February 2025 Board Notes

Date:

02/11/2025

Attendance:

Board Attended: Alli Cassel, Kevin Ehrler, Alyssa Johnson, Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Bruce Levine, Nick Nelson, and Jeannette Wallen
Board Absent:
Observers: Sherilyn W. Brown, Sean Cooper, Samantha Cozort, Emily Haack, J.C. Horvath, Andrew Janssen, Jeremiah Keohen, and Makaila Kozitza

Notes:

Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes

February 11th, 2025
7:00 PM

Board Present - Alli Cassel, Kevin Ehrler, Alyssa Johnson, Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Bruce Levine, Nick Nelson, and Jeannette Wallen

Public – Sherilyn W. Brown, Sean Cooper, Samantha Cozort, Emily Haack, J.C. Horvath, Andrew Janssen, Jeremiah Keohen, and Makaila Kozitza

Agenda is available in the link in the description of the livestream, these meetings are counted for attendance for voting rights please comment your name in the chat and fill out the google form in order to gain voting rights.


Agenda

  • Recap off cycle board actions and votes
     
    • Bylaws Amendment Passed
      • Passed on February 4th, these Bylaws are now officially in effect.
      • Nick Nelson can now officially vote on board matters.
      • It will make the upcoming election cycle easier, and it is nice that the Bylaws are now written by someone who specializes in it.
         
    • Welcome our new Communications Coordinator Makaila Kozitza
      • She did our last two Facebook posts; she will be presenting later on in the meeting.
         
  • Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners
    • None
       

Coordinator Updates
 

  • Coordinator Position Open: Charities
    • AUSM Opportunities
      • If we want to become a sponsor, they have a few events and are offering a few packages we would either get signage or a booth at their events, this would be a good partner just not sure which events we will be available for.
      • Alli – We have partnered with them in the past so no objections to the partnership.
      • Bruce – Let’s look at the sponsorship opportunities and see which events it would make sense to sponsor, and which packages would make sense.
      • Christina will reach out and we will go from there.

 

    • Minnesota Kyudo Renmei Request
      • They are a Japanese archery group in MN, they are looking for donations for their training exercise in August.
      • Their top tier starts at $750 and goes to $1K.
      • $1K is standard for what we do.
      • We would need to check with the hotel in the future if they could do a demonstration or if they would have a table at a future convention.
         

Motion to donate 1K
Seconded Bruce
All In Favor (everyone agreed)
Motion Passes
 

  • Coordinator Position Open: Special Events
     
    • Saint Thomas Academy's Asian Club Request
      • There was a request that came in from Saint Thomas Academy on if we knew anyone who could host an educational guide at their school, the chair team gave that request to the board since they didn’t have the bandwidth to support the request. We are looking to direct them towards JASM if they have any resources to help.
      • Hope – that is a good avenue to explore, that sort of opportunity is better suited for an organization like JASM.
      • Not sure on a specific time frame but they are looking for information we assume while class is still in session.
      • Bruce could help with planning but may not be able to be there, he majored in Japanese studies.

 

    • Cherry Blossom Festival
      • SPNSCC (St. Paul Nagasaki Sister City Committee) let us know that they are holding their Cherry Tree Celebration on May 3rd, there is no cost, and we could bring a table and chairs and tent, so we should have our special events team there. It should hopefully be warmer then too.

         
  • Anime Detour – J.C. Horvath
    • We continue to be assured that construction will be completed on time, we are doing our best to address it. We will make further announcements to reassure everyone. We believe we are still at full speed ahead but if anything goes different, we will make sure that we take care of everyone.
    • The programming meeting was last weekend so we have a prospective schedule for the weekend. We had to say no to more panels than ever this year, which is a good issue to have. We will let people know by social media about the more noteworthy events and panels that will be held the weekend of Anime Detour.

       
  • Finance – Jeannette Wallen
    • Dollar amounts:
        • Business Checking: 428,085.75
        • Education Fund: 3,098.32
        • Business Market Rate Savings (Community Fund): 14,507.03
           
  • Communications - Makaila Kozitza
    • We shared JASM’s event that took place on February 9th
    • We are looking to create an ATC BlueSky account to reach the community better.
      • Bruce and Christina will work with Makaila to get our URL setup as the handle for BlueSky.


 

15 Minute Break (If the preceding topics take little time, the board may vote to skip this)
Motion to Skip
Alyssa/Hope Seconded
All in Favor (All of the present Board)
Motion Passes
 

Current Month Board Topics
 

  • Rental Requests
    • We have received a policy request to reinstate our rental and loan equipment policies.
       
    • Not sure how much of the nitty gritty we want to go into, but we don’t foresee this as us putting a link on our website allowing anyone to rent equipment from us. It is more we have internal / external partners we may want to rent equipment to and this is a policy that would cover anything that may happen in those scenarios
       
    • Bruce – A high level overview of Cass and Bruce’s thinking, the primary benefit is we have quite a few partner events (Anime Fusion, Furry Migration, Twin Cities Con, VGM Con, Nebkon, and more) it is to open up with these orgs to shoot an email and then it would go through the normal review process the org would have the final say whether it gets approved or not at the Detour level if it needs to go up at the ATC level it would, there would be a deposit set to cover stuff if there are damages, but once done it would go back to the org outside of any of the specific costs which is based off normal formulas which Cass has more information on since they do it in their day-to-day job.
       
    • J.C. – One of the important things is there are 3 levels. Anyone seeking a new partnership starts at a level where they have to provide a larger deposit and there is a little bit we keep even if it all comes back in good shape. As we build a better relationship you get better terms which would incentivize this to go well, and the equipment will come back the way we want. In the past we didn’t have that detailed of a policy like this which resulted in issues. Another good idea is that J.C. and the chair team would not just say we are promising this equipment they would go to that department and ask about it if there is interest, we have benefited sometimes from these exchanges quite a bit and having a detailed policy should make that go better and help to rebuild those relationships in a positive way.
       
    • Alli – I’m not going to say that Bruce and J.C. aren’t making good points but there was a tendency with enough of them that the amount of partners being approved was going down that the longer they were partners with us the more careless they would get with equipment and not returning it in good condition, she went through a lot of broken equipment from a partner who was a partner for many years, and had forgot to return equipment in previous instances. We are doing this basically for free and we are putting a significant amount of investment into our own people’s time to do this. They must go to the locker and know what equipment has to be picked up. They must meet with the person initially and get it signed. They have to meet with this person again and then we have to inspect the equipment and make sure they are testing it to make sure it works and that it isn’t damaged in a way that wouldn’t get caught on only a visual inspection, that is a lot of time and we are getting nothing back out of it except the partnership which is great but it is a lot along with what our people are already asked to do.
       
    • Hope – Who would be responsible for the check in check out process is it a case by case based off who it is, is it specific people in tech in state if it is tech related equipment, will it be people on the board only who is responsible for doing that side of the process?
       
    • Bruce – This is lined out in the document under process and responsible parties.
       
    • Christina - Basically it is the logistics team that is kind of in charge of it.
       
    • Hope – Since we don’t have a logistics head would it fall under Cass?
       
    • J.C. – Yes, it is Cass for now. Obviously, we would love to have a logistics head but yes this is primarily where it would live.
       
    • Christina - The old rental policy was $150 non-rental fee and an additional $200 deposit which is returned with the equipment back after the inspection. Is there a reason we have no fee collection at all for some of them?
       
    • Alli- Was just going to note that the inspection part was where we were screwed on the old policy, people didn’t have time to do the inspection in time before we had to return the deposit. Things were physically broken in ways she hadn’t seen before, and no one caught it in time before we had to give their money back and after that there was no recourse. We didn’t have time before do we have the time now? I don’t know but the time was not taken in the past.
       
    • Christina – It should be when we ask logistics or whoever do you have the time to agree/manpower to check this equipment before you rent it out.
       
    • J.C. – Glad you raised it as a concern, I was not involved in the past, he is very aware that it was a problem, and we will have something in place to make sure it is not something that will happen again. He is noting it as a strong concern.
       
    • Christina – We put no cost for our tier 1 partners, even if it comes back in perfect condition there will still be wear and tear since it was used, you generally pay for rentals so there should be charge.
       
    • Hope- Agreed that even if we are great partners if this is something we want to move forward with I don’t see this as something we trust at face value since accidents happen, so we aren’t stuck on the hook for something we don’t foresee happening.
       
    • Alli- The partners we had trouble with were those where they had been partners for a while and were more comfortable probably at least in the second tier of partnership and there is a known effect that if people have to pay more for something then you pay more respect to it and our equipment was not being respected by the partners who were borrowing it.
       
    • Bruce- If we at least have someone taking this feedback then this can get back to Bruce and Cass so they can implement any of the changes that need to be done, I do agree the fee amount should increase or there should be a flat fee of something but it should not be 100% flat there should be some monetary exchange but we can retool the items on that and with the partnership levels I think that since we are reimplementing it everyone should start back at square one so everyone is established as an establishing partner.
       
    • J.C. I’m not opposed to adding fees, maybe a flat fee and percentage would be good, but there is a partner where we both rent from each other every year so then it makes sense to make that waivable but that is a very specific situation.
       
    • Christina – It is good for tracking though that the money changes hands and is written down somewhere.
       
    • Alli- If we had something like that it wouldn’t be a primary partner, she would make J.C.’s example a special partner, a special position based on special circumstances and not the same as the others. So, it isn’t based on the same progression as the other partnerships.
       
    • Hope- We have a good foundation laid down for the proposal and it would be good to table it off and then to have Bruce and Cass come back to it next month / later
       
    • Bruce – We will likely not work on it till after Detour at this point.


       
  • Policy Discussion
    • We are now going to go through getting policies written for everything we need them for, but we are in crunch time with Detour so we will focus on a few selected items namely Bans and Coordinator Reviews.
    • Hope – I am not nearly as much in crunch time as the rest of you since I am not a department head anymore so I will have time to work on the Bans.
    • Bruce – The ones besides Bans, Conflicts of Interest should be on top of the list as well and probably same goes for a Whistleblower policy.
    • Christina- That is our goal to have at least two of these done before our next meeting.


Open Session (up to 30 minutes)

  • Any members of the community can bring new business to discuss with the board
    • None

Open Board Projects/Future Meeting discussions
 

  • Policy Updates
    • Bans
    • Coordinator Reviews
    • Board Training (In Progress)
    • ATC Policies Document
    • Conflicts of Interest
    • Whistleblower                                                           


Motion to adjourn
Hope Seconded
All in favor (All of the present Board)
Motion Passes
 

7:35 pm meeting adjourned.


Please contact atcboard@animetwincities.org or atc_secretary@animetwincities.org if you would like to be added to the agenda for discussion items.