Minicon 5-year Not-a-plan

Minicon 5-year Not-a-plan

A possibly useful set of information for Minicons 46-50

Dean Gahlon, Betsy Lundsten, Matt Strait, Scott Raun, Seven Anderson: The Minn-stf board

Joel Phillips, Kevin Austin: Minicon 45 and prospective Minicon 46 chairs (?)

Preamble

This is the sort of document that gets lost very quickly and may or may not be paid attention to if it is not lost. So let's not make any pretense that anything written here will be considered official policy for very long, if at all, or that this is a good place to store infomation that absolutely needs to be known by any particular person. Nevertheless, by writing it, we hope to have organized our thoughts and therefore committed the contents (the *same* contents) in the minds of at least a group of centrally involved people. If we manage to get this up on the web and other people read it and refer to it often, great.

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.

• Minicon is a general purpose science fiction convention that focuses on better-than-average food and programming. We welcome people with an interest in science fiction and/or related genres including, but not limited to, fantasy, horror, and other forms of speculative fiction. We welcome all forms of fannish interests and activities, including, but not limited to, gaming, costuming, partying and music.

Long standing Minicon policies

Minicon currently has very few policies as such, and even fewer that are written down in an official-type way -- like none. Well, unless you count the weapons policy in the program book. I mean convention running policies. Here are a few, which are generally only kept in the oral tradition:

• Former Minicon guests of honor have lifetime memberships. This applies only to people who were labeled exactly "guest of honor",

not to be confused with "honored guest", nor conflated with things like "toastmaster". The first few Minicons' GoHs were sometimes refered to as "speakers". That's ok too. A few times we've invited group GoHs, such as The Bigg House. Only the people who actually came to that Minicon count, not anyone who later belongs to the group. Hardly any of these complications ever come up in practice.

• Everyone who attends Minicon pays for their membership, with the exception of current and former guests of honor. This includes

the committee and the chairs. We don't refund memberships for volunteer hours, however we may offer perks for volunteers.

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.

A $50 stipend given to Minnstf meeting (party) hosts bimonthly. Additional to this, one of these meeting is replaced by a picnic, and another by the pool party, each of which costs about $200. So the total cost of meetings for a year is about $1500. Minn-StF also keeps a storage locker (mostly occupied by Minicon supplies), which currently costs about $1600/year. We have other minor expenses, such as our PO box, printing and mailing, and various one-time costs for miscellany.

Minicon is currently the only significant income for MNStF. We take in a very small amount of money for paper Einblatt subscriptions which nets us less than $30/year. We run a fallcon, which is not expected to make a profit and, at least in recent years, hasn't. Our Minneapolis in 2073 Worldcon bid has so far run at a net gain of about $100 total in 4 months, but eventually the market for memberships will saturate. MNstf currently has no donors (although maybe we should think about whether we'd like to try to change that).

The club currently has a reasonably comfortable cushion of savings such that year-to-year fluctuations in income and spending can be handled. However -- summing the above numbers -- Minicon needs to raise an average of about $3500/year in order for the club as a whole to break even.

The above reflects current practice, not our ideal case. The $50 meeting stipend has been $50 for a very long time (decades?) and has clearly fallen well behind inflation. No one who runs a MNstf meeting spends as little as $50 on food. We would really like to raise this amount to reflect a more realistic minimum expense for hosting a party for 15-30 people, perhaps $75. MNstf would also like to offer (or continue to offer) financial support to, e.g. the Gordon Dickson Memorial Fund. However, clearly we can't do any of this unless Minicon begins turning a signifantly larger profit or the club finds some other significant source of income. Assuming the first case, our fantasy would be for Minicon to make more like $4500/year.

Minicon positions

What do we know about people's commitment to staff various Minicon positions in the next 5 years?

Chair

Kevin and Joel have tentatively agreed to run Minicon 46 (right? Maybe?). The chairs are chosen by the MNstf board on a year-to-year basis, but it doesn't hurt to make some guesses about the farther future.

Counting 46, Keith will have run 4 Minicons. Generally people do not run more than this in a row, and we have generally considered turn over of the chair to be a good thing so that people don't burn out. But we don't have any particular limit and in the absense of a competing bids, we'll probably take whoever is interested.

Programming

For M45, Kelly, Sharon and Rachel are heading programming. Kelly will be gone for M46. Programming head tends to have fairly high turnover.

Children's programming

Marian has been doing this for many years.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Gaming

Open gaming, organized gaming, computer gaming.

Matt McMillan has just taken over gaming.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Consuite/Bar

Consuite, bar, possible providing food to other con functions.

Hershey has just taken over consuite and Aliera has just taken over bar.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Music

Concerts, music circles, music programming.

Chas has been handling all three for a while now.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Volunteers

Before con volunteer organization, at-con volunteer wrangling.

Matt and Kelly have just taken over both of these functions. They are not volunteering for the future.

Publications

Progress reports, program book, pocket program.

Seven has been doing progress reports and the program book for the last two years.

Matt Strait and Rachel have been doing the pocket program for a while now.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Webmaster

The website. E-mail publications. Social networking.

Dorf is doing the website for M45. DDB sends out e-mails. Social networking is handled ad hoc.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Badges

Bill has been doing this for a while now.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Costuming

Bonnie and Seven are doing this for Minicon 45.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Treasurer

Andra has done this for a few years.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Green room

Karen and/or Bruce have been doing this for a while now. We have (I think...?) cut funding for the green room for this year. Will there still be the room at all?

Bozo bus / at-con publications

Sharon had been doing this for a while. Thorin took over last year.

Commitment for and past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Guest liason

This is currently being done by a largish number of people.

T-shirts

Keith has been doing this for a number of years.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Registration

Preregistration, at-con registration.

Matt has been doing preregistration for a few years. He has volunteered to do a bad job of it for M46 if necessary (bad only because he will probably not be in the Twin Cities from September through Minicon).

Carol has been doing at-con registration for a while now. Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown. Matt Strait has volunteered to start doing this and continue as he is able for the next 5 years.

Parties

Matt Weiser has just taken over parties from Kelly. Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Art show

David has been doing this for a while now (now with the explicit understanding that while he is head, he will NOT be sitting there all weekend).

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Dealer's room

Lisa has been doing this for a while now.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Science room

Ben has been doing this for a while now. The way he does it, it is only marginally a department and more of an invited feature. Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

Films

Greg has ... I think ... taken over for this year.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.

At-con sales

Marilee had been doing this, but for M44 we folded this into art show. Plans at and past Minicon 45 unknown.

Hotel

Keith has been doing this for a while now.

Commitment past Minicon 45 is unknown.