Mentor

The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated — Number 142, Dec 2005

Notices

Holiday Potluck at December Meeting

Gather for food at 2 PM ; meeting at 3 PM.  Our suggestion is that people with last names between A-H bring an appetizer / before, I-M bring a side dish, N-S bring a main dish, T-Z bring a dessert.  Directions are on the outside page.  For other questions, please email Susan (smozz@alum.bu.edu) or call her at home (1-617-244-4560. )

Best holiday greetings to everyone, and our wishes for a happy, healthy 2006.

Please see the schedule of convention work sessions and meetings on page 4.

Minutes of the November Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Called to order Nov 20, at 2:12 PM at The Usual Place. In Rick Kovalchik’s absence, Lisa Hertel chaired the meeting.

• In attendance

Walter Kahn, Tom Murphy, Lisa Adler-Golden, Michael Leuchtenberg, Jack Dietz, Cris Shuldiner, Karen Purcell, David D’Antonio, Conor Walsh, Paul Selkirk, Joel Herda, Rachel Silber, Ben Levy, Lisa Hertel

• Proxies

Bridget Boyle to Karen Purcell, Alex Latzko to Ben Levy, Jeanne Kahn to Walter Kahn, Joel Herda to Ben Levy after committee report. Pat Vandenberg and Allen Kent’s proxies were thought not to be eligible for voting.

Note: although we generally have access to email at the meetings, this should not be considered guaranteed; proxies should be sent considerably more than an hour before the meeting.

• Corrections to the minutes

Minutes accepted without correction.

• President’s Report – no report

• Vice President’s Report

Still no grant activity.

• Treasurer’s Report

 Current Bank of America Balances:

  Corporate                     $3,727.51
  Business Savings             $7,000.81
  Even Year A06                $12,491.25
  Odd Year A07                 $10.10

 We filed for an extension on our filing taxes with the IRS.

MSP to change the Arisia Policy on bounced checks from:

CONVENTION POLICIES
  I. A ten dollar ($10) fee will be charged for returned checks (i.e. bounced checks)
to:
A fee of five dollars ($5) in addition to any bank fees will
be charged for returned checks (i.e. bounced checks)

And move it from section 1 of Convention policies to the section 10(X) of the Finance policy.  [it shouldn't just apply to conventions but also the corporation (e.g. dues checks)] Renumber the Convention Policies section as appropriate.

MOVED to Change Corporate Matters, section IV. from:

The Executive Board has the authority to approve and set ad rates for progress reports, newsletter, and video programs. Such rates must exceed marginal costs.

To:

The executive board has the authority to approve and set ad rates. Such rates must exceed marginal costs.

AMENDED: The executive board has the authority to approve and set ad rates where not otherwise set by the membership in bylaws or policies. Such rates must exceed marginal costs.

This is brought up because color rates are not set currently in policy.

Merv points out here that the current policy says color would cost more. Therefore, convention committee does not REQUIRE this motion to set reasonable color rates.

Amendment PASSES, motion PASSES.

• Clerk’s Report – no report

• Eboard Report

MOVED to change mail policy to:

The clerk is responsible for the timely distribution of Arisia mail from the mailbox to the responsible individuals. The clerk shall make an archive copy of all appropriate paper correspondence. This task may be delegated.

Motion PASSES.

MOVED (from eboard) to change membership and dues policy to say:

Dues for all members are payable on Sept 1 of each year. Any member who joinsduring the year shall be pro-rated monthly to the following September 1st. Any member who has neither paid their dues, nor requested a hardship waiver, shall have their membership expire at the beginning of elections of the Annual Meeting. Voting rights expire when membership expires and can be regained as set forth in section 1.1.A. The eboard may grant a grace period for payment of dues or requesting a hardship waiver, retaining continuous membership, as long as the grace period is offered equally to all corporate members; however in no case shall unpaid members be allowed to vote. The clerk shall notify any member who has neither paid their dues nor requested a hardship waiver by September 1st.

MSP to table this issue to the eboard. The sense of the corporation is that the phrasing of the motion is not clear.

Eboard agrees to loan TV's to Mensa. RK agrees to be responsible for them. Mensa will provide a donation.

• Arisia ’05 ConChair Report It’s still over.

• Arisia ’05 Treasurer Report

Income 76,817.80 (approximate. Registration data is inaccurate.)

Expenses 57,851.82 (soft – estimated high on credit card fees where Cris doesn’t have all the information. There are also outstand things that we’ve never had a bill for and Cris doesn’t think we’ll every get them.)

18,965.98 net income about 10K of that is definitely valid under-ages of what was budgeted.

We planned on 8K of net income to improve our bottom line – we planned at 16K and we got about 26K on the bottom line. This is a good thing on the bottom line that we should not count on every year, certainly not this year.

MSP to close Arisia ’05 books.

• Arisia ’06 ConChair Report

There is a budget amendment. Cris Shuldiner conducts the budget amendment discussion.

The following budget amendment for Arisia ’06 is planned to come before the corporation at the November corporate meeting.

Income:

Total Income difference:  minus $1650

Expenses:

Total expense difference: minus $1670.

Net difference: plus $20 to bottom line.

MSP to separate souvenir book from remainder of budget amendment.

MSP to separate income item. MSP to table income item to next meeting.

Remainder of the budget amendment PASSES .

MSP to table souvenir book discussion until there’s more information (Skip is in the house) or the end of the meeting.

• Arisia ’06 Treasurer Report

Discussion of room reservation policy. The treasurer intends to present an amendment to current policy to improve handling of rooms that we rent on the master bill at the next meeting.

• Arisia ’07 ConChair Report

No treasurer picked yet, working on it.

• Committees

Timeline : Meeting scheduled for Dec 19^th, 7 pm.

Hotel Search : Resume stuff needed by deadlines posted to staff list.

Corporate Sales : Offworld will give corporate members 20% discount; shirts will be $20

All other committees, no report.

• Old business -- none

• New business

Relaxacon Moved to form a committee to explore and plan a no (or minimal) programming. Point of information: NESFA relaxacon is end of March, it was suggested that we could go in with them on it.

Shooting for an ’06 date. Do we have $3K to invest in it?

Passes by acclamation. Jack is chairing the committee. We agree that in Rick's absence, Lisa has the ability to make that appointment.

Souvenir book matter brought off the table. Skip wants a nicer book – more pages, more artwork and so forth.

Amendment on souveneir book (from budget amendment) passes.

Blood bowl trophy. PR stunt. This tournament would be sanctioned by official group.

Move to use $400 corporate money for a trophy for Arisia Bloodbowl perpetual trophy. Expenses for the particular year’s engraving coming from each convention year.

Amendment: This motion will not go into effect until there are 15 people signed up. Passes.

Vote on amended motion ends in tie vote. Lisa does not break tie, remands to eboard for more discussion and decision.

• Future meetings

Previous Mentors list meetings through Jan. Feb meeting scheduled for Sat 2/25 at Cris Shuldiner’s home in Pelham NH, details to follow.

• Announcements

No announcements.

Executive Board

Membership Roster

Storage Facility Key Holders

Committee Members & Corporate Appointed Officers

Schedule of Convention Meetings and Load-in/Load-out

Con Com meeting - Monday, December 12, 7pm, NESFA clubhouse

Tagging Session - Wednesday, January 4, 6pm-10pm, storage

Tagging Session - Saturday, January 7, 10am-2pm, storage

Con Com - Saturday, January 7, 2:30pm, MIT

Tagging Session - Sunday, January 8, noon-4pm, storage

Truck Loading - Wednesday, January 11, 6pm, storage. A keyholder will be present at 5:30 so that volunteers can be sure to be there when the truck arrives.

Truck Unloading - Thuresday, January 12, 10am at the hotel.

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.

ARISIA, Incorporated

Building 600, PMB 322

1 Kendall Square

Cambridge, MA 02139