Meeting Minutes for Arisia Corporate Meeting - 24 March 2005

 

Meeting was called to order at 8PM at home of Rick Kovalcik in Newton.

 

In the absence of the President, the VP (Rick K) moderated the meeting.

 

In the absence of the Clerk, Skip Morris was appointed to take minutes.

 

There were seven voting members present (Rick K, Skip M, Phi, Alex L, Walter K, Persis L, and Susan M.  Also present were Don and Jill  Eastlake who joined before the meeting.)  In the absence of a quorum the meeting was convenied for hearing reports only.

 

Proxies: Ben Levy to Phi, DBS to Alex, Jeannie to Walter, Bridget to  Alex, Noel to Phi, Shiela to Persis.

 

Officer and Committee Reports:

 

President's Report - not present, no report.

 

VP's Report - Has received grant info from Noel.  All the info appears  to be stale (ie, dealt with int he past.)  He knows of no outstanding  grants.

 

Treasurer's Report - We're solvent.  We lent a swipebox to Lunacon,  we'll send them a check for Art Show purchases which total $4922.70 plus  $590.60 less about 3%.  There was a query as to whether or not we could afford  to have the lawyer in Atlanta work on the hotel contract. (ie, This is the hospitality industry specialist that was retained for consultation for  the A'05 date issue.)  He normally charges $1900 for reviewing and  rewriting a hotel contract.  He's willing to apply the prior $1000 retainer to  this work.  Alex will look at our current situation and let Skip know.

 

Clerk's Report - Not present, no report.

 

Grant Committee (Rick) - Report included in VP report.

 

Hotel Search Committee (was Tom, now Buzz) - Not present, no report.   (The eboard members present noted that Buzz was recently appointed to chair the Hotel Committee.)

 

Timeline Committee (Noel) - Not present, but members present reporting recently picking art show's brain.

 

Honors Commitee (Chair?) - Announcement that anyone interested in  nominating someone to honors, please contact president@arisia.org

 

Database Committee (Merv) - Not present, no report.

 

Long Range Planning (Bridget via Alex) - Has met, Bridget needs to  summarize the results.

 

[Quorum Note: Carsten or Noel (I forget, I thought it was Carsten, but  the notes say Noel.) joined the meeting by speakerphone. We now have  quorum.]

 

Corporate Inventory Control (Skip) - Reported out a motion (originally  from Merv).  A draft Storage Policy was presented.  After passing it around  and receiving many friendly amendments it was passed by aclimation.

 

[Actual is on handwritten document with lots of scribbles that were  hard to read.  Was transcribed as follows. Please everyone who cares verify  that  the below is correct.]

 

Moved: To establish a Corporate Storage Policy as follows:

 

Arisia Corporate Storage Policy

 

            1. Keys may be given out to individuals who need to access      storage on a regular basis. Keyholders may not lend out keys to       other individuals without EBoard or CIC approval.

 

            2. Equipment and goods may be stored in Arisia Storage with    permission of the EBoard or CIC, provided such items may be    used by Arisia for free, ie "at no charge".

 

            3. All equipment in Arisia Storage must be labeled, or be in a     container labeled with the owners name; additionally all Arisia           owned equipment must be labeled, or be in a container labeled with the responsible department.

 

            4. Equipment in storage may be loaned out with EBoard approval.         However Common Courtesy and Common Sense dictate that individual       owners, and/or committee members responsible for such equipment       be consulted before any loan is approved.

 

            4a. Any time anything is loaned out from storage, an inventory   record of said items should be sent to all keyholders to         facilitate proper "check-in" when all items are returned.

 

            4b. Anyone borrowing anything from Arisia Storage must agree             to return everything in a like condition as borrowed, or to            repair or replace anything damaged in a timely manner.

 

            5. The Arisia CIC must maintain a contact list of all keyholders,             and all individuals or organizations storing anything in storage.       A copy of said list shall be posted in a conspicuous place in       storage.

 

CIC made four more copies of the key since it was felt the new "no key  loaning" policy would make it harder on current keyholders. Persis was given key  #13. Rick was given other extra keys.  [Note: Persis... we didn't tell you,  but so far all the keys given out to ConChairs are where the key number  matched the year they chaired the convention.  That means you're doomed in 8  years...]

 

CIC has been in discussion with Bart (the landlord) over space.  Bill  Darby has moved and they're subdividing the space.  Upshot is they want us to  move to a slightly smaller space and charge us more rent.  (Current rent is  $640/month for about 1100 square feet.)

 

There was a discussion over storage issues.  Upshot is Phi, Alex and  Skip will be checking out Drydock Avenue space in the next couple days.  Someone  said that we might get space as cheap as $5/square foot.

 

[Note: Drydock was checked out, it appears the space isn't any cheaper  then what the current landlord wants to charge.]

 

It was reported from the floor that the laminator is missing.  Walter  is checking the cost.

 

It was reported from the floor that a review of the photographic  records of what was borrowed by the flea indicate that they did NOT borrow the missing  Art Show shelves.  Also, the shelves that came backup up here from BSFS are NOT  the missing Arisia shelves.  The most likely culprit is N4, but given the cheap  price of the shelves it isn't worth persuing.

 

Skip's ladder still needs to be replaced.  He will buy a new one and  submit an expense report to Arisia who will then bill the Flea.

 

A bunch of stuff was borrowed by Lunacon.  All of it appears to have  been returned except for an 8' pulldown screen.  Rick or Skip will pick it up the  next time one of them is in NY.

 

Arisia 03 (Skip) - no report.  Noted by A'04 Treasurer we're waiting  for final financial report.

 

Arisia 04 (Carsten) - no report.

 

Arisia 05 (Buzz via Phi) - It's still over.

 

Arisia '05 Treasury (Cris) - Cris has a sick wife and kid.

 

Arisia '06 (Phi) - Most DivHeads are appointed.  There will be a  meeting in April to put together the budget.  There was a successful party at Lunacon,  there were 14 memberships sold.

 

Corp SysAdmin - Not present, no report.

 

Tech Equipment Committee - No report.  Alex will talk to Paul Re: video  gear and what he has accomplished.  A message will be posted to Corporate as to  which equipment will go away.

 

Survey Committee - Not present, no report.

 

Old Business - none.

 

New business

 

Motion that for email proxies be accepted they must be signed  digitally, motion failed for lack of second. (Note: Informal discussion from the floor  basically felt this was not needed since proxies are normally sent to the  corporate list where all can see them.  Falsification of proxies has not been a  problem.)

 

Motion to change Art Show rates by Phi.  We went to a Committee of the  Whole for an extended discussion.  Motions as returned from committee were:

 

1. Art Show rates are modifed to $29/panel prorated. Commissions are  eliminated. [Passed Many to 1.]

 

2. Art Show rules should include "Arisia reserves the right to limit  panel or table sales based upon the needs of the convention." [Passed by  aclimation]

 

3. Corporate Art Show Policy modified to say: "The Convention Art Show  may eliminate the display area for prints and require that all Print Shop  artists instead rent Art Show display space."  [Passed by aclimiation.]

 

[Note: After the meeting an alternate Art Show rate of $20/40 as  discussed (ie, $20 per panel/table prorated for up to one panel, $40 per panel  prorated for everything above one panel/table.  Phi is looking into this, however  this is a revenue neutral proposal and as such doesn't need action before the  budget.]

 

Meeting Schedule:

Meetings were scheduled.  The upcoming schedule of meetings and other  stuff is:

April 24 (Sunday)                     Corporate Meeting Cancelled.

April 25 (Monday) @7:30        DivHead Meeting at Wainwright/Central Square.

April 22-24                              AggieCon 36 Weekend (Austin).

April 30-May 2                        CostumeCon 23 Weekend (Utah).

May 15 (Sunday)                     Corporate Meeting at MIT (usual place/time).

May 27-30                               Balticon Weekend (Baltimore).

June 12 (Sunday)                      Corporate Meeting at Jill Eastlake home.

June 24-26                               ApolloCon 2 Weekend (Houston).

July 8-10                                  Readercon 15 Weekend.

August 4-8                               WorldCon Glascow (UK).

September 1-5                         NaSFiC (Seattle).

September 18 (Sunday)            Arisia Annual Meeting (default time).