Open Topics
No one present here for open session
Finance-Kim
We are doing fine. Not much money going out .
We got our Trade mark for ATC.
We are signed up for legal servies Nov 1 to Oct 31st for $350
We are not limited on the number of hours.
Como Friends Dec 6- Not a free event. Celebrating 100 years. $75 per person.
Normandale College Sat Nov 21 Cherry Tree celebration. 1pm-3pm. RSVP by the 15th.
St. Paul Nagasaki Sister City Celebration Dec 5th $18 donation.
P. did not make the November payment. The certified letter came back. At this point we have to revoke him form staff and arrange equipment pickup. There was no reply to the email either.
Registrations are coming in.
Donations are coming for scholarship and LEG Fund.
Coordinator Updates
Heather- SOS- 1st Swap meet was on Saturday 25-30 people came. This filled the room at one point and we did have some issue fitting everyone. $14.75 in concession sales. We plan to do this or something similar again.
Next up is the December Kotatsu.
Decorated and updated the ATC office. We have space for small meetings in the office space now. The list of Key Holders was emailed out.
Morgan Did you post about the Ghost in the Shell movie? –Heather
I spaced on this. I can get that information up now. - Morgan
Kale- Charity-
Meeting last month. We (charities team) decided on procedure. If a request comes in we (charities team) will notify the board in 24 hours.
Did we get the charity email set up? - Kale
I believe so. - John
Once we (charities) get the email we will check out the details to make sure it is on the up and up. As long as there is time before the board meeting we will do our best to present on it.
Anton called, we (charities) do have scan of the paper work for the mcad paperwork. We do have the airfare and where the short falls are.
Dave- MCad needs $2k, narrowed the focus and had a drop in attendance. Narrowed it to gaming instead of the whole genera. Not getting funds form academy of arts.
Anton did not get the receipts to Dave on time. The short fall was focusing on gaming culture and not Anime. Brianna Wu was there.
Vote- all in favor-5
Opposed-1
Light the night- Overall a success. I don’t feel that is due to the organization. We (charities) were next to a radio station. We never met with our contact. We let them know we were not happy about this. Contact did email us showing us how they feel about us. If the board wants to continue with Light the Night, I will back it.
This is our 2nd year we had issues with this. They told us over a year we would not have music next to us and we did. Kale has yet to meet Chris. I don’t think we should continue at the amount we are. I do enjoy running the kids area.
Lauren- I know we vote at the end of the convention cycle if we donate to them or not.
Kim- Is Gifford aware?
Kale- Yes.
Lauren – I don’t think they will have a hard time finding another sponsor.
I can’t in good conscious recommend we give that amount of money to an event we fix issues at. Every promise they gave us was broken. –Kale
Kale has not set up the meeting with Chis yet. We (board) will revisit this issue in May.
Jayson- Do you want to revisit this topic after your meeting with them?
We (charities team) did cancel the Thursday meeting due to the AD meeting. We will meet after the AD meeting.
Socks and Scarves
Michele Clark is in charge of this.
We need to get this decision made on this. We will talk about this more when we have details.
Everything is back in the locker now.
4 ATC Branded bean bag toss. The hole light up blue.
Kale will let Heather know all of our yard games available for future ATC events.
ASUM is going great. They have contacts that are reaching out to us to help out at their activates.
Morgan- Media-
Michele has been helping on Twitter that is gong awesome
Registration needs to fix there part of the website. Especially on kids and ages.
John has been wanting to put this up for a while.
Dave – We don’t just want people to drop off their young kids off and go shopping and pick the kids up.
Heather- Can we have an escort badge system?
MN Laws on this topic are vague. There is no age limit; it is based off maturity.-Lauren
Registration was supposed to do an update on this. They are gong to dig thought there stuff. We need more then a FAQ. We need this stated.
There is still a problem of staff posting as them self posting not as staff. It is important because important information could be missed this way.
We (ATC/Anime Detour) need to look professional. Just because you are on said department dose not mean you can post form your personal page when answering a question. –John
I had it to revoke admin rights form several people, and drop them down to editing only. _John
Dave – If a department head posts something on their personal page that is their right.
John- That is not what we are discussing. Brian J. posted that video forum were closing on his personal page.
Moran- No one saw this important post. I am sending him an email about this matter.
Jayson- I still feel this needs to go though the main site.
We are still trending up on everything.
The ATC site is creeping up faster than the Anime Detour one.
I will have the convention relations policy by the next meeting.
Jayson- Anime Detour
We (board) did have a tour of the Double Tree. It was mainly for the people have not seen the entire hotel. I am reaching out to the convention center and river center and other hotels; they will charge and want to have someone there on the loading docks. I am working on the convention center and river center and Hyatt. Due to the time restraints I am asking all sites to give us a 1 yr and 3 yr contact. The Double Tree is easy to get a contract from; the other sites are not familiar to a 24 hr event.
I suggest we (ATC Board) have an extra meting in May. I will tell the sties this is our deadline.
Will this negatively effect our relation with the Double Tree?-Lauren
No Dawn is happy to have a deadline. She is more receptive then Jean. It took a long time to add in everything to the last contracts. This is where I am at right now.
Kari is looking in got the convention center and river center. We expect to hear back form Hyatt this month.
Disciplinary Action Guideline
This has come up 4 times. I give them my guide lines. This is one unwritten rule I would like addressed.
What is attended by décor under professionalism?-Lauren
We should have a document of what is expected form the departments that they sign.
Read over the document and email your our suggestion. _Lauren
Is this within the boards preview? Dave
Jayson- The more eyes on it the better, this kind of thing could turn in to a legal nightmare. I would like us to all be comfortable with this before it is released. The goal here is corrective action. We can’t have someone not show up to any meeting and attend the convention for the few perks we offer, that can not fly.
This is me stepping forward and showing that I am trying to show an improve on how we do things
AD Budget
They wanted a lot of money. The initial request was $270k; we got it to $225k. This gave us extra money. This would cover all necessity and the extra growth. This also covers the department needing new equipment. Some departments turned in budgets late, they know this and they get what they need to run the department.
The guest stipend was doubled. We did cut guests budget by $700. Anton is famous for booking the flights at the last minute.
Dave- We don’t want to pay the attendance fee, but the stipend is now $500?
Now when we say the per diam is $500 is that per day or the weekend? –Lauren
That is the entire weekend. When you factor what we provide for them, it averages out to what they would make in a weekend. –Jayson
$205k was last year was requested. $207k was spent.
Vote- all in favor – all ( Kim abstaining )
We are approving $ 225k, but also unhappy do we have plans in effect for the number going up next year.
Radios
Speaker Replacement
Capital expenses
Security is getting new vests.
Consuite needs new cookers.
Photography has requested equip
I do not expect a 10% increase for next year.
Kim- My concern in the extra money we raised, 20k is going to Jayson.
Dave- Our main purpose is to run an anime convention.
We went over last year do to the food safety issues we got hit with. -Jayson
With some of the stuff being bought in house, can that be an income source for rental?-Morgan
Currently no, we only charge for Radios.- Jayson
We should charge a wear and tear fee, this way the cost can go to replacements.
We need to stop saying that next year it won’t increase or say that next year tech well need something. _Lauren
Have we gone and looked at what will need to be replaced 2 – 5 years out? Every year we spend money on capital. We need to have it x budgeted and x for unforeseen issues budgeted. –John
Morgan - Lets have a sit down with the department head and have them look at what they need 2, 3 years out. That way we have an idea of what to expect.
Even a 2-3% increase will not be sustainable it the future unless we raise the price for a detour membership. I would feel better about this if we ask the departments to budget out what they need for the years coming up. –John
I feel we are at an unsustainable growth.- Jayson
Most of the heads are not going to spend the time to have realistic 3 year forcasts. _ Dave
If you are not willing to spend the time to budget this out, this position is not for you. If dues do not mean anything to you, being a department head is not for you. –Troy
We all agree that a plan going forward is a good idea- Lauren
We got the Emotional intelligent training coming up. I would like to see this each year. I would like to see finance and logistic meet as they don’t know what a capital expense is.
The training is this Sunday? Can you send out an email on this ideally in the next 48 hours? -Lauren
When dates and times like this go out, send out the remainder with a calendar invite attached for the event.-Morgan
For example the Hotel tour, I over looked this as it was not on my calendar and I booked photo shoot. _Michele
The more ways to remind people the better
Procedure on Revising Board Notes
Having looked over all the notes, we have redacted 3-4 times. We redacted a legal situation, a name, a contract process we wrote the wrong name on. I believe there are the only times.
If we are stating opinions on people, we should use initials epically if we do not have the consent or they are not at the meeting. I do feel the comment in question; I do feel this could be detrimental to a career.-Lauren
I can go back and change the name in question to the initials. –Connie
We are gong to vote on changing the name to the initial and keep a private record of any changes made for legal issue that might come up.
Note in the published documents changed on x date by request.
Vote as you did online
In favor –6
Opposed- 0
Any comments on how to handle this going forward.
I feel this should be done on a case by case basis. -Dave
The secretary in the future can bring up anything that he /she notices.
John recommends that we review the board notes while in our preview state before they go live.
Do we give access to coordinator?- Lauren
John- If they don’t I will make sure they do.
What happens if someone emails me saying that I took a note wrong during the review phase, do I note changed on x date? Connie
Lauren- No, they are not official until they go live.
Mascot
I want to keep our current one.
If we do go with 2 mascots I would like the new mascot to interact with the current one.
There was a construction boy as well.
Jayson feels construction girl is hard to brand if she is in street clothes.
Heather -We have a history with our mascot. People have cosplayed as her. I don’t feel 10 years in is a good time to change this up.
My kids know the AD mascot and they have not attended yet. Our mascot is known. Why do we need an ATC one, we are a board? Dave
Heather- I was thinking at first for SOS events, and then I was thinking about branding for outpost.
There are many conventions that do have human mascots, even if we don’t see them around here.
Thinking about an animal mascot there are now fury conventions in the area. Lines could be blurred.
Michele- The construction girl is a very specific. If you do change her clothes she will be less recognizable. I am not saying get rid of he all together.
We do sell out, why change out mascot.-Dave
We have an aging market. What if they are not into anime anymore and go to another convention.-Morgan
We are an anime convention. That is what we do. -Dave
The issue is were we drawing new people in form? Word of mouth is not always reliable.- Morgan
Troy- This is not the fist time I have heard we sell out. Every year we sell out is a gift. We need to stop seeing them as attendees but as guests.
Dave- We don’t need change for change sake. We don’t need to change this because I see reaching our cap as approval. We don’t need to change because we can.
Troy- We don’t advertise because we sell out. It’s not a bad idea to reach out to more people to get those 5k memberships.
John- We are not changing for change sake. Even if we get a new mascot construction girl is not gone, if the other one dose not catch on we fall back.
We want to be proactive not reactive
If we have toys or stickers or pins of both for the same cost, we can see what is selling. We can track what people want. _ Jayson
I have seen companies change and ruin their reputations. This is something that is going to be transitional for year. I want to step back on this matter. _Jayson
We are acting like construction girl is static I want to see the construction theme continue. She started as a red head. She has been brunette. She has been blonde. _Lauren
The theme has remained constant. Why not keep the construction theme and change up the people
This would be harder for us to do as we have a different theme each year? Morgan
Could we make a MECHA with a construction theme? We need to leave options on the table. And come up with a concrete plan. I am fine with you researching this as long as you keep in mind all options. _John
Why dose this fall to Moran? Heather
Lauren –For branding rights.
If I am going to do imagery for events I want to use it yearly. I know it won’t be ready for this year so I will go generic.-Heather
Are we all ok with Morgan researching this? Send your ideas to Morgan. -Lauren
Create a policy for votes out of a boar meeting, regardless of number of votes, that all board members are contacted before action is taken.
Dave- I would like to see limited voting on email. This is what our meetings are for.
Send emails on progress updates for our projects so we can decide to talk about it at meeting.
Please review my email by next meeting so we can get this officially in the notes-Lauren
Troy – We should review This Is Geek/Digital Destruction (2D) con for the December
Dave proposed meeting adjourned. All in favor.