Notices

This Mentor contains minutes for the September and October corporate meetings. There was no Sept 2006 Mentor.

Quorum for the November meeting is 10, based on 51% of the attendance at the last three meetings, rounded up.

Corporate dues of $24/yr were due as of September 1^st. If your address sticker has the words LAST ISSUE, we’ll appreciate payment corporate dues for 2006-2007. The treasurer prefers payment by check. A waiver of dues due to financial hardship is available. If this applies to your circumstances, please send mail in confidence to president@arisia.org.

The next corporate meeting is Sunday November 12 at 2 pm at MIT. Note that this is the second Sunday, not the third, due to Philcon.

Minutes of the September Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

At MIT, September 17 2006. Call to order 2:20 PM

• In attendance

Bridget Boyle, Lisa Hertel, Susan Mozzicato, Jill Eastlake, Persis Thorndike, Lisa Holsberg, Jack Dietz, Nicholas Shectman, Skip Morris, Tom Murphy, Samantha Dings, Alex Latzko, Janet Stickle, Joel Herda, Rick Kovalcik, Ben Levy, Noel Rosenberg, Ann Thomas (non-member)

• Proxies

Dr Karen Purcell to Rachel Silber, Pete Thomas to Tom Murphy, Don Eastlake to Jill Eastlake, Walter Kahn to Bridget Boyle

• Corrections to the Minutes

Kenai Library Friends is a 501 c3 non-profit organization.  Also, no motion should put the budget in the RED, not in the black.

• President’s Report

Thank you all for the opportunity to be president. It’s been a great year, though with the hotel change over even more interesting than I might have wished.  Thanks to everyone,
including the current eboard, who helped out this year.

• Vice-President’s Report

A check was sent to Kenai library.  We've gotten a thank you note from them. 

• Treasurer

Of our 50k most is allocated to one purpose or another.  Taxes are due Nov 15.  Paypal is functioning with the new account, the old account is closed out? This is apparently a matter
for some confusion.  There will be a separate discussion to figure it out.

• Clerk

We're caught up on mail.  There will be a new membership list in the October Mentor. If anyone is still not receiving their Mentor, let me know.   Thank you notes received from Kenai, ICGA, Concertino.

• Eboard

We lent art show key clamps to LACon.  Key clamps from Arisia are back in storage, we might
 be missing a few but not much.

• A06 Conchair

The Arisia ’06 closing report is included in a separate section of this month’s Mentor.

Moved to close committee and forward remaining business to eboard even though the convention books have not been formally closed. For taxes, total amounts received and total amounts spent will need to be calculated even if we do not do a detailed budget line breakdown.  Ben is willing to get the totals needed.
Passes unanimously

No A '06 treasurer report.

• A07 Conchair

Summer was really very slow on Arisia work. We've started with bi-weekly divhead meetings and monthly concomm meetings.  Full slate of department heads are filled but not all
important positions -- transportation and security for example.  90% of the convention can be fit into the space we have.
We have the entire hotel, even the public spaces for our use, hotel being very accommodating

Rick - we have the entire sleeping space to ourselves.  Can we badge people at the doors of the hotel?  Joel: we don't have an answer from the hotel yet.

Sunday Oct 22 2 pm at MIT is next concomm meeting.

Talk to Jill about Masquerade rules -- she is working on them now. 

• A 07 Treasurer

275 memberships, 231 comps at the moment, all outstanding bills paid, more money coming in

• Arisia ’08 report

Lisa Holsberg reports: Tem negotiating with gohs, and looking at con structure and themes. 

• Hotel

Joel:  Radisson has been sold and things are in flux.  We are working on contingency plans for overflow accommodations.  Marriott and Doubletree Suites are possibilities.
Phi: If necessary there are clauses to liquidate damages.
[Ed note: at the time of the meeting this was still in the rumor stage but it has since been confirmed. – contract liquidated and new contract negotiated with the Marriott.]

2008 contract is in progress with Hyatt Regency.  It will include an option for 2009. [Ed note: now signed.] Latest rev went to eboard on Thursday.  Monday morning is the deadline for comments. When do we want to re-approach the Park Plaza?  This is potentially a long-range planning issue. For general information, American Library Association meeting on our weekend in 2010

• LRP Committee

It's been a year.  Thanks for the opportunity to chair this committee.  Prelim reports for $25 under 25 are good.  Philcon used this idea  and got growth, we're considering it for 2008. BJB not seeking reappointment but would like to be on the committee.

• Survey Committee

Ben sent results to Pat.

• CIC

Skip fixed Lisa Hertel's key.  We'll see if it works. Albacon is going to borrow some fast track stuff and some of it won’t return which is OK..

• Relaxacon Committee

Social get-together BBQ was well attended and attracted a few new corporate members. BJB: to the extent that this was a thank you to volunteers, we should do a better job next time of making sure that all our volunteers are included.  

• Timeline Committee

We created a mostly comprehensive spreadsheet, which mostly still applies despite new hotel.  The spreadsheet is on line at: (impossible URL replaced with) http://tinyurl.com/l4ble. Anyone can view this. 

• Old Business

Previously tabled was the membership cap. How are we going to measure a membership cap?  Moved to postpone to next meeting.  Joel will bring a number with data. 

Many to 2 to postpone

• Elections

President: Rick Kovalcik  20 to Tom Murphy (Merv) 1
Vice President: Lisa Hertel 9 to Lisa Holsberg (Jasra) 13
Treasurer: Ben Levy 19 to Tom Murphy (Merv) 3
Clerk: Rachel Silber without opposition.

• New Business

Motion to reinsert in the future hotel contract dealers’ liability waivers and (cash) dealers’ deposits.
Phi seconded.
Deposits make the dealers be more responsible. There had been a separate dealers liability waiver that indemnified the hotel and Arisia if someone sought damages from the dealer. 

The intent of Skip's motion is to improve our standing with the hotel, not to make it easier for the hotel to collect money.
Go to 15 minute recess to discuss the wording , we take this into committee of the whole, recess until 4:15.

Out of committee of the whole:
Moved to require deposit of 250 dollars (in a form to be ratified by the eboard) from those on dealers row. Ben would amend to move to ask the hotel to do this. We don't want to be responsible for collections, administering the money, inspections. Alex: if we collect money for this we are actually
assuming the liability without limit. 

Moved to amend by replacement: that the corporation direct the concom to advise the hotel of the potential for damage and suggest that the hotel collect a damage deposit on dealers
row rooms PASSES 11 TO 9

Move to call the question, the motion carries.

2nd motion out of committee of the whole:
Moved to amend Arisia policy to require all dealers (both dealer's room and dealers row) to sign a liability waiver (to indemnify Arisia from stupid things dealers do)
as part of the dealers contract with the final wording of the waiver delegated to the eboard. Passes unanimously

Move to increase the pro ad rates for the souvenir book
move to discuss in committee of the whole -- many to 1
Out of committee of the whole, came the following proposed rates.

Proposed Professional ad rates

semi-pro  50%   for page rates and  no discount for extra charges
fan       25%  for page rates and no discount for extra charges
In all cases, round up to nearest $5

In addition, we have added the following rates for the souvenir book to use if need be:

In addition, the motion out of committee of the whole clarifies the following policies:

Pocket Program  & Restaurant Guide rates:
Pocket program same as souvenir book (because of high cost of publication among other things).
Restaurant guide 300, 200, 125 (no change), discount for advertisers to give a discount to Arisia attendees.  NO coupons in payment for ads.

Move to call the question -- passes unanimously to set this as policy.

Motion to adjourn fails
Motion to recommend that concom does not solicit ads for the pocket program but may accept them on a space available basis – statement: lets stop micromanaging the con.
Fails many to 2

• Future meetings

Mon Oct 16 7:30 pm Pandemonium Books
Sunday Nov 12 2:00 pm at MIT
Sunday Dec 17 2:00 pm at Kovalcik/Mozzicato, potluck TBD
Sun Jan 14 at Hyatt Regency at time determined by program committee.

• Announcements

Thank you all
Weekday meeting Feb. is suggested

Final Arisia 06 Report

Overall.  I set out to transform Arisia into a convention of general excellence and I believe that I succeeded.  Dark spots were addressed, particularly the Con Suite, and we made progress in other weak areas as well.  Going forward, I believe that we should pay particular attention to Dealers, Ad Sales, and the Masquerade.

Tools.  Zambia will probably be seen as the most important
contribution that Arisia '06 made to the organization and to conrunning in general.  But I also put in place an institutional tendency to automation and to reevaluating tools.  The momentum from my convention contributed to our switch from Mambo to Drupal and the ongoing ticketing
system evaluation and adoption process.

Structure.  Arisia is currently on the cusp of a management structure shift and my structure was marginal.  A strong-assistant-chair model would be more stable.  I dealt with fanout violations by using strong assistant division heads, but the risk here is greater.

Having Food Functions report to Fixed Functions only worked because I had an assistant con chair as the Fixed Functions division head.  This effectively functioned as a super-division, leading the structure towards the direction of the strong-assistant-chair model above.  But this is a funny super-division to use; other conventions in a similar position usually have a Programming/Events super-division and there is
probably a reason for this.

I tried to accomplish a similar thing by putting projected media into a role that was intended to be a similar strong-assistant-divhead position.  But I did not adequately communicate my expectations to Patty Silva, who probably thought I was sidelining her rather than hoping for something new and different to emerge from that area.  Again, this argues for a strong assistant con chair; had I had one, Patty could have
reported alongside Programming and Events, resulting in better lines of communication.

I should have moved Marketing into the Treasury division.  Once I had Joel as my second Assistant Chair, I was in violation of the maximum 10 fanout, and Marketing did not have a deep enough structure that it needed to report directly to me.  This does not, of course, mean that Marketing should report to Treasury in '07, merely that it should have in '06.

I consider the Staff Den blowup to have been a structural error on my part:  Ted Beatie and Elka Tovah Davidoff should have reported next to each other, which would have removed one layer of management between them and made it more likely that the hotel's concerns about Presidential would have been understood by the Staff Den staff.  This would not have kept us in the Park Plaza for '07, of course.

Saving Paul, Carsten, Rachel Silber, and Joel as troubleshooters might have worked even better if there had been a formal troubleshooting team, particularly if they had been tasked with checking that we were on schedule according to the timeline committee's document-in-progress.

People.  In '96 I had a good balance of old farts, young Turks, and imports among my direct reports.  This year I did not have enough imports even though I could have.  A little of this was that one of the particular imports was being too coy about whether he was interested in working for me, but I should have generally been more aggressive there. Some of the folks who we are thinking of as young Turks are really imports in that they have extensive experience elsewhere that we are not
taking into account, and I could have made better use of those.

Communications.  I tried to achieve some redundancy of communication channels.  But what I did was heavily slanted towards "new" electronic media.  I'm not concerned about losing people who aren't on email; every year there are fewer and fewer of these.  But we do have a lot of people who can't easily do chats, and as useful as those are it will be important to keep the email- and web-only in the loop.

Dumb Mistakes.  I should have scheduled all the concom and div head meetings up front as I did in '96 instead of trying to schedule them closer to the day in an attempt to fit into people's schedules.  Even with only ten or a dozen people it is impossible to make any given day work for everyone anyway, and you will pick up more people by making dates for them to schedule around than by trying to fit into their schedules.  This is a dumb mistake rather than just a mistake because I did it right in '96.

Space.  I treated the Park Plaza as though it were our first year
there.  Even with allocation mistakes this paid off immediately.

Money.  I don't know how much money my convention made, and at this point it does not particularly serve Arisia to find out.  My guess is that it was somewhere around $25,000.  This is due partly to better-than-expected attendance, partly to monetizing the freebies we got in exchange for the '05 date change, partly to good fiscal control generally, and partly to some expensive things I wanted to do not working out.  I move to close the convention committee and refer any
remaining business to the Executive Board.

Finally, Thank you once again to all of the hundred of people who worked to make the convention a grand success.

October Corporate Meeting

• Date and Time

October 16 at Pandemonium Books, Cambridge MA; call to order at 7:36 PM.

• Attendance

Lisa Adler-Golden, Jack Dietz, Jill Eastlake, Lisa Hertel, Lisa Holsberg, Alex Latzko, Ben Levy, Rick Kovalcik, Karen Purcell, Susan Mozzicato, Tom Murphy, Persis Thorndike, Nicholas Shectman, Rachel Silber, Connor Walsh, Hobbit

Proxies: Don Eastlake to Jill Eastlake, Bridget Boyle to Alex Latzko.

• Presidents Report

Committee appointments:

Grants Committee: Lisa Holsberg

Budget Committee: Ben Levy (head), Alex Latzko, Phi

CIC: Skip Morris (head), Lisa Hertel, Hobbit, Joel Herda, Janet Stickle

Corporate System Admin: Cris Shuldiner

Hotel Search: Janet Stickle (head), Skip Morris, Ben Levy

Relaxacon: Jack Dietz (head), Janet Stickle

Honors: Rachel Silber

Long Range Planning: Phi (head), Jack Dietz, Jill Eastlake, Lisa Adler-Golden

Tech Committee has same members as CIC

Survey Committee is left unfilled until needed

Corporate Sales: Lisa Hertel

Timeline: Lisa Hertel (head), Skip Morris, Noel Rosenberg, Rachel Silber, Phi

Archives: to be announced later

Approved by the membership by acclamation.

The president requests that we make the meeting go in a timely fashion.

• Vice-President – No Report

• Treasurer

We bought 36 radios for the con at a good rate to replace the ops radios.

• Clerk

Apologies for the missing Mentor. All minutes to date will appear in the next issue. See me if any questions.

• Eboard Minutes

The eboard met by email and approved a donation in memory of Mike Ford to the Friends of Minneapolis Public Library (book endowment fund) in the amount of $50.

• Arisia ‘07 Report

Joel is not present.

Concom meeting is Oct 22 -- see Arisia web site.

Lisa Hertel hands around hotel maps for comments, fliers to distribute.

We received the letter from Radisson terminating contract, and they paid cancellation fee of $5K. (Breach of contract refund.) Funds were deposited to convention account as they'll incur costs due to no Radisson shuttle buses.

• Arisia ’08 Report

Hyatt Regency contract for '08 has been signed, in negotiations with guest of honor.

• CIC

Storage appears to be getting a bit messy again, and should be straightened out. Both new cruft and things not put back.

New TVs are in storage. Motion to authorized RK to dispose of least desirable TV anywhere where it will be recycled, passes unanimously.

• Hotel

Janet negotiating with both Doubletree (Alston) and Marriott (Cambridge). For various reasons the Marriott is a slightly preferable choice, we will probably sign with the Marriott forthwith. Janet also expressed interest in looking at '09 and '10 hotels.

• Long Range Planning

There are too many people I’d like to hear from to put you all on LRP and still have a functional committee. We plan to take input from lots of people. As for looking ahead to the future, the overall question to be answered is "What do we want Arisia 2011 to look like?" Moved to charge LRP to discuss this, passes unanimously.

• Timeline

We should have a meeting soon, if we can find a date. If anyone has a revised timeline, send to Lisa Hertel

• A'07 treasurer report

Everything that should've been deposited was deposited, I have the checkbook with me for expenses.

• Old Business -- None

• New Business

Lisa Adler-Golden moving to Baltimore after Arisia – Feb. She will remain a member of the corporation, hopes to continue to be involved. We introduce her to 1 410-joe-bsfs.

Lisa Hertel was thinking about Nasfic in 2010. Understood that if Montreal wins we are ineligible. Nasfic in Providence? that facility might work better in august than in January. Especially if we are thinking about getting larger it would be an interesting experience.

Lisa Hertel suggests that Arisia should sponsor a 2010 committee. Jack D suggests to pass it to the Relaxacon committee :) lots of laughter.

Move to appoint the relaxation committee to explore. Jill points out potential problem with conflicting with the Montreal bid.

Move to table until later – fails. Motion fails, many to 1. It is the sense of the room that it is premature until after we know what’s up with Montreal.

Rachel asked to send thank you note to Tyler for use of the Pandemonium space.

• Future Meetings

Second Sun in Nov, Nov 12, at MIT

Sun Dec 17 at Kovalcik/Mozzicato home. Holiday potluck details to be announced.

Jan 14 Sunday at Arisia TBD room and time

A weekday meeting in February is not yet set. Between the debrief, Boskone, and school vacation, a weekend date may not be practical. People should suggest which day of week to Rick.

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

Note: all committee terms end at the Annual Meeting. New committee appointments are made by the President, subject to approval by the membership.

Membership Roster

Here is the current membership roster for Arisia, Inc. If you believe there is an error, or if you are on this list and do not receive Mentor, email clerk@arisia.org.

Keys List

If you do not have a key to storage and need to get into storage, send mail to keys@arisia.org and all keyholders will get your request.

ARISIA, Incorporated

Building 600, PMB 322

1 Kendall Square

Cambridge, MA 02139