Mentor

The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated — Number 144, Feb 2006

Notices

This month’s meeting at the home of Cris Shuldiner, Feb 25 at 2 pm. Directions are on the back page.

Minutes of the January Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Meeting called to order January 15^th at 4:20 pm at the Park Plaza Hotel. Present: Rikkibeth Stein, Mark Weinstock, Julia Suggs, Conor Walsh, Susan Mozzicato, Claudia Mastroianni, Bridget Boyle, Pam Ochs, Peter Thomas, Lisa Adler-Golden, TomCoveny, Walter Kahn, Elka Davidoff, September Isdell, Noel Rosenbergy, Lisa Hertel, Rick Kovalchik, Ben Levy, Joel Herda, Rachel Silber, Nicholas Shectman, Alex Latzko, Tracy Gangwer

• Proxies

Jeanne Kahn to Walter Kahn, Skip Morris to Lisa Hertel, Bridget Boyle to Susan Mozzicato.

• Corrections to the minutes

Minutes accepted from previous meeting.

• President’s Report

There was a great convention. Thanks to everyone who made it go. Great job, Phi!

• Vice President’s Report

There are no current grant requests.

• Treasurer’s Report

We will give a complete report after the con money is counted.

• Clerk’s Report

Mail was picked up at the mailbox through Thursday evening before con.

• Eboard Report

No eboard meetings beyond what was published in the Jan. Mentor.

• Arisia ’06 ConChair Report

The con is now over, we had approximately 2400 attendees. Thanks to everyone. It was a great con!

• Arisia ’06 Treasurer Report

Money is being counted now.

• Arisia ’07 ConChair Report

Please come to the debrief meeting at MIT building 66, 4 pm Sunday January 29^th. In the process of talking to guests of honor. Talking to staff has begun.

• Committees

Corporate Sales : We have collected money from Offworld Designs. A full report will follow.

Long Range Planning: The current question before us is what happens if Arisia increases to 2700 or drops to 1700. A meeting date will follow soon. What constrains our current membership cap?

Relaxacon: making progress. If we do have a relaxacon, we have been discussing how it would work.  We will make it not conflict with other cons.

No other committee reports.

• Old business

Alex has finally tracked down paperwork from '04 con treasurer, and will be doing forensic accounting with Ben

• New business

MSP - $100 donation to ICG with our thanks to Carl for his help on the souvenir book.

MSP by acclamation: Thanks to Phi for services as con chair.

• Future meetings

Feb meeting at Cris Shuldiner’s residence in Pelham NH 2 pm. (Directions and details will be printed in Mentor.)

March 12 2 pm at MIT – note, not the 19^th as that is Lunacon.

Tues Apr 25, at Kovalchik/Mozzicato residence; byo food at 7 pm, and meeting will start at 7:30

• Announcements

Please come help load the truck NOW.

Adjourn 4:50.

Eboard Meeting Minutes

Eboard meeting January 25 at storage.

Present: Rick, Lisa, Ben, Rachel, Cris, Phi, Joel

Call to order approx 8:20

Extra coffee from Green Mountain Coffee Roasters: Rick will take left over coffee to Pine St.

Ben will give Rachel the contact information and Rachel will write a thank you note.

Extra parking tickets left over from con: Are corporate property. Rick will get reimbursed.  Joel will take the tickets to use at meetings at the hotel.

Odd convention account has $10.  Cris will transfer the $2000 seed money.

Discussion of wireless swipe boxes and the rates we are charged by various providers. No action at present.

Merchant accounts: the deposits are still going to Wainwright. Let things settle out and then we can close up those accounts. Ben now has the relevant statements and account numbers. Needs post-Arisia balances from Feb statements

Convention attendee banned by Park Plaza for sleeping in the hotel. Any queries about this should be referred to Park Plaza. Rachel will draft a letter to send to our lawyer, informing of the situation.  Ben will flag his name in Congo so that we are aware if he tries to register for '07. We are perfectly happy to let him register, but will use the flag to make sure we contact him to check that he really wants to register before we just take his money for a con he probably can't attend

Violation of picture-taking and picture publication policy by a staff member.  Rick will discuss with the individual.  The picture (or pictures) need to be removed before any pictures are placed on the web.

Rob Spence had some gear damaged at the con.  Rick has followed up with him, offering to reimburse his costs to fix.  Staff must be considerate of gear that they borrow on behalf of the convention.

MSP lend NESFA our copier, and any other gear that would be helpful to Boskone.

We discuss policy of lending vs renting radios.  We should still lend radios to other organizations that need them.  Buy 6 more radios to replace broken and lost?  Bring up to corporate when results of this year's convention are known, but before September.

Lunacon wants to borrow the masquerade gear and some sound gear but not film gear. We will work with Lunacon, and lend them the needed equipment.

Guidelines for firing staff, if that becomes necessary

We recommend:

• that conversations about firing people include the conchair and occur in person

• that all staff is careful about relyig on email for sensitive subjects

• that people should be flexible and try other communication channels if email is not working -- it may not be getting through.

Eboard recognizes that there are too many variables in the situations to have a mandated process.

We should use the term "volunteers" rather than "gophers" going forward.

The motion approved from LRP stated that the party rate is $25, but we would like it to be “current rate - $5”.

Discussion of student rate plans deferred, but it does seem that we should simplify. Discussion of volunteer incentives deferred.  The whole subject should be considered as a package.

Rachel will fix wording of credit card policy so that it is explicit for not having to get credit card imprints for those people we don't expect to charge. This was implicit in our eboard discussion but omitted from the wording published in Mentor.

MSP that it is the sense of the eboard that people on the master bill are charged the same amount as if they had paid to the hotel directly. 

MSP that Rick will buy three more handcarts.

MSP to cancel VoIP phone account that we currently have and reconsider needs in September. Rick will arrange through Skip.

Meeting adjourned approx 10:40.

Membership Roster

Upcoming Meetings

Sat Feb 25 2006 2 pm corporate meeting at the home of Cris Shuldiner, 9 Jeremy Hill Rd., Pelham NH. 603-635-9335

Sun March 12 2006, Arisia corporate meeting at MIT, 2PM

Tues Apr 25 2005, Arisia corporate meeting at Kovalcik/Mozzicato residence, 7:30 PM. Food beforehand at 7:00 PM

Storage Facility Key Holders

Mentor 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

Committee Members & Corporate Appointed Officers

Convention Calendar

Feb 17-19 Boskone Sheraton, Boston MA http://www.boskone.org
Mar 3-5 Intercon F (LARP) Chelmsford MA http://www.interactiveliterature.org/F/
Mar 17-19 Lunacon Hasbrouk Heights NJ http://www.lunacon.org
May 26-28 Anime Boston Sheraton Boston http://www.animeboston.com
May 26-29 Balticon Baltimore MD http://www.balticon.org
Jun 30 - Jul 2 PortConMaine 2006: Revenge of the Pirates (anime/gaming) Portland ME http://www.portconmaine.com
Jul 7-9 Readercon 17 Burlington MA http://www.readercon.org
Jul 7-9 Connecticon (multi-genre) Hartford CT http://www.connecticon .org

ARISIA, Incorporated

Building 600, PMB 322

1 Kendall Square

Cambridge, MA 02139