2nd Minicon 5-year Not-a-plan - Revision history

Mle292: /* Long-standing Minicon policies */

2019-04-23T21:29:09Z

Long-standing Minicon policies

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:29, 23 April 2019
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	* Everyone who attends Minicon pays for their membership, with the exception of current and former guests of honor (see below) and current honored guests. This includes the committee and the chairs. Case by case exceptions to this can be sparingly made. For instance, at Minicon 43, we comped two reporters who were there to follow Lois Bujold around. But we do not ever comp people for providing any sort of entertainment or education.		* Everyone who attends Minicon pays for their membership, with the exception of current and former guests of honor (see below) and current honored guests. This includes the committee and the chairs. Case by case exceptions to this can be sparingly made. For instance, at Minicon 43, we comped two reporters who were there to follow Lois Bujold around. But we do not ever comp people for providing any sort of entertainment or education. We have also occasionally paid people the price of a membership in exchange for their services.
	* Former Minicon guests of honor get a free membership. This applies only to people who were labeled "guest of honor" or (for historical reasons) "toastmaster", but not "honored guest". A few times we've had group GoHs, such as The Bigg House. As a special case, these people do not have lifetime memberships.		* Former Minicon guests of honor get a free membership. This applies only to people who were labeled "guest of honor" or (for historical reasons) "toastmaster", but not "honored guest". A few times we've had group GoHs, such as The Bigg House. As a special case, these people do not have lifetime memberships.
	* We don't refund memberships for volunteer hours, however we may offer small non-monetary perks for volunteers.		* We don't refund memberships for volunteer hours, however we may offer small non-monetary perks for volunteers.

Straitm: /* A mission statement of sorts */ and lists can't have internal line breaks...

2014-01-16T04:23:04Z

A mission statement of sorts: and lists can't have internal line breaks...

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:23, 15 January 2014
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	on these ideas occurs below.		on these ideas occurs below.

	* '''Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses		* '''Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses on better-than-average food and pretty good diverse programming. Our core fandom is written-word SF, but we also welcome people with an interest in related genres — including fantasy, horror, and other types of speculative fiction — and media, including films, television, audio productions, etc. We welcome all forms of fannish interests and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, non-fictional science, costuming, partying and music, from all sorts of people.'''
	on better-than-average food and pretty good diverse programming. Our
	core fandom is written-word SF, but we also welcome people with an
	interest in related genres — including fantasy, horror, and other
	types of speculative fiction — and media, including films, television,
	audio productions, etc. We welcome all forms of fannish interests
	and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, non-fictional
	science, costuming, partying and music, from all sorts of people.'''

	We would like to encourage Minicon's long trend of slow growth. We do		We would like to encourage Minicon's long trend of slow growth. We do

Straitm: /* A mission statement of sorts */ silly formatting

2014-01-16T04:22:28Z

A mission statement of sorts: silly formatting

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:22, 15 January 2014
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	on these ideas occurs below.		on these ideas occurs below.

	Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses		* '''Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses
	on better-than-average food and pretty good diverse programming. Our		on better-than-average food and pretty good diverse programming. Our
	core fandom is written-word SF, but we also welcome people with an		core fandom is written-word SF, but we also welcome people with an
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	audio productions, etc. We welcome all forms of fannish interests		audio productions, etc. We welcome all forms of fannish interests
	and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, non-fictional		and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, non-fictional
	science, costuming, partying and music, from all sorts of people.		science, costuming, partying and music, from all sorts of people.'''

	We would like to encourage Minicon's long trend of slow growth. We do		We would like to encourage Minicon's long trend of slow growth. We do

Straitm: authorship and disclaimer

2014-01-16T04:21:33Z

authorship and disclaimer

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:21, 15 January 2014
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	A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 51-55, approved on or about XX XXX 2014 by:		A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 51-55, approved on or about XX XXX 2014 by:

	* No one yet, because this is a '''draft''', but hopefully eventually the Minn-stf board, the Minicon 50 chairs and the Minicon 51 chair(s).		* No one yet, because this is a '''draft''', but hopefully eventually the Minn-stf board, the Minicon 50 chairs and the Minicon 51 chair(s). Matt Strait is writing this, and currently it should be considered '''only''' his own opinions and not anything resembling an official statement from anyone.

	==Preamble==		==Preamble==

Straitm: remove unneeded underscores

2014-01-16T04:16:43Z

remove unneeded underscores

← Older revision		Revision as of 21:16, 15 January 2014
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	to have organized our thoughts and created a situation where a group		to have organized our thoughts and created a situation where a group
	of people involved in Minicon all agreed on a bunch of statements at		of people involved in Minicon all agreed on a bunch of statements at
	the same time. If other people read it and refer to it often, great. This document is a follow-up on the [[~~Minicon_5~~-~~year_Not~~-a-plan]], covering Minicons 46-50.		the same time. If other people read it and refer to it often, great. This document is a follow-up on the [[Minicon 5-year Not-a-plan]], covering Minicons 46-50.

	==A mission statement of sorts==		==A mission statement of sorts==

Straitm: Created page with "NOTOC A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 51-55, approved on or about XX XXX 2014 by: * No one yet, because this is a '''draft''', but hopefully eventually ..."

2014-01-16T04:16:13Z

Created page with "__NOTOC__ A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 51-55, approved on or about XX XXX 2014 by: * No one yet, because this is a '''draft''', but hopefully eventually ..."

New page

__NOTOC__
A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 51-55, approved on or about XX XXX 2014 by:

* No one yet, because this is a '''draft''', but hopefully eventually the Minn-stf board, the Minicon 50 chairs and the Minicon 51 chair(s).

==Preamble==

Because we are not very good at keeping records (although we're doing better), and also not very good at remembering which records we've kept, this document is not intended to be official policy, nor is it to be considered a good place to store information that absolutely needs to be known by some particular person. Nevertheless, by writing it, we hope
to have organized our thoughts and created a situation where a group
of people involved in Minicon all agreed on a bunch of statements at
the same time. If other people read it and refer to it often, great. This document is a follow-up on the [[Minicon_5-year_Not-a-plan]], covering Minicons 46-50.

==A mission statement of sorts==

Minicon is an ever-changing thing, but let's say what we think Minicon
is now and what we would like it to be for the next 5 years. Elaboration
on these ideas occurs below.

Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses
on better-than-average food and pretty good diverse programming. Our
core fandom is written-word SF, but we also welcome people with an
interest in related genres — including fantasy, horror, and other
types of speculative fiction — and media, including films, television,
audio productions, etc. We welcome all forms of fannish interests
and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, non-fictional
science, costuming, partying and music, from all sorts of people.

We would like to encourage Minicon's long trend of slow growth. We do
not want Minicon to be bigger because we think bigger conventions are inherently
better or to boost our egos, but because we think our community is worth
sharing with more people, and because we benefit from economies of
scale.
Since Minicon has a large and stable core membership, we must weigh
the interests of who is already attending strongly while also not
stagnating. The key to doing this is to build on interests already
present in our membership.

==Long-standing Minicon policies ==

Minicon has no standing policies because each Minicon is independently
organized under the auspices of Minn-stf and can do almost anything it
likes, with only a very few restrictions given in the Mnstf bylaws.
However, there are a few policies that have been adopted by all recent
Minicons that would be very good for future Minicons to adopt. Here they
are:

* Everyone who attends Minicon pays for their membership, with the exception of current and former guests of honor (see below) and current honored guests. This includes the committee and the chairs. Case by case exceptions to this can be sparingly made. For instance, at Minicon 43, we comped two reporters who were there to follow Lois Bujold around. But we do *not* ever comp people for providing any sort of entertainment or education.
* Former Minicon guests of honor get a free membership. This applies only to people who were labeled "guest of honor" or (for historical reasons) "toastmaster", but not "honored guest". A few times we've had group GoHs, such as The Bigg House. As a special case, these people do not have lifetime memberships.
* We don't refund memberships for volunteer hours, however we may offer small non-monetary perks for volunteers.
* We do not offer ''a la carte'' memberships, such as a "gaming badge". (Our goal is to build our community, not to provide space for unrelated communities and then enforce their separation.)

== Minicon financials ==

Minicon is a fundraiser for MNstf. Minn-stf's yearly operating budget is
dominated by meeting stipends and the cost of our storage locker.

''To be written''

== Minicon positions ==

What do we know about people's commitment to staff various Minicon positions in the next 5 years? This list does not attempt to cover every single task that is done in the running of Minicon, but rather to hit the large and medium-large positions.

''To be researched and written''

== Appendix: Stability of Minicon membership. ==

=== Basic analysis ===

These numbers come from analyzing the registration database for M43-M48.
If there are no large shifts in culture, we can expect each Minicon to
consist of:

People who will come the next year too: 65%, broken down into:
* Hard core of long-time consistent members: 40%
* Non-new people who aren't yet clearly hard core: 15%
* First time members: 10%

People who won't come back the next year, 30%, broken down into:
* First timers: 15%
* People who have come more than once: 15%

And:
* Occasional/returning members: 5%

=== Cutting the data up in a few more ways: ===

* The overwhelming pattern is for people to come consistently for a long string of years, missing only one here and there. One sees people who have come throughout our recorded period, those who started coming and kept at it, and those who used to come and stopped abruptly.
* People who miss more than one year in a row tend not to come back at all. Only 21 people out of a possible 709 have done this: 3%. Another few percent are the occasional members who have a long history with us but miss many years.
* 25% of our members each year are there for the first time. Of these, 40% of come back.
* Of the people who aren't one-timers, 15% stop coming each year.

=== Interpretation and Recommendations ===

Minicon is emphatically *not* made out of a different random group of
people each year. Two out of three people at Minicon have been
coming and will come again. We should weight their preferences
accordingly. While it's find to design some fraction of our activities
around what we think the 25% of first-time members might like, not
much is going to hold up without significant existing interest from the
other 75%.

Of the 15% of non-first time members who stop coming, I think it's safe
to chalk a good portion of this up to moves, deaths, and non-fannish
children who stop coming when they can make their own decisions. How
much "a good portion" is, though, I don't know. The rest presumably
leave because Minicon has ceased to be interesting or enjoyable to them.
If there were some way to figure out the details of this, it would be of
significant interest.

Less than half of first-timers ever come back. I don't think we should
see this as a problem. Fandom isn't for everyone, and Minicon isn't
either, even for people who are aligned with fandom. Some fraction
(but it's very difficult to say what fraction) of these people are
coming to see this year's GoH and have no interest in Minicon, or even
perhaps fandom. We should of course be welcoming, but an expectation
that everyone who comes once will be hooked is unrealistic.