Minutes oct26 2007

MINNSTF BOARD MINUTES - October 26, 2007

Location: Dream Park

Attending: Dean Gahlon, Sharon Kahn, Rachel Kronick, Lisa Freitag

Attending by phone: Carol Kennedy

Minutes by: Sharon Kahn

AGENDA

Talk to Treasurer (Carol) and get status on Minnstf accounts
Next year’s Convivial Bid
Club Officers
New procedure for scheduling Board Meetings
Minnstf Board Wiki – continue the discussion
Approve last month’s minutes

OLD BUSINESS

Status on Minnstf Bank Accounts

We called Carol for an update. Kevin has sent the letter to U.S. Bank requesting the resumption of paper statements. No statements have appeared yet, but Carol thinks it hasn’t been long enough to assume the worst. Carol still isn’t an Official Signer, but isn’t too concerned about that since it’s not hard to get hold of a signer when she needs one. The biggest problem is that we are essentially out of checks and people need to be paid for things. After some discussion, we decided to just order new checks for U.S. Bank and try to get the other issues worked out with them. If we’re still unhappy in a few months we can continue with the plan to establish new accounts at Highland.

There was some discussion of how much seed money is supposed to be left in the Minicon bank accounts for the next convention, and it became clear that nobody really knew what the policy is. Board tabled the matter for now, but agreed to discuss it later as part of writing up the procedure on the Minicon Rotating Dual Bank Accounts (which is one of the first procedures we need to write up for the proposed Board-Wiki page).

Minicon Money

Carol still doesn’t know the balance in the bank account, but has established from Irene’s records that the profit from Minicon 41 has been deposited. It was about $8,000. Mark should be finishing up the accounts for Minicon 42, and writing Minnstf a check for the profits. Carol reminded to him last weekend at Convivial, and would like the Board to do the same. We gave Mark a call, and he promised to accelerate the process of finishing the books. He estimates that there will be a profit of $4,000 to $5,000. We’re not sure if that includes the seed money that he left in the even-year account or not.

Next Year’s Convivial Bid

Laurel has expressed an interest in running Convivial (a small fall convention) again next year, and has asked the Board for approval. The Board is friendly toward the idea, but would like a little more financial information on this year’s con and a budget for next year. Did Convivial 2 break even? Are there outstanding expenses that have not been covered yet? Traditionally, the Minnstf fall convention has not been expected to be a money raiser, but should aim to break even.

Club Officers

Looking through the year’s minutes, the Board realizes that it never officially announced a slate of club officers, although we actually did name some. In the spirit of better late than never, here they are. We never did settle on a Vice President. Lydy has been doing such a flawless job as Pres that the need for a VP hasn’t seemed urgent. We really should do something about it, though. We decided to ask Lydy for suggestions.

President for Life: Lydia Nickerson
Treasurer and Correspondence Secretary: Carol Kennedy
Membership Secretary: Laura Krentz
Recording Secretary: Sharon Kahn (who takes the minutes) and Kevin Austin (who publishes them)
Secretary for Internet Affairs: Laurel Krahn
Webmaster: Kevin Austin and Laurel Krahn
Einblatt Editor and Speaker to the State of Minnesota: Scott Raun
Speaker to Insurance: Lisa Freitag
Executive Vice President: Steve Brust

Minnstf Wiki

More discussion of the Board Wiki idea. Ideally, we would like two Wikis: an open one and a private one for more sensitive information. Or perhaps one Wiki with restricted access on certain pages. Rachel knows how to set up privileges on a single Wiki per website, but is unsure how to create two Wikis on the same site with different privileges. She also suggested that we come up with a procedure to back up the Wiki database on a regular basis: perhaps once a month to DVD. Dean volunteered to talk with Laurel about Wiki options.

NEW BUSINESS

Club Correspondence

Dean reports that Minnstf has received a communication from the Association of Portuguese Exorcists inviting us to join their organization. We are unsure what to make of this. Dean does own a Portuguese dictionary, but that hardly seems like sufficient qualification. Except to Rachel, who thinks it is more than enough.

Approve Last Month’s Minutes

Ye old Recording Secretary had fallen a bit behind. The last Minutes sent out for review were for the July meeting. The July minutes were reviewed and accepted with some minor rewording. Then we all reviewed my written notes from the September meeting and collectively filled in a few gaps. I have sent both sets of minutes out to the Board mailing list for final review. And I’m doing these minutes right after the meeting while events are fresh in my mind. Improved procedure for scheduling Board meetings Rachel suggested the following. Even if everybody doesn’t have their calendars with, we come up with a date for the next meeting and post it to the board-chat mailing list before we adjourn. If the date needs to be adjusted later, we can handle it in email. Everybody is asked to respond (yes, no or maybe) to proposed meeting times.

Next Meeting

Next meeting tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 30, at 7pm. The location will be the usual, Dream Park (Sharon’s house). Proposed agenda:

How much seed money should be left in the Minicon bank accounts when they transition to the next concom?
We still need a VP!