Mentor

The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated — Number 143, Jan 2006

Notices

Thank you to Rick Kovalchik and Susan Mozzicato for hosting a festive holiday lunch as well as the last Arisia corporate meeting.

More and more information about Arisia ’06 is being placed on the web at www.arisia.org. Please keep looking there for up-to-date convention information.

Minutes of the December Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Meeting called to order December 18^th at 3:15 pm at the Kovalchik-Mozzicato residence.

• In attendance

Rachel Silber, Rick Kovalcik, Susan Mozzicato ,Don Eastlake III, Jill Eastlake, Lisa Adler-Golden, Carsten Turner, Persis Thorndike, Tom Murphy, Ben Levy, Karen Purcell, Lisa Hertel, Nicholas Shectman, September Isdell, Tracy Gangwer

• Proxies

Tom Coveney to Carsten Turner, Alex Latzko to Rachel Silber, Michael L to Lisa Adler-Golden, (after start of meeting) Persis to Karen, Jill to Carsten

• Corrections to the minutes

Ben - treasurers report in December Mentor only includes the figures from Bank of America; in addition, balances still remain in Wainwright account

The Vandenberg proxies from Nov meeting should have been allowed to David D’Antonio: members in good standing may hold proxies even if they do not have voting rights themselves.

• President’s Report

Rick will be in India Jan 1 – 8.

• Vice President’s Report

The vice-president is learning to knit. There was a successful party at Philcon, 5 memberships collected.

• Treasurer’s Report

We should be on top of the taxes and that will be verified.

Merv asks for more details on funds and distribution of money.

We still do not have a corporate budget.

Alex sent mail about closing the '03 and '04 books. A '03 has all the info we need, the processing is not done. A '04 still needs to be closed. This was supposed to happen by Dec 31st? It's still possible that it will.

• Clerk’s Report – no report

• Eboard Report

Eboard meeting at NESFA clubhouse December 12th

1) Eboard will go buy light bulbs for art show. We are using a house brand, there are no competing bids (for now). (Update, this has been done.)

2) Motion from eboard passed by membership:

Dues for all members are payable on Sept 1 of each year. Any member who joins during the year shall be pro-rated monthly to the following September 1st. All memberships expire Sept 1st. There is an automatic grace period until the start of elections at the Annual meeting. The eboard may choose to extend the grace period for all members. 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. The clerk shall notify any member who has neither paid their dues nor requested a hardship waiver by September 1st.

3) Master bill policy change: corporate treasurer has to get a credit card imprint before keys are handed out for people on the master bill, but he doesn't have to collect money first

4) Taxes: Ben mailed off the FY'03 taxes that needed to be amended a week and a half ago. Haven't written the letter begging for relief on penalty taxes yet. (See update on taxes in treasurer’s report.

The corporate checking account that Alex was using needs to be closed. However there are 3 credit card statements that are linked to that account -- merchant billing accounts. We need to change where they go to first, before changing the accounts.

• Arisia ’06 ConChair Report

There's some business on the table after Nov meeting, no longer necessary, to adjust income figures, that is no longer necessary since we know we surpassed these figures. Historically, we have pretty solid info by Dec 25, at approximately 47% of registrations. This includes paid pre-regs, volunteer comps, and program comps. This modulates mostly publications and consuite and some smaller expenses like badge stock. There's some limits on how much we can vary.

As of Dec 18^th, Phi concludes that we are between 24 and 25 hundred, we budgeted for 2300. I don't think we can support more than 2700 and I will not support raising the membership cap above that.

Rick moves to authorize the eboard to put up to an additional 5000 in the contingency fund if need be. Passes unanimously.

• Arisia ’06 Treasurer Report –no report

• Arisia ’07 ConChair Report -- no report

• Committees

Corporate Sales : We've gotten parking stickers and they'll be sold at info desk.

Offworld designs is interested in an embroidered design?

Move to allow phi and future conchairs to use the arisia lens on gifts for their divheads -- MSP

Suggestion to authorize Offworld Designs to make no more than 50 shirts with the embroidered arisia logo. Discussion in committee of the whole. Conclusing, Corporate Sales will say to Offworld we don't think this is a good idea and we strongly suggest not doing it. We don't have evidence of the demand for the shirt.

No other committee reports.

• Old business -- none

• New business

Merv brings up a point (with no motion): there are inaccuracies in the books closed for Arisia '05. We should work out a way to make sure we are getting accurate numbers between reg and and treasury.

• Future meetings

Jan meeting is 4 pm at the con, currently scheduled for Whitehill, 4th floor

Feb meeting at Cris Shuldiner’s residence. Time set for 2 pm.

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

Tues Apr 24, at Kovalchik/Mozzicato residence food at 7 pm meeting at 7:30

• Announcements

Tagging sessions Wed 1/4 and Sat 1/7 ,Concomm meeting Wed 28th at hotel, Sat Jan 7 2:30 pm at MIT

Truckloading Wed Jan 11 at storage 5:30 pm; truck unloading Thurs 10 am

Need people monday after arisia for unloading and rearranging storage

Adjourn 5:17

Executive Board

Membership Roster

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.

Committee Members & Corporate Appointed Officers

E-board Decisions Jan 1

For single day comps upgraded to weekend comps, the price is $20 regular/$10 student.

The eboard will allocate an additional $2000 to the contingency fund to handle the additional costs due to the current attendance estimate of 2475 people.

ARISIA, Incorporated

Building 600, PMB 322

1 Kendall Square

Cambridge, MA 02139