Board of Directors Meeting
October 15, 2013
Board Members in attendance: Beverly Block (OSFCI President), Car Bostick, Jason Bostick, Aaron Curtis, Rick Lindsley (OSFCI Treasurer), John Lorentz (OSFCI Secretary), Devlin Perez, Lea Rush and Debra Stansbury (all board members were in attendance).
Also attending were Sam Justice (OSFCI Attorney), Jacob Engstrom (GameStorm 16 Treasurer), Scott Sanford and Sarah Gulde, plus a few others who did not sign in.
The meeting started at 7:33PM.
I. Minutes of Previous Meeting
The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted unanimously
II. Treasurer’s Report (Rick Lindsley)
(Reports were circulated. It was discovered that there was a typo found under Q3 “Meeting Space”.)
In the last two months, there hasn’t been a lot of activity–there has been convention activity, but not much OSFCI activity. As of the end of the third quarter, we’re about on plan. The only scary thing is what OryCon will do (since we had a bad year there last year). Even if we have another bad year there, it won’t bankrupt us. However, it would be two bad years in a row, and we’d probably have to change our planning for OryCon 36.
We should receive the insurance bill this month and we expect it will be about the same as last year. We’ve already paid for the storage, and those two are the lion’s share of our expenses each year.
Aaron: Did you purchase a membership yet for the Spokane Worldcon (for the John Andrews grant)? Not yet, but it will be purchased before the rates go up. The Loncon membership has been purchased, and the LSC III membership (which wasn’t used for the Andrews grant) was sold to Marc Wells for the same price we paid for it ($160).
The GameStorm reimbursement check for Jennifer Geske (see https://osfci.org/minutes/BOD-2012-10.htm) has still not made its way to her. She says that we can send her the payment via PayPal.
The treasurer’s report was accepted unanimously.
IV. Reports on Sponsored Activities
A. Conventions and Bids
1. GameStorm 16 (Aaron Curtis)
(The GameStorm 16 and OryCon 35 reports were switched from the agenda order, to allow Lea to have her notes ready for the OryCon report.)
(Registration report was circulated.)
Planning is progressing as expected. Pre-reg is 42% ahead of last year at this point (both for paid and for comped). There is not a treasury report available due to computer issues, but income is also running ahead of last year.
The Guests of Honor are set, and the concom is filled. They are just waiting for the Gamecon software to be ready to test. The next Game Day is October 20th at the hotel (the Vancouver Hilton).
Design Week Portland was last week, and Game Lab participated in a game test session there on Friday at the Stumpquest games fest. It was nice to get a lot of game designers there that had not been part of GameStorm before.
Devlin: Who determines who will be running gaming at OryCon 36? That would be next year’s GameStorm chair, Debra.
Beverly: The new GameStorm web site is awesome.
The report was accepted unanimously by the board.
2. OryCon 35 (Lea Rush)
(Treasury and registration reports were circulated.)
There’s a slight change to the treasury report that was circulated–there’s about $5,000 in checking right now, after paying out a fairly large advance for Hospitality. And there’s a transfer in progress from PayPal. Lea mentioned that she’s not entirely confident that the OSFCI share of the surplus from OryCon will be as high as the $3,000 in the budget, since they are seeing a lot of people buying their memberships earlier (and thereby paying a lower rate).
There was some discussion of the cash flow between now and the convention. Stephen pointed out that the most recent OryCons have needed to get a temporary loan from OSFCI to cover the last-minute pre-convention expenses until the at-con registration proceeds come in, and OryCon should be prepared to do so again this year. John asked if we’d finally gotten away from being required to pay an advance deposit to the hotel, since that’s been the major cause of the cash flow problems. (It was supposed to only be needed the first year we were at the Doubletree, but the hotel has continued to require it each year…even though it’s not in the contract.) Lea will be checking on that when they meet with the hotel tomorrow. [Followup: The deposit is no longer required.]
John also pointed out that OryCon this year is 71 memberships ahead of the pre-reg cutoff last year, and there’s still about 10 days left before the cutoff of pre-reg (and the rates go up). That usually brings in a flood of memberships trying to beat the price change. And the final thing that’s encouraging to him is that the room block is 90% filled–much more than we saw last year at this time. Obviously, more people are planning on attending, even if they don’t all have their memberships yet. (He knew of two people who’d just decided to come to OryCon, and haven’t purchased their memberships yet.) All of this causes John to think that the cash flow will be much better this year, and OryCon may not need that loan from OSFCI.
Publicity for OryCon is going very well. Rose City Comic Con was incredible. PSU is running PSAs, OMSI After Dark approached OryCon about having a presence there, and OryCon has also been talking to KBOO.
Lea asked for an increase to her OSFCI-approved Artifacts budget, in order to order more beer glasses (since the initial order is already sold out) and to pay for the T-shirts up front. This will also mean more income from Artifacts. This request was approved by the board by a 9-0 vote, with Lea abstaining.
Problems with Dreamhost have corrupted some of the membership database. This information is being reconstructed.
Lea asked if she has to specify specific departments when she submits names for OSFCI credit? No, just list the name (and contact information).
Lea: For the future–both OryCon 34 and 35 have had Artist Guest of Honor who are good artists, but have been problematic as Artist GOHs. The OryCon 34 Artist didn’t have the rights to most of his artwork, so we couldn’t use it for the convention. This year, the Artist is a great guest, but he doesn’t keep his artwork. And what he does have is such high value that we can’t afford to insure the art if we display it in the art show.
The University of Oregon is giving a class called “The Cultural Influence of Science Fiction”, and their class is coming to OryCon as a field trip.
The OryCon 35 report was accepted by the Board.
3. The 2014 World Horror Convention
The report was sent by email earlier in the meeting: The WHC is doing good. There are about 125 members, and the room block is 25% full. Tammy is looking for a couple more volunteers, for publicity and ad sales. The report was accepted.
4. OryCon 36 (Devlin Perez)
OryCon 36 has Writer (William F. Nolan) and Artist Guest of Honor; still working on an editor. The web site is being worked on, and he has a team in place to handle pre-reg for next year. The budget won’t be set until we have the result from this year’s OryCon (next month).
Rick asked about what committee he had in place so far. Devlin said that many positions have been filled (such as webmaster, registration, treasury, secretary and two vice-chairs), but the biggest hole so far is Hotel, along with programming.
Stephen was appointed to be the OSFCI liaison with OryCon 36, and the OryCon 36 report was accepted by the Board. (The OryCon 36 management agreement was signed during the meeting.)
5. GameStorm 17 (Debra Stansbury)
There’s not a lot to report yet. There is a proposed contract with the hotel (the Vancouver Hilton), and she’s been talking with her prospective committee. Aaron: Do you have an executive committee yet? Debra: Yes, but I haven’t told them yet. Aaron suggested she have at least one meeting of her exec committee before this upcoming GameStorm to plan out what they need to do early on, such as who they want to invite as Guest of Honor.
The GameStorm 17 report was accepted unanimously.
B. Funds and Awards
1. Clayton Memorial Medical Fund (James Fiscus)
Jim was not able to attend today’s meeting because of a conflict, but he sent a report which was circulated (see below).
The report was accepted unanimously by the board.
2. Endeavour Award (James Fiscus)
Jim Fiscus previously had sent in a report (see below). Helen was at the meeting to represent the Endeavour Award (she is the administrator).
Last year, there were 47 books–which is a record, as is the number of publishers that were represented–and there are already four titles in for this year. The five finalists (for the award that will be presented at OryCon next month) are on the web site.
There are a couple of Endeavour board members whose terms are expiring this year. They are hoping to replace them with some new people with experience in grant writing, and who will be more active in fund-raising. With 47 books last year, they ran out of readers and would like to recruit a few more. Aaron: Of the three people whose terms are expiring in November, are any of them interested in continuing? Helen didn’t know–Jim’s been the person talking to them. But he did ask her to recruit some new blood.
The report was accepted unanimously by the board.
3. Susan Petrey Fund (Paul Wrigley and Debbie Cross)
A report was circulated (see below). Paul and Debbie were unable to attend today’s meeting. John mentioned there will also be fund-raising taking place at OryCon, both with the egg sales and in the Susan Petrey Fan Lounge where there will be a beer-tasting fund-raiser taking place.
The Board accepted their report.
4. John Andrews Worldcon Grant (Beverly Block)
The updated letter (asking for people to apply for the grant) went out to the OryCon and GameStorm lists, and will be in the OryCon souvenir book. One person has expressed interest so far. Rick mentioned that in this last quarter, OSFCI received $160 from Marc Wells for the LoneStarCon 3 membership and purchased the membership for London 2014, and he will now purchase the membership for Spokane 2015. Beverly urged board members to encourage people to apply for the grant–the applicants do not need to be concom members. And for London this coming year, the grant has been doubled to $1000 (plus the membership).
John: And anyone who goes to London will see a collection of John Andrews’ photos from the 1979 Worldcon (in Brighton). They were purchased from his estate by a member of the London committee.
The report was accepted unanimously by the board.
IV. Other Continuing Business
A. Storage Manager Report
An inventory work session at the storage unit had to be canceled because of a power outage in the area, but Devlin has been working with OryCon to get things organized. One issue that’s come up is that, despite it being against the rules, food has been left in the Green Room containers that were returned to the storage unit. We need to make sure that people know that this is not allowed–it attracts rats, and will cause us to be evicted from the storage facility.
After some discussion on what was being stored where in the storage unit, the report was accepted unanimously by the board.
B. Hotel Committee
1. OryCon
Proposed contracts from the Portland Marriott and the Portland (Lloyd Center) Doubletree were circulated to the Board prior to this meeting (although the Marriott just submitted a new offer today that dropped the room rates another $10 a night). Both contracts/set of contracts cover the 2015 and 2016 OryCons, with the Doubletree contract offering a first option on 2017, and the Marriott offering a first option on the years 2017 through 2025.
John asked if there were any questions about the proposed contracts. Car said that the Marriott contract concerned her because of the limitation on using microwaves or similar appliances to heat up food for Hospitality. (We would be going back to what we did for the conventions through OryCon 30, when Hospitality was in the Marriott function space.) Car was also worried that the room parties would have to be in hotel space rather than the sleeping rooms. John said that the hotel function space for parties on the third floor and the ballroom level were in addition to the parties in the sleeping rooms, not instead of parties in the sleeping rooms. (There had been some confusion about that early on in the discussions with the Marriott and they’ve made it clear that parties in the sleeping rooms are still allowed.) Car: It sounds like alcohol isn’t allowed at room parties, unless it comes from the hotel. John: That’s a interesting question, since the proposed contract seems to contradict itself. The proposed contract says there is no corkage fee for alcohol in parties in one place, but in another section says that alcohol must be purchased from the hotel. (It was later clarified in discussions with the hotel that [corkage-free] alcohol was allowed in parties, including those on the ballroom level, but not in Hospitality.) Debra pointed out that, with this setup, there’s nothing to prevent OryCon from having the bar in one of the function rooms upstairs, away from the main Hospitality area.
There were some questions on the latest draft from the Marriott. Some of the most recent changes aren’t reflected all the way through the contract (they lowered the fee for the parties rooms in an early section of the contract, but on page four, the old rate is still quoted). Debra said that she was very happy about the special staff-rate rooms in Marriott proposal. John: Comparing the contract from the two hotels, the function space at the Marriott in 2015 would cost OryCon $400 more than the Doubletree…while the cost for all the hotel rooms we rent (hospitality, fan lounge, the bar, guest of honor rooms) would cost us about $3000 less at the Marriott. And that’s not counting the four comped meeting rooms during the year for planning meetings, and the comped suite for the program planning session that the Marriott is offering.
Helen said that the layout of the Doubletree is easier to work with, but it’s not a major difference–especially if the Marriott would cost us a lot less. Rick was worried about the elevators, since they were slow when we were there before, but Debra said they timed the elevators recently at the Marriott and the new elevators are much faster. Jason said the one drawback to the Marriott is the more expensive parking. John said they are working on that, since it affects all their customers, not just us.
There was also a question on whether the Marriott contract required us to use their staff for any rigging (as opposed to just rigging that we might be hiring an outside firm to perform). After some discussion on planning how we’d set up the layout for OryCon at the Marriott, Debra pointed out that the Marriott (which is quoting a lower rate already), has a attrition level of only 75% (of the sleeping room nights rented) to avoid penalties, while the Doubletree is quoting a level of 80%.
John: The Doubletree has significantly lowered their price from their initial offer, and they are putting less pressure on us to move to Thanksgiving. So it’s definitely a better offer than before–$129 a night the first year for sleeping rooms, $135 the second year (as opposed to $144 this year). (We have a promise in email of $135 a night in 2017, but that’s not in a contract offer yet.) The dates would be the third weekend in November in 2015 (the same as the Marriott), and the first weekend in 2016 (with a first option for the third weekend in 2017).
John: I like the Doubletree. I like the layout of the hotel, the convenience for mass transit, I like the numerous restaurants nearby. But it is a pain that we keep moving around in November without a fixed weekend. Devlin: Being able to lock in a fixed weekend would be huge for us, not only in allowing attendees to plan, but for bringing in guests of honor, who frequently need to be booked two years out now. John : What we’re seeing is the effect of the Doubletree being the closest large hotel to the convention center, so OryCon is always going to come in second to any city-wide convention. The Doubletree is simply not going to be able to offer us a fixed weekend for OryCon. The Marriott isn’t getting the same benefit from the convention center, and they are very anxious to have our business on a permanent basis.
Helen: Have you talked to the Hilton? John: The Hilton has made it clear they’re not interested in our business, ever since they upgraded the hotel a few years ago. Anna asked if the quoted room rates were good for more than two people in the room. Yes, it’s the same rate for up to four people.
Rick: It sounds like we do have a few question yet, but we could make a conditional approval of one of the proposals, dependent on getting answers to those questions. John: There would be two major problems if we did put off the decision any further: (1) As we’ve found out from Oregon law, any votes by the Board via email must be unanimous–all 10 board members voting in favor, with no abstentions; and (2) both of the hotels have been told we’re making the decision tonight–if we put it off any further, we could lose one or both of those options.
Car: Does the hotel committee have a recommendation? John: Having seen how anxious the Marriott is to get our business, the efforts they’ve gone through to try to tailor a proposal to meet our needs, I recommend the Marriott. Aaron agreed that assessment–the Marriott is very hungry for our business.
Devlin moved that we conditionally (assuming we get satisfactory answers to our questions) accept the offer from the Portland Marriott for the 2015 and 2016 OryCons. This motion was passed unanimously by the board. The questions were:
- Does the corkage waiver allow private parties in the function area to serve alcohol?
- Would food trucks (and a bloodmobile) be allowed?
- Will we be required to use the hotel staff for rigging (as opposed to volunteers)?
- Can we make it explicit that we have established credit with the Marriott?
There were also a few typos that need to be cleaned up–the party fees weren’t consistent, we are still under “threat of dancer”–and we want the room block breakdown for OryCon 2015 to match the 650 total room nights for that year (because of the Spokane Worldcon).
GameStorm:
Aaron presented a proposal from the Vancouver Hilton for GameStorms 2015 and 2016. The contract is largely based on the current (2013 and 2014) contract, with some changes–such as the meeting room rental fee increasing from $1000 to $2000. They were originally going to raise the sleeping room rate $6 a night in 2015 and another $6 a night in 2016, with a $5 rebate from each room night paid to GameStorm. Aaron instead asked for no increase in the room rate, and no rebates coming to GameStorm. Rick asked what Aaron’s feeling was about the increase in the meeting space fee. Aaron responded that the initial deal (free meeting space) was a great deal, intended to bring GameStorm in, and he knew it wasn’t going to last. GameStorm can afford the proposed fee. Aaron said that, at one point, the Marriott asked for a chance to bid for GameStorm. When he gave them the information on the Hilton’s proposal, the Marriott said they couldn’t compete against it.
Aaron said they’d talked about expanding to the basement (parking) level at the Hilton, but it’s more than GameStorm can afford right now. If GameStorm continues its current growth rate, it will be a little tight by 2016–but by 2017, it will probably be able to afford to expand to the basement level at the Hilton. Debra asked if GameStorm had the option to expand now to the basement if, say, a flood of people registered for the convention. Aaron: yes, they’d be happy to take our money.
After some more discussion on planning the use of the hotel (rather than the proposal itself), the board voted unanimously to accept the Vancouver Hilton’s proposed contract for GameStorms 2015 and 2016 (conditional on Aaron getting a question resolved about using more suites as function space).
C. IT Committee
The GameCon software is close to beta test-ready–it probably will be there in the next couple of weeks. They have run into one problem with Arvixe (the Internet service provider), who had said they support Python. It turns out the version they support is about six years out of date, so Beverly and Rachael are having to work around that. They may want to move to a new provider–which they would only do if they can get a rebate of the money that’s been paid to Arvixe. One of the other providers we’d looked at originally has come down significantly in cost and they provide much better service, along with more memory.
Dreamhost (which is running the OryCon and OSFCI sites) has been terrible. Jason tentatively volunteered to be the lead for finding a new provider, since Rick doesn’t have the time. He can help with the migration once we have a new provider, but it would be very helpful to have someone else lead the search for that provider. Jason will work with Fargo on this.
Rick asked when the last payment for the GameCon software is due. Beverly: After GameStorm 16, assuming it performs satisfactorily for that convention.
Jason mentioned that Clear has been totally purchased by Sprint, but our agreement with them (intermittent use without having to pay a fee when we’re not using the service) has been grandfathered in.
This report was accepted.
D. Long Term GOH Search Committee
Since there have been no meetings of this committee in the year since it was formed, the board voted to disband the committee.
E. Design Week (Aaron Curtis)
Aaron: It happened, we participated and we may be asked to do it again next year.
The board unanimously accepted this report. This ends this activity.
F. Murder Mystery Dinner
This was tabled at the last meeting until December. This is just a place-holder for this meeting.
G. Modification to OSFCI Code of Conduct (and related procedures)
Rick sent out a copy of his proposed draft to the Board list a couple of weeks ago, but we didn’t have a copy of it for this meeting. After some discussion on how detailed we want to describe the code, and whether or not that might cause problems in enforcing it, the board voted to table this for now and settle it with an email discussion within a few days (the OryCon at-con publications deadline is quickly approaching).
H. Other Continuing Business
Hootsuite
Debra asked if anything was happening with the Hootsuite account–is it being used? Jason said that some of the people liked using it, and others didn’t. Debra: Can the board do something to help it to be used? Jason thought that maybe if publicity was under the charge of a continuing person, or group of people (put there by the board), then maybe we’d get more use out of it than by depending on the individual committees. Debra: Should we put out a call for volunteers? Aaron: Or stop using it? Jason said that he would like to take another crack at it with GameStorm before giving up on it.
Further discussion on this topic was postponed until the December meeting.
V. New Business
Equipment Disposal/Purchases
1. The Canon printers donated by Renovation
Renovation (the 2013 World Science Fiction Convention) donated a number of small Canon ink jet printers to OryCon. Unfortunately, they use a lot of ink. Should we get rid of them? John: They were perfectly fine for the purpose for which they were purchased–disposable printers to be used at Renovation and then to be discarded (donated to a local group in Reno). Instead, they got loaded on the truck and hauled back to Portland. After a brief discussion, the board voted unanimously to donated them to Free Geek.
2. Laser Printer Purchase
It was suggested that OSFCI should buy an inexpensive laser printer for use by the OryCon newsletter and office. John did some research on a few models, and after a short discussion it was decided to buy a Brother HL5470DW, which is a networkable (wired and wireless) monochrome printer with auto-duplexing. How many should we buy? Does the art show or reg also need one? Art show doesn’t do much printing at-con, and Reg has the HP color inkjets that were purchased a few years ago. After some more discussion, Debra moved that we purchase two of those printers, plus a backup toner cartridge. The board approved this motion unanimously. [Note: When trying to purchase the printers later, Rick was only able to purchase one before OryCon due to limitations on that sale price. It was used at the convention to produce the newsletter.]
3. Android Tablets for using Square for at-con reg
(John asked for just five minutes to start the initial discussion on this topic.) John: A lot more conventions are using Square to accept credit card transactions for at-con registration, and there are Android tablets that are inexpensive and work pretty well. OryCon is currently using credit card terminals rented from AuctionPay (part of Greater Giving), as is GameStorm. Those terminals cost us $75 each to rent at each event. Good Android tablets can be purchased for $180 each, so one year’s events for OSFCI would almost pay for purchasing a set of tablets.
Stephen said that it’s been useful to have the printed batch report when they send in the batches each night with AuctionPay, while Square on Android doesn’t produce printed batch listings. John mentioned that with Square, you get an immediate confirmation with each transaction, rather than not know if a card bounces until the nightly batch is run. Stephen said there have been very few bounced transactions at GameStorm.
At this point, further discussion on this topic was tabled until the December meeting.
B. Purchase of Reusable Sign Materials
Jason asked for $100 to purchase materials for reusable signs at OryCon. Stephen instead suggested $300, and the board voted unanimously to allocate that amount.
C. Other New Business
ASCAP:
Beverly said that ASCAP has been contacting OSFCI in order to get us to purchase event licences for OryCon. It would be $120 a year, and while technically it should probably be paid for by the convention, it likely should be an OSFCI expense. John mentioned BMI, which we should also pay licensing fees to. Altogether, about $200 a year for all OSFCI events.
The board voted unanimously to obtain these licenses.
Rick asked if OryCon 36 had thought about raising rates. Yes, the initial rate will go up to $30 (staff will remain at $25). The rest of the rates were raised last year (while the initial rate was the same as previous years), so they won’t be going up again next year.
Rick also mentioned that he will be putting together a draft budget for 2014, that he will be presenting at the next board meeting. If anyone has something that they think should be in the budget, but hasn’t been there before, please let him know.
Insurance:
Aaron has contacted Oak Tree Insurance, our insurance broker, and they have sent a renewal for next year. He found out the reason for the large increase in cost was that they automatically included employee liability insurance. So he’ll work at getting it removed (although he doesn’t know if we can get reimbursed for the previous costs, on the grounds that we had no employees).
Westercon:
Scott Sanford presented the idea of OSFCI bidding for another Westercon (the last Portland Westercon was in 2001), and started by explaining what it was (since some people weren’t familiar with it–a traveling convention that is in a different city each year in the western part of North America, rather than a fixed-location convention such as OryCon). Helen: To put in a bid for 2016, that means you have a committee that would be in Salt Lake City this coming summer for the vote, and in San Diego the following year to promote the now-next year’s Westercon. Normally, you would have a committee in place for a year at this point. So if you took on a bid now for 2016 (voted on in 2014), you would be rushed, you would have lost a year that you would normally be spending to prepare and campaign.
Beverly: What about 2017 instead? Helen: Then you would be competing. The reason we were approached was that no one yet was bidding for 2016. Car: What is the focus of a Westercon and how many people would we expect to attend? It’s a general-interest convention (similar to OryCon), and although it used to be a good bit larger than OryCon, in recent years it’s only been drawing 600-900 people. Aaron: It would draw more people in from out of town (and fewer local people), it would run for four days, the membership would cost more, and it’s traditionally held on July 4th weekend. Would it affect OryCon memberships that year? It hasn’t in the past (except in 1984, when we intentionally ran OryCon as a small-limited attendance convention the year of the first Portland Westercon) Aaron: The greater effect is on the concom.
Rick: You may have a lot of willing volunteers, who are too financially strapped to travel to other cities (such as Salt Lake City) to promote the convention. Westercon needs more people promoting it in other locations than OryCon does. So that’s one difference–there’s not only a time commitment, but also a money commitment. You can have a lot of people who interested in running a convention, but if you don’t have anyone interested in doing the bidding, we’re going to get egg on our faces. Rick said he’s in favor of a Westercon in Portland, but he’s not sure if we have the critical mass needed in people to bid and run one. Beverly: A couple of years ago, we sponsored a bid by outside people to run a Westercon in Portland. The bid was horrendous (it lost the convention to a group that was not even on the ballot). If we bid again, we have to do it right.
Aaron: The cost of a bid is not insignificant. If we do sponsor a bid, we should ask the bidders to put their money where their mouth is. Worldcon bids usually charge bid committee dues to help pay for the bid–we should ask the same from the Westercon bid committee.
Scott: If we did bid, the bid would have to be ready by Smofcon. How many people are needed for a bid committee? Maybe ten, with at least five who can travel. What is the minimum necessary to file a bid? John: A chair, a treasurer, a letter of agreement from a facility (i.e. a hotel) and a charter of the organizing group (in this case, OSFCI). Helen: Someday, if they ever build the convention hotel, I want to run a Worldcon. If we blow a Westercon, we will not win a bid for a Worldcon. And this is rushed–we should have been planning this a year ago. I would much rather run against someone in a year when we are prepared to bid, than to rush into a bid for 2016. Car: This sounds a lot like OryCon, and we’ve been having problems breaking even on that convention recently. I’m not sure we should support something new that we’re not sure will pay for itself. Beverly: There are a lot of people who travel each year to Westercon, wherever it is. So there is a base there.
Aaron felt that, while this would be a rushed bid, it wouldn’t be a rushed convention (with the two years between the vote and the convention). We should see how much support there is for a 2016 bid. Helen: I want to do a Westercon, but in 2017 or 2018, when we have the full time to plan for it.
After some more discussion, Debra moved that OSFCI announce that it is willing to hear a bid proposal for a Westercon, whether it’s for 2016, 2017, 2018 or whatever. That motion passed 5-3. An announcement of this will be posted to all the usual mailing lists.
Beverly asked the people who voted against the motion what would make them more comfortable in supporting a bid. John: To begin with, I think we should eliminate any possibility of a 2016 bid, because it’s too soon and there’s not enough time to properly put together a bid.
The next meeting will be 2PM on Saturday, December 7, 2013, at a location TBA.
Changes to the OSFCI Code of Conduct (and procedures)
The following motion was proposed on the OSFCI Board email list on October 17, and received the necessary unanimous vote of all ten members of the OSFCI Board of Directors as of October 18, 2013.
John Lorentz, OSFCI Secretary
Change # 1
Code of Conduct
———————–
Original
Violation of this policy can result in action by the con committee ranging from warnings to having your badge revoked with no refund, and the decision of the event chair is final.
Modified
Violation of this policy may result in action by the con committee ranging from warnings to having your badge revoked with no refund, and the decision of the event chair is final.
Change # 2
Code of Conduct
———————–
Original
Be respectful of and courteous towards others. If you have graduated from kindergarten, we expect you to understand that you need to ask before you touch and that “no” means “no”. If someone tells you “no” or “go away”, your business with them is done.
Modified
Be respectful of and courteous towards others. If you have graduated from kindergarten, we expect you to understand that you need to ask before you touch and that “no” means “no”. If someone tells you “no” or “go away”, your business with them is done. Note that falsely reporting harassing behavior is, itself, a harassing behavior under this code of conduct.
Change #3
Procedures For Enforcement (OSFCI Board of Directors)
————————————
Original
4. The Board may take further action-up to and including a permanent ban from all future OSFCI events. All such actions will be decided by a simple majority vote of the full Board.
Modified
4. The Board may take further action, up to and including a permanent ban from all future OSFCI events. Both the subject of this possible ban and the target(s) of the offensive behavior will be notified of the Board meeting at which any banning will be discussed and may address the Board as part of that process.
5. Any action taken will be decided by a simple majority vote of the Board members present at that meeting.
(renumber remaining items)
OSFCI Treasurer’s Report 10/12/13
1. Current Status
With the ending of the 3rd quarter, here’s a quick review.
Storage fees have been paid, and we no longer are getting any discount. That means, relative to last year, we saw the cost go up about $300. This was not unexpected, and so it’s right on budget.
Secretarial expenses have increased as postage and copying costs have increased.
The Andrews Award saw us buy a LonCon membership, but get cash back as Marc Wells bought the unused LonestarCon membership. Since we issued no stipend this year, we will see far less expense here than we budgeted.
Miscellaneous expenses are largely three things: ongoing Hootsuite charges of $10/month, Arvixe billing for $480, plus $500 donated to Jay Lake’s gene sequencing. (Note that the Arvixe billing has already been covered by money donated from GameStorm in miscellaneous Income.)
We have only used 5% of our budgeted capital expense money, but I understand there are some proposals before us today to utilize some of that.
On the income side, GameStorm has, of course, already deposited both their membership fees and the 50% surplus and exceeded both projections. OryCon is expected to provide their membership and surplus figures during 4th quarter.
All in all, we are running about on budget, or a bit better. But that’s dependent upon Orycon providing about $5600 in membership fees and surplus. If that doesn’t happen, then there is greater risk of going a bit into the red for the year.
The Petrey Fund and the Clayton Fund are in different funds and their totals are not included below. All other OSFCI accounts are below.
Current (as of 10/12/13) account status:
Acct | Balance | Change from 6/27 report |
---|---|---|
Orycon Odd | $15210 | (+$4065) |
OSCFI checking | $10360 | (-$5205) |
Endeavour | $3900 | (-$113) |
GS Even | $9711 | (-$173) |
Merchant | $568 | (-$4002) |
GS Odd | $1000 | ($0) |
Orycon Even | $6388 | (-$12) |
OSFCI savings | $25815 | (+$1) |
World Horror | $7548 | (+$5775) |
2. Old Business
None
3. New Business
None
The Clayton Memorial Medical Fund Award
Report to the OSFCI Board
October 8, 2013
Requests for Aid:
We are in preliminary discussion with a writer to determine what aid, if any, we will be able to provide.
Account Balance and Fund Raising:
We have a bit under $3,200.00 in the bank.
Board of Trustees
Committee Members | First Appointed | Term Expires |
---|---|---|
James Fiscus, Chairman | October 1996 | November 2014 |
Page Fuller, Treasurer | October 1996 | November 2014 |
Rick Lindsley, OSFCI Rep. | Febraury 2012 | While serving on OSFCI Board. |
Ruth Sachter | November 2002 | November 2015 |
Marc Wells | November 2003 | November 2015 |
Submitted,
James W. Fiscus
Chairman, Clayton Board of Trustees
The Endeavour Award
Report to the OSFCI Board
October 8, 2013
Books Received:
We have received the first 12 titles, and expect more in soon.
Award Ceremony and Reception:
The ceremony will, as usual, be held before Opening Ceremonies Friday night at OryCon. (Starting at 6:30pm.) Selections will be read from each of our five finalists by David Levine before the winner is announced.
Our reception will be Saturday night, starting at 8:00pm.
Financial Report:
We have a bit under $5,000.00 in our account.
Endeavour Committee
Committee Members | First Appointed | Term Expires |
---|---|---|
James Fiscus, Chairman | October 1996 | November 2014 |
Page Fuller | October 1996 | November 2014 |
Marilyn J. Holt | September 2000 | November 2014 |
Sara Mueller | October 2003 | November 2013 |
Sheila Simonson | October 1996 | November 2013 |
Shawn Wall, Treasurer | November 2005 | November 2013 |
Helen Umberger | November 2012 | November 2015 |
Submitted,
James W. Fiscus
Chairman, Endeavour Award
Income Statement: Q3 2013
Balance (6/30/2013) | $8,048.41 |
Income | |
Online Sales | $39.55 |
Interest | $0.41 |
Total | $39.96 |
Expenses | |
Fellowship | 0.00 |
Scholarships | $0.00 |
Total | $0.00 |
Balance (6/30/2013) | $8,088.37 |
OCF Balance (3/31/2012) | $62,003.41 |
2013 Recipients
- June Yang (Singapore)
- Zach Grafton (Alhambra, CA)
- Samuel R. Delany (Susan C. Petrey Fellow)
2014 Recipient
- John Crowley (Susan C. Petrey Fellow)