A meeting of the WCSFA Board was held at the McGill Library on Sunday, August 21, 2005 at 1515.
Present:
Palle Hoffstein, Marie Lousie Beesley, Tammie Gerbrandt. Clint Budd, Garth
Spencer, Chilam
Greg Cairns, Chris Sturges
Palle Hoffstein chaired.
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1. Repayment for renewal of VCON name
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Repayment to Clint, for $400, was proposed by Clint and Marie.
Moved by Marie, Seconded by Clint.
All in agreement. Cheque signed sealed and delivered.
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2. Budget
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Marie says we have 2400 in the bank. We have to keep enough for the hotel ($1500)
and the program book ($800). We also have the liquor licence to pay and Marie
is waiting for account charges to come through. Estimate we'll need $6000-7000
final total.
Greg Cairns gave a motivational speech.
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3. Registration
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127 so far, plus dealers. Allan says they'll plan the bagstuffing for Thursday
most likely.
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4. Venue
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Relations with the hotel are good. We have lots of time for cleanup on Sunday
night. We don't have to be out until 2am.
We need to stay on top of registration to double track the number for our room block. Perhaps we could add a line to our registration form asking where people are staying.
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5. Guests of Honour
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Palle spoke to Robert Silverberg at WorldCon. He is looking forward to VCON.
We discussed our other guests. Palled asked if we had remailed possible guests
after we had secured our GoH. Yes we have. Our guest list could use some more
depth so we should continue looking for more.
GoH Dinner? Anyone who wants to go can pitch in towards the GoH costs or not go. Either that or we'll keep it really small, just Greg and one or two others perhaps.
Palle volunteered to be Guest Liaison, saying how important it is to have that job filled.
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6. Promotion/Publicity
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Watch out for Gareth, he tries to sell in the hallway instead of buying a dealers
table. If you catch him, charge him the dealers rate. He sells bootleg copies
of movies.
HP Lovecraft's birthday party in the next week or two. We should send someone to advertise. Palle says it's extremely important to have a presence at NASFIC/CascadiaCon. Greg says he'll go to HPL and a few of us are planning for Cascadia.
Garth has taken the role of Publicity Chair. We discussed other ways to advertise that may be more useful. Palle says that he like to colour code registration forms by the location they are left in so that you know where the advertising counts. We should go plaster walls downtown with fliers the week of the con. We can also hit the libraries and put ads in the books. We really need to pump up our visibility.
We need to dispel the notion that we are like StarTrek cons or boring, etc.
Garth mentioned a SciFi radio opportunity that he will investigate.
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7. Art Show
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The show last year was the best in years. We need to build on that.
We need to pursue people like Pat Turner, Atkinson, and a photographer that Greg's been talking to.
We should hit art schools looking for talented students. No requirements aside from genre.
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8. Hospitality
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We had a lot of trouble last year due to regulations in the hotel.
This year Chang wants kegs. Chris says he's got a micro brewery interested and there is Storm as well.
Budget is usually about $1000.
It needs to be opened first thing in the morning. Ask Chang if he can take care of this and plan an alternative in case he can't make it for some reason. Be prepared to have someone step in if necessary.
Ray has expressed interest in opening Hospitality every morning for breakfast.
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9. Gaming
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Big event next week with HP Lovecraft's party.
Rick tends to wait on planning and uses his friends to run game tables. He is awesome at running the room!
We need to hook up with the Gaming Guild. They can draw others if they run something. Can't snub them.
We need gaming goods, etc.
James Ernest is worth the price of his room, he should draw 8-10 people.
We need another gaming committee member to balance things.
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10. Programming
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Greg will confirm that Paul is doing the program book.
Programming is going well, Fran is working hard despite illness. They've decided to cut down to 3 panels at a time from 5.
Dance will start earlier, then we'll start Rocky Horror Show in the same room with the projector up. We can sell goodie bags for anyone who wants the authentic experience. Not able to sell tickets since attendance is allowed by con membership.
Filking guests? Callie and friends will be back. We could have them put on a concert Friday night rather than just having them sing during the Bacchanal.
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11. Operations
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Chris/Jeff already have 2 alternates picked out.
Palle suggested that we give caterer the breakdown of setup ahead of time so they know what they have to work around. Head of catering is very important. Chris has already met her and seems happy so far.
We discussed replacing the Art show boards with some new prefabs that Chris could build.
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12. Miscellaneous
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We are not going to have a video room this year. Palle says it's not worth
it, nobody really uses it anymore except for sleeping.
Hosting for v-con.ca is going away after the con. Chris says $8/mo for niner.net or ninernet.ca? We'll also need to sort out registration of the domain.
Clint is working on getting a index of BCSFAzine archives on to the WCSFA portion of the site. Working with Graeme on that.
Society report is way over due. Got the forms from Clint, Tammie has them
filled out and will just pay the fee for now and get reimbursed later.
Tammie moved adjournment.
Palle seconded.
Meeting adjourned at 1655.