Nick Brown
Wendy Abramo
Mike Sprague
Cate Schneider

Proxy List

Fred Baurer to Rick Kovalcik         Accepted
Lisa Hertel to Sharon Sbarsky         Accepted
J.B. Segal to Allison Feldhusen         Accepted
Delenn Brumberger to Rebeca Brumber   Accepted

Executive Board (eboard) Report

Voted Melissa Kaplan as con chair for 2023, needs a vote by the members to approve. 
phi - Melissa has started acting as con chair, has done lots of work already is terrific at it.
Melissa - feels like she is laying the tracks in front of her, it will be a luxury if Ilene become con chair for 2024 because they will have a full 12 months to plan the convention
Voted via check marks - vote is unanimous congratulations

Melissa - We expect to have a proposal for a dual con chair for 2024, but it was not possible to do it in time for this meeting. We could not do it before the deadline for this mentor
We also voted to approve many IRMC reports.
Vivian - Usually we have those in the IRMC report.
phi - We are continuing to apply for grants for access, they can be used for large print badges
-We also got money from SFWA (Science fiction and fantasy writers of America)
-We applied for 2500 for a festivals grant that favors card to culture gives us favor in the grant processing
That is a total of 7,500 likely 2500 more  in grant money including Eastern Bank and City of Boston
That was a huge number and it looks favorable 

President

See eboard report

Vice President

The grants committee suspended until we feel comfortable with our finances.

Treasurer

Membership dues are $18 to join Arisia, Inc through 9/1/2023 if you join at today's meeting. The eboard approved 1 dues waiver this month. The following is a rough corporate finances report. The A'22 and A'23 books have some overlap with corporate accounts and will continue to be sorted.

Because we do not have a convention treasurer, Phi and myself are working on convention finances together. To spend convention money within your budget, please submit receipts and the Arisia expense form to be reimbursed. The form can be found on the staff wiki, and emailed with receipts to treasurer@arisia or treasurery@arisia. If you need Arisia to pay instead, please complete the Arisia expense report and include the vendor, vendor contact info/web address, and where to send items to and email to the aforementioned email address(s).

Clerk

The following issues of Mentor were published to the corporation on December 4th
October 2021             Needs approval to post
November 2021           Needs approval to post
January 2022               Needs approval to post
February 2022 Issue 292     was already posted to web
March 2022 Issue 293     was already posted to web
April 2022I  Issue 294      Needs Approval to post
May 2022   Issue 295       Needs Approval to post
June 2022  Issue 296       Needs Approval to post

Motion to approve all Mentors, seconded by Vivian Abraham
Motion passes unanimously.

Working on the; July, August, September, October, November and tonight's meeting with the intention to have all done by the 1st of January. Once these Mentors have been approved they will be up on https://corp.arisia.org/mentor 

Member at Large Reports

No reports

Committee Reports

IRMC December 2022 Report
Current status of incident reports:- Vivian speaking unless otherwise noted

7 reports that are currently being investigated (4 from Arisia 2020 and 3 from Arisia 2021)
6 reports that the IRMC has recently received and will be bundled with the reports for Arisia 2023.
1 request to revisit a prior IR that resulted in a ban.  We have reached out to this person for more information, but have not yet heard back.

The IRMC is also in the process of going through past files to make sure that all incident reports received prior to our current process have been reviewed and acted on.  If you have a report that was made in the past that was not acted on, or if you did not make a report believing that Arisia would not be able to take action on it, please email us at irmc@arisia.org.

Finally, I would like to make a motion from this committee report to state that IRMC stands for Incident Response Management Committee and should be changed to this as needed on our website and in our policies.   - Motion passes

Reports:

At Arisia 2020, the IRT received several reports of a verbal and physical altercation in a hallway. There is a long history of conflict between these two individuals. After communicating with witnesses, the IRMC reached out to both of them. We have not had a response from one person, and have only had a brief response from the other. The IRMC recommended that registration place a hold on attending membership for both persons. Neither may register until they have spoken to the IRMC.  The Eboard voted to approve this recommendation.

Prior to Arisia 2020, a reporter was concerned about a person attending Arisia.  They described this person as aggressive and boundary-pushing, with past stalking behavior.  They stated that & they have been arrested for their anger issues before. The person's past behavior was confirmed by an Arisia senior staff member.  As it turned out, this person never registered for or attended Arisia 2020.  The IRMC has reached out to them, but has received no response. The IRMC recommended that registration place a hold on attending membership for this person.  They may not register until they have spoken to the IRMC. The Eboard voted to approve this recommendation.

At Arisia 2020, a person working in the dealer's room was reported to the IRT for making inappropriate and queer-phobic comments about a person's t-shirt. The person also stated that cons are the only place you can stare at people's chests and not get into trouble for it.  A member of the IRT talked to this person at the con and explained that these comments were inappropriate.  Looking through email, the IRMC discovered that another report had been made in 2014 which appeared to be about the same person.  This report said that a dealer had made inappropriately sexual comments about what the reporter was wearing, as well as assumptions about their gender. The IRMC recommended that the Eboard give this person a strong warning and make it clear that a third strike of this nature will result in immediate disciplinary action. The Eboard voted to approve this recommendation.

Prior to Arisia 2021, the IRMC received a report that the official Arisia Twitter account posted a picture of Tardis / bobby cop cosplay.  The reporter stated that this was inappropriate, and that the response to a person's complaint on Twitter was tone deaf. The IRMC does not believe that this rises to the level of a Code of Conduct violation, but we do recognize that it was a mistake.  We recommended that the current policy of requiring multiple sign-offs for Arisia public messaging continue (this policy was not in place at the time of this incident).  The Eboard voted to approve this recommendation.

At Arisia 2020, two teenagers were reported to be smoking pot in the teen lounge bathroom.  The Watch reached out to one of the teen's parents, who denied that their child had been smoking pot, but that instead it was a fart smell prank.  The IRMC reached out to the teenager via email, but has not had a response. The IRMC recommended that a hold be placed on this person's registration until they communicate with the IRMC.  The Eboard voted to approve this recommendation.

Vivian -As I mentioned before I have welcomed people reach out to us about prior reports
Rick- I heard you say you put a hold on one teenagers,
Vivian -We do not know who the second teenager is
Vivian -I don't need seconds but I would like to have them. If there are no questions
phi -Hearing no debate we move to a vote

Arisia 2023 Report

Melissa - Reported that there is now someone to do the con suite and someone to do events and drive it to the finish. Sending many emails a day, everyone has been super helpful. We will have a convention and the level of chaos feels about right so we will have a convent
If you want to attend a con com or going to tagging you are welcome to email me any specific questions 

December  Meeting Summary

phi - Thank you for stepping up Anything else for A23 before we move to budget

phi shared budget document  phi speaking unless otherwise noted
  in staff wiki under budget

In the last few days since the notice requirement for this budget we have information on grants and on dealers info I misunderstood that was dealer when it was really registration In column E you can see the changes and I can briefly talk about that. When you have a budget amendment that was published in mentor if there were not too many other changes we want to increase our grant income by the amount we know now. Have a psychological question about the new grant money
The good news is that the art show and dealers income  is higher than we thought the grants income is higher by a good amount
Some number are higher like internet, and Guest of Honor, Airline tickets $700 dollars
I thought we would save money by not renting a pdu from the hotel and renting from 4wall. The reduction in expense I want us to vote on here is a bit lower.
Also because I did not increasing the budget for dealers the credit card fees don't go up that much the policy for con chair discretionary is 2% of budget so it has been increased on spreadsheet
Some things are clear some things less clear
Some things we want to move to suites, like teen lounge we move to suite
We want to do safer space in a suite, we can't resell the suite space because we. All suites were converted to king bed and Murphy bed queen.
In order to balance the budget we had $8,2788.92 for selling suites we have a bit less if we budget teen lounge and safer spaces for suites we lose
We need to get child size masks which we have budgeted 200 dollars
budget item to build Corsi-Rosenthal boxes
We only gave logistics 1 truck but do not want to put logistic and volunteers through that so adding second truck
To increase the cost for badge stock, I don't think our registration numbers are going to increase, I think that numbers we are looking at were adequate I realized putting it together for this meeting I messed up, it costs more to have the whole thing printed on half, it would be good to have things printed on the back of the badges, like safety and IRT. So that will be a bit more than I put together
So if you put this all together like moving Arisians of color into a suite that leaves $4,000 for the bottom line Includes things we don't think we are going to get.
So then the question for people here is what are we going to do with this. Like allowing us to buy a second adjoining guest room for GOH who has offered to pay themselves, but it would be nice if we do not have to
Also want to fully fund space pilot where people who work 32 hours.

Allison - We have not had that many people sign up for SP, please send application to SP
Phi - If we 0 this out we can fund other things that make the con a more just place to be.
RIck  - I have 2 question 1 might just be housekeep in col B -125 budget
as approved we approved a budget with a small loss the
Rick -  If we don't get vertical truss for tech what is tech going to do.
phi - I can check with tech, I don't see David does Alex have any thought
Alex - Don't know
phi - Last year we got some of the biggest boom bases they had and put them in the center of the room so when the airwall closed it was at the back of a seating area. and lighting hung from the pipes, it made a vertical truss and we got a bunch of sandbags The quote we got included boom bases and sand bags.
Melissa has a couple of things, so looking at line items about food, we have someone doing food and the only food we will have is con suite. Viv had the idea that I stole that idea by taking money from the green room and giving out vouchers for food trucks except I don't know how to get a hold of Jude, so if anyone knows how to get a hold of Jude. I think that is all I have right now
Mike  -regarding the truss if we have a truss or not how much will that impact events in the spaces they are in.
Alex - Ah ya I have just been talking with David and he said it was fine.
Melissa  - The person taking over events was a past div head
phi  - Mike we could just add money to con chair discretionary fund and they can make a future plan
Melissa - I was told Jude was doing food trucks this year but I can't get in touch with them.
phi -Iit sounds like we agree that the money can go into the discretionary fund and we want to budget for 2,500 festivals grants that we do not yet have but that we are on track to get.
Kate - Is this grant designated for something specific or
phi - No this grant is just for spending money on con, we can't spend on rent
Cate - As I know from my time as treasure we can make a line 0 and then change it later.
phi - Last year we did not find out until post con
Priscilla - After hearing that last bit it makes me wonder if the idea would work put all trust in melissa and if money comes in put it in contingency fund
phi - We could do that and figure that melissa would use as appropriate or say that any grants that come in could be added to contingency
Priscilla - I like that …
phi - Sound like you suggested a separate motion
Priscilla - yes
Claudia - Is it cleaner to say instead we want to fund from the rainy day fund
phi - Yes we could do that thing we could increase the contingency fund if that is how it behaves, if we find we are not getting this grant we would have to  trust Melissa to not spend it.
Melissa - Or to say this is enough of a grant to say we can go into the rainy day fun if we don't have it.
phi - I want to throw out a thing there but maybe before that we have 3 answers to what to do with grant money 1 spend it even if we know we are not getting the grant
Delenn -  I just joined can you catch me up
phi - We are doing discussion of the budget talking about a grant that favors cards to culture doing a straw poll do we want to fund out of the rainy day fund,
do we want to spend regardless if we know we are getting it  - NO should we only spend the money if we know we are getting it  Yes
Spending it unless we know we are not getting it NO
Rebecca - The grant money does it have to be used for A23
phi -It has to be used by June 2023
Rebeca - They don't give you much time to use it
Rachel - That is a fiscal year thing many grants are only funded after the start of the fiscal year. It is at
phi - So it looks like people are willing to let Melissa spend the money as she sees fit. We do want to put things in con chair discretionary fund, like only funding vouchers for food trucks if therear food truck. How do people feel about having a zero bottom line
Rick- Put as much of that line in as you can 2850
phi - Yes if we can put 2850 does anyone else have thought about that, does that seam like a good idea
phi - So now we have a budget amend proposal so I have to move things from column E to column B
Mike - I know we just glossed over this like are we not doing the video room,
Melissa - I am talking to Jude right now there is money in the food budget that we can give vouchers to people in space pilot
phi - We are voting on column E, any further questions  Yes we have a budget amendment
Rebecca - Just noticed fast track has $200
phi - No, that is increasing that to $400 total
Melissa - I have to do MATH now
phi - Also want to make a motion to let Melissa fund grant money if we get it.
&# Claudia - We we have an expected date for the grant
phi - Last year it was a week after a con
Claudia - second
phi - Any discussion hearing none we will vote using green checks motion passes unanimously
phi -All i have for Arisia treasurer. any questions

Setting meeting date for March
phi given that Feb meeting is 23, I think that March 5 to soon, move to set march meeting to March 25th at 7:00 PM

Announcements

MCFI selected to run smof con Providence RI Dec 1-3 website smofcon40.com
Rick - Wait to register until the discounts start and rate $50 virtual rate $30 and family rate of $30 dollars to just hang in con suite
Sharon - The theme is hybrid conventions what we have learned - tell friends who might not think about going to smofcon.

Subscription and Dues information

Membership runs from September 1st to August 31st (*) and costs $24 for the year. Dues are pro-rated on a monthly basis for members joining throughout the year. Subscription to the Arisia, Inc. newsletter, Mentor of Arisia, is included with corporate membership.
New members must attend one meeting after joining to receive voting privileges at subsequent meetings.
Pay for the month in which the next corporate meeting will take place (per the calendar).

If you cannot afford to purchase a membership, you may reach out to the Executive Board at eboard@arisia.org and request a dues waiver.
You can pay in cash at a corporate meeting, mail a check for the appropriate amount to Arisia, or use the PayPal button below. (You do not need a PayPal account to use your debit or credit card with PayPal.)
Arisia's mailing address is:
Arisia, Inc.
519 Somerville Avenue #371
Somerville, MA 02143

Calendar

Corporate Meeting   
January 15, 2023 1:00 PM (in person meeting - no zoom)
February 23, 2023  07:00 PM (zoom)
March 25, 2023 7:00 PM (zoom)

Convention Meeting
Div Heads / Team Leads December 16, 2022 6:00 PM (zoom)
2023 Con Com December 17, 2022 1:00 PM (zoom)
Tagging session December 18, 2022 12:30 PM
Tagging session January 1, 2023 12:30 PM
Div Head meeting January 7, 2023 11:00 AM (zoom)
Tagging Session  January 8, 2023 12:30 PM


Meeting adjourned at 8:25pm

Chat logs

18:56:05 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    I am here, I'm just eating dinner and no one needs to see me munching on taco tuesday over here
19:04:34 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    the summoning was a success!
19:04:51 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    LOL!
19:05:14 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    Literally Sharon we just said oh Sharon's not here yet and then Nest logged in 😃
19:05:24 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    NESFA. damn autocorrect.
19:06:19 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    funny! I was doing grocery shopping, and most of it is still in my car, just grabbed food to eat tonight, and will get the rest after the meeting.
19:06:41 From Ilene Tatroe to Everyone:
    Ah New England. I'll just use my car as a fridge/freezer then.
19:07:02 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    I've left groceries in my car through entire workdays mid winter
19:12:49 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    should I vote no 😃
19:13:03 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    you get one vote!
19:13:04 From Ilene Tatroe to Everyone:
    Isn't Nick doing that?
19:13:19 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    nah he voted yes
19:13:28 From Rachel Tanenhaus (she/her/hers) to Everyone:
    please don't be abducted by aliens or anything.
19:14:52 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    I would punch the aliens. I'm too busy to go to space.
19:17:33 From Jan Dumas to Nicholas phi Shectman (he/him)(Direct Message):
    What was that number again?
19:20:00 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    $$$ make it rain?
19:21:21 From Mike Tatroe to Everyone:
    maybe a light drizzle
19:36:15 From Ilene Tatroe to Everyone:
    Seconds are great. Second breakfast is awesome
19:36:30 From E. J. Barnes to Everyone:
    Agreed!
19:36:40 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    I have just had a brief imagining of a 3600 person meeting and now i'm scared.
19:36:44 From Claudia Mastroianni to Everyone:
    Second elevenses…
19:37:15 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    sometimes I really days to get things done.
19:37:23 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    really need...
19:57:14 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    was that the PLAN for 2022, or what was done in 2020?
19:58:08 From Kylie Selkirk to Everyone:
    That arrangement for Tech was what was done for 2020.
19:58:46 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    thanks, phi kept saying last year, so I was confused.
19:59:37 From alex to Everyone:
    David says don't fund the truss
20:05:10 From Rachel Tanenhaus (she/her/hers) to Everyone:
    I mean, you know I always want to throw money at accessibility.
20:05:25 From Rachel Tanenhaus (she/her/hers) to Everyone:
    or scholarships to the con.
20:06:14 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    we have a big chunk of change that is just for access this year. I don't think we have any access plans that go beyond that grant.
20:06:37 From Rachel Tanenhaus (she/her/hers) to Everyone:
    okay.
20:06:38 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    but you know, if it's under my discretion I will take suggestions
20:07:32 From Delenn B to Everyone:
    What are we voting on?
20:10:16 From Rachel Tanenhaus (she/her/hers) to Everyone:
    I feel like these votes might be different if we knew what we were spending the money on. 😃
20:10:38 From RKOV (he/him/his) to Everyone:
    food truck vouchers for staff I believe is the idea
20:11:09 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    and I am texting Jude right now.
20:11:17 From Kylie Selkirk to Everyone:
    But weren't we just talking about how we weren't sure if there would be food trucks?
20:11:41 From RKOV (he/him/his) to Everyone:
    Jude says she is doing Food Trucks (power of FB messenger)
20:11:45 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    yes but i just got the food truck lead's phone number and also I have a backup plan for gift cards for nearby or hotel restairants
20:12:01 From Melissa Kaplan (she/her) to Everyone:
    this… might be what Phi meant when he said I work fast
20:12:21 From Claudia Mastroianni to Everyone:
    Which is why we're trying to do conditional things that let Melissa use her judgement.
20:21:25 From SEIU Cate Schneiderman to Everyone:
    March 5th is the last day of Intercon
20:21:46 From RKOV (he/him/his) to Everyone:
    March 26 ...
20:24:11 From Sharon (she/her) to Everyone:
    smofcon40.org