Mentor The Newsletter of Arisia, Incorporated -- Number 115, April 2002

Minutes of the Corporate Meeting

• Date, Time, and Place

Sunday, April 21, 2002. MIT Building 66, room 168. Called to order at 3:00 PM.

• In Attendance

Brendan Quinn, Nicholas Shectman, Paul Selkirk, Skip Morris, Lisa Hertel, Traciy Fogarty, Rachel Silber, Tom Murphy, Craig McDonough (new member).

• Corrections to the Previous Minutes

A former clerk asserts that the vote at the February meeting to reaffirm the Operating Philosophy was a hand vote, not a voice vote.

• Proxies

Colette Fozard to Craig McDonough.

• President's Report/Eboard Report (Brendan Quinn)

The Eboard met at some point. The Clerk was not present, but the President assures him that minutes are available somewhere.

We talked about the hotel contract; we expect it will be signed at the next Eboard meeting.

We checked on the status of dealers room theft investigation. We have a good idea of how they got in, and what the extent of the losses were, and we are in the process of reimbursing the affected dealers.

Brendan Quinn and Traciy Fogarty went to JerseyDevilCon for the express purpose of holding a party. We made a grant to them, and had a membership swap with them. They're a young con, and they need a lot of help. They don't know how much help they need, so anyone here who is interested in helping to run another con, a smaller con, where there may be more of an opportunity to do more different kinds of things over the course of the weekend than we do at Arisia, please consider going down to JDC next year, because they could use experienced help.

• Vice President's Report (Colette Fozard, via email)

Final handling of the losses from Arisia in the dealer's room should be done soon. I need to get the submissions from the dealers, double check them, and then instruct checks to be cut.

Phi has more information. "I went to the mailbox between when Colette sent this out and now, and there is information from the dealers about what the losses were. Columbine lost, at wholesale rates for the things she resells, and retail rates for the things she makes, about $1100. The Trachtenbergs' wholesale rates, plus replacement of a tote and cash box, comes to about $450. So about $1500 and change in total."

• Grant Committee Report (Colette Fozard, via email)

No pending grants on the table, though we were informally contacted by the Worcester Armory Museum, checking to see if we would be willing to help them fund bringing in Gary Gygax to a symposium they have planned on armor. I told her that while it would need to be approved by the corporation, I thought it sounded cool and encouraged her to apply, and pointed her to the grant submission guidelines.

• Clerk's Report (Paul Selkirk)

Please sign in. Dues are $10 at this meeting, or $8 afterward. New members gain voting rights after attending one meeting; this meeting counts. Reports are encouraged to be submitted in writing, to avoid gross transcription errors.

I've been working on a redesign of the Arisia website, both the corporate side in my capacity as Clerk, and the con side in my capacity as Marketing div-head. I'm looking to go live with it within the next week, once I get more of the con content into it.

• Treasurer's Report (Nicholas Shectman)

In filing Arisia's sales taxes, I have discovered some problems with our sales tax filings over the last several years. Arisia is required to file sales tax quarterly, using a "restricted form" - that is, one which is not available on the web and instead is available only to registered sales tax entities from the Department of Revenue. Arisia has the proper registrations, but we tend to lose forms. We also tend to forget about filing for quarters in which no tax is due. I have corrected several issues with our sales tax, including 19 quarters dating back to 1995 in which we did not file for a zero-tax quarter; one quarter when we filed with a letter in lieu of a form and the tax was applied to the wrong quarter; and one quarter for which a check was cut to the state but never mailed, presumably for lack of a form. I expect to receive confirmation from the state tomorrow that the sales taxes are now in order, but I expect that Arisia will be assessed between $400 and $500 in interest and penalties, mostly for failure to file that one quarter's sales taxes.

I think part of the process that doesn't work very well for Arisia is having a fiscal year that ends at the same time that the Treasurer's term ends. So then the treasurer, who is no longer treasurer, is not very well incented to file income taxes. So I think going to a July 1^st fiscal year is probably a better idea. But that is an issue for another meeting, just to reassure you that I am considering the federal taxes, not just the state sales taxes, which is what this report is about.

I have not fully completed the Arisia '01 financial report. The largest remaining item on my plate is to go over the Kinko's bill and allocate expenditures there to individual line items. However, I can give a preliminary report; it appears that Arisia '01 made about $8,000 on revenues of about $55,000. (Just by way of clarification, we turned responsibility for closing Arisia '01's books over to the corporation, and I am doing so.)

Skip Morris reports that our Service Mark has expired, so he is renewing it with the state.

• Arisia '02 Report

A registration data entry party will happen Real Soon Now.

• Arisia '02 Treasury Report

Craig reports that the final hotel bill has not been paid, and has been sent to collection. Chris Amshey is aware of this issue, but we're not sure if he's actually sent a check. If necessary, Phi will write a check from the Corporate account, and bill A'02 for it.

In similar news, the program book printer was finally paid. Skip reports that we actually paid the full estimate up front, but that the estimate was wrong, and there were change charges, so it took a while to get the bill straightened out, but we mailed a check a couple weeks ago.

Skip reports that the babysitters have also not been paid.

• Arisia '03 Report (Skip Morris)

We've had a couple div-head meetings. We made a schedule of future meetings for div heads and concom. We talked about membership rates and deadlines.

We have held, or are planning to hold, parties at Lunacon, JerseyDevilCon, Balticon, Worldcon, Albacon, and Philcon. At Balticon, we're letting the costumers use our suite on Saturday as a Costumers Suite, as part of our master plan to get more costumers in our masquerade. At Worldcon, we're going to have an East Coast suite - MCFI will take it one night, Philcon another night, and one night there will be a "Boston in '03" party, with Arisia, Boskone, and hopefully Readercon, Anime Boston, and Vericon.

We talked about hotel space allocations, about different ways of laying out party space vs. quiet space, and about hotel reservation procedures.

• Database Committee (Rachel Silber)

No report.

• Corporate Sales Report

We have a very small number of this year's sales shirts left over, if members would like to buy them.

• Old Business

None.

• New Business

MOVED to allocate $300 for Filthy Pierre to build more freebie racks. Motion PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to allocate $500 spend on massage training. After some discussion, the motion was TABLED to the next meeting.

MOVED to set the June meeting to Sunday, June 9 at 2PM at MIT. Motion PASSED on a voice vote.

MOVED to set the July meeting to Tuesday, July 16 at 7PM at storage. Motion PASSED on a voice vote.

• Announcements

Brendan has a new band called The Squall, which will be performing on Thursday, April 25 at the Linwood Grille.

• Meeting adjourned at 4:10 PM.

Directions to the May Meeting

The May meeting will be at the home of Monte and Michelle McGuire:

In case you get lost, the phone number is:

By car from I-93:

Take the Rt. 60 exit from I-93 and proceed east on Rt. 60 towards Malden. You'll pass by a number of storefronts in Medford, and eventually you'll get to a traffic light at the intersection of Rt. 60 and Rt. 28. On the far right will be a Sunoco station. Stay on Rt. 60 and pass through this intersection as well as through the next set of traffic lights. At the third set of lights, take a left onto Highland Ave.

Proceed along Highland past the first set of lights (Maple St.) and make the next possible right turn onto Clifton St. Stay on Clifton through the 4 way stop sign and continue for another 2-3 blocks. Just before the traffic light, the house will be on your left, #181. It is a large, pale yellow victorian with a turret. Park in our driveway or on the street.

By T:

Our house is several short blocks north of the Malden Center T stop on the Orange line. Exit the station to the west side of the tracks, take a right outside of the station and follow Summer St. (which closely parallels the T tracks) north to the next traffic light at the intersection of Clifton and Summer St. Turn left onto Clifton St., and the house will be on the right, two doors down. It is a large, pale yellow victorian, clearly numbered 181.

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.

Executive Board

Storage Facility Key Holders

Committee Members & Corporate Appointed Officers

Membership Roster

Calendar of Events

Tuesday, May 14, 2002, 7:00pm
Arisia Corporate Meeting
McGuire residence, Malden MA (see directions on page 4)

May 24-27, 2002
Balticon 36
Wyndham Baltimore Inner Harbor Hotel, Baltimore MD

Sunday, June 9, 2002, 2:00pm
Arisia Corporate Meeting
MIT Building 66, Room 168, Cambridge MA

July 12-14, 2002
Readercon 14
Marriott Hotel, Burlington MA

Tuesday, July 16, 2002, 7:00pm
Arisia Corporate Meeting
Arisia storage facility, Somerville MA

August 29-September 2, 2002
ConJosé/60th World Science Fiction Convention
San José Convention Center, San José CA

October 4-6, 2002
Albacon 2002
Ramada Inn, Schenectady, NY

October 4-6, 2002
Trinoc*coN 2002
Durham Marriott, Durham, NC

November 2, 2002
Con*Cept 2002
Days Inn, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

December 13-15, 2002
Philcon 2002
Center City Marriott Hotel, Philadelphia, PA

January 17-19, 2003
Arisia '03
Boston Park Plaza Hotel, Boston, MA

ARISIA, Incorporated
Building 600, PMB 322
1 Kendall Square
Cambridge, MA 02139