2007 June 16th GM Minutes

[staze]

June 16th, 2007 General Meeting Minutes
Meeting called to order.
Meg Uhde, President Presiding
Ryan Stasel, Secretary, Minutes Taker

No director meeting to report on.

Operations reporting.
   Registration: 648 Attendees, 18 VIPs. 518 online registrations this year. 2006, 218, and in 2005, 3xx. Expected attendance is 3000 people or so.
   Volunteers: Quite a few volunteers. Actual number of volunteers that have put in between 2-19 hours, 12. 3 people have put in more than 20 hours. 31 hours is the highest number of hours put in by a volunteer. Need volunteers for the end of tier 3 for badge mail out. Some badges are coming back RTS, and those are ending up at will call.
   Yojimbo: 15-20 train as Yojimbo. About 30 yojimbo have committed to by either signing on as staff, or have said they will do so. Training session in Portland tomorrow, at waterfront park. Meeting next week at Alton Baker park, by the power tower. See Ops director for more details.

Programming reporting.
   Forms are technically due today. That is, panelist forms. Budget forms are also due today, for panels. Brenda is going to work on programming scheduling tonight, and have something to Jeff by this coming week.
   AMVs. Iron Chef competition. There won’t be official machines rounded up for this competition. So, it’s going to be BYOC. Each contestant is going be giving a disc of material, and they will have to go off of them. Music is the same for all contestants, video is different. There might be some general computer stuff around, but no software or towers. Showing the results will be Monday. Iron chef just means, you get about 2 days to work on it. About 25 submissions for the AMV contest. Last day of submission for an AMV, is Friday, July 27th, 2007. Hopes to have an off hour showing for stuff that’s a little blue.
   Cosplay: forms are on the website. Jeff has made them fillable on on the web. Plushy parade. Masq for plushies. For those that like making doll type clothes, etc. Open to anyone, staff included. Creation station is doing teddy bears, and those are admissible. Costumes must be made by the submitter, but the plushy can be bought, or made. Taxidermy dolls are not allowed. Designed to be cheesy. Volunteers are still needed for cosplay. Volunteer if you can. All staff are allowed to enter contests. Yojimbo are usually an exception. Staff are allowed to cosplay.
   Manga Library: 117 books. Donated, ebay, etc were the sources. 3 years worth of shonin jump. Some newtypes. Still working. Please help!

Publicity:
   A bit light on the staff. Need press manager, and publications manager. Press manager would be contacting press, allocating press passes, a press packet, etc. Publications Manager is going to basically oversee the programming guide. Ads, etc. If people have individual ways they would like to contribute to the programming guide, that would be wanted. These are small tasks, not taking on the whole thing, or large sections. We have a small number of ads, most are trades with other cons. If street team members need a printout, there will be one on the website available for print shortly. Mascot and cover contests launched last month. Deadline is the day of the meeting, in July. 2008 mascot, 2007 program guide and pocket guide. Prize for mascot is an artist alley table in 2008. Street team wants to be talking to restaurants and other venues around the hotel so that they know to staff, and have extra hours, as well as coupons, and advertising. Please coordinate all this with Sarah, as she is the street team lead. Sign-age: publicity is collecting information about what needs signs at the con. Programming and Ops, please fill out the sign request form on the site, and that’ll get the sign made and ready.
   Street team: we have not hit up the vendors for advertising. Specific outreach has ended. Art museum in portland had a weekend of asian films, and they went through all of our flyers. We have less than 1000 flyer’s left. Several places that need to be hit still, and have been hit. Please speak with Sarah Bartash. Seattle not sure what’s been hit, and Eugene same thing. Sarah is going to be pushing to have people rehit vendors to make sure they still have flyers, if those vendors want advertising, and see if they want to donate to the charity auction. One location has agreed to advertise. A couple people hit powells in portland and beaverton. Thank you. If people age interested in being press manager, Sarah can help with that. Training people is good.

How many people haven’t been to a meeting before. About 20 people. If you’re interested in being staff, please speak to a department director.

Relations: Sean is in Spain having fun.
Exhibitor hall: 57 out of 91 spots taken.
Artist alley: 24 out of 37 spots in AA taken.
Charity Auction: Proceeds go to P:EAR. closing up on 2007 should happen within the next month so we can bring in a PEAR rep to give them their check. Dark Horse is donating stuff for the auction. They’ll probably also donate to the charity auction. Copic will have a presence, but Marianne will not be. Looking for stuff for the charity auction. Hand made, etc. Japanese gardens donated a couple tickets. Auction letter will be on the web with the street team info (under publicity).

If you are supposed to turn in the staff form, please turn them in. Check out the minutes once they’re online. Also, make sure to check out the staff forums, for the weekly reports. Please quantify the information if at all possible. Please tell that info to the department manager, or Meg, so that we can use the information next year as a water mark. Farmers market will be happening the weekend of our con, Sean should be checking with them to see if they have a food cart for us. Relations will check to make sure the city knows that the con will be here, so that the policy can be aware, as can local FD etc. We should be having better know a director on the site, as well as job postings that are available, and filled, so people can better know what they are interested in.

Question came up about the name of the band we’re bringing “The Slants”. It is an insult to some people. So some children may question their name. We’ll see what we can do about it, but ultimately, there’s not a lot.

Since there is no further business, meeting adjourned.

[superjaz]

 Question came up about the name of the band we’re bringing “The Slants”. It is an insult to some people. So some children may question their name. We’ll see what we can do about it, but ultimately, there’s not a lot.
Since there is no further business, meeting adjourned.

the term slant is a asian ethinic slur
i was suprised that so many people at the meeting didnt know that, i don't know maybe i did because of my Japanese friends, the some people is the people whos anime culture we are gathering to celabrate

http://www.cnle.net/2005/04/racism-at-the-ny-port-authority/

[TomtheFanboy]

Dark Horse is donating stuff for the auction. They’ll probably also donate to the charity auction.

Do we have two different auctions?
Or is there another group donating?

[BlackjackGabbiani]

the term slant is a asian ethinic slur
i was suprised that so many people at the meeting didnt know that, i don't know maybe i did because of my Japanese friends, the some people is the people whos anime culture we are gathering to celabrate

http://www.cnle.net/2005/04/racism-at-the-ny-port-authority/

To me it's like John Leguizamo naming his play "Spic-o-rama" since it's about growing up Latino. If someone of that origin wants to use it, whatever.

Unsure where the idea came from that kids would pick up on it, though. Kids too little to apply it wouldn't think to do so, and kids old enough would (or *should* anyway) know what it means already.

[guspasho]

It's not so much that we didn't know that The Slants is a slur but that we realized they had used it on themselves, and that being the case, we assumed no one would have a problem with them.

Are there any complaints about the band or their name? If anybody has a problem with it, we are willing to listen.

But we can't second-guess ourselves too much based on the possibility of a complaint, in the absense of any actual complaint, otherwise we would paralyze ourselves and never run a convention.

Also, I should remind everyone, the minutes threads are only meant for offering corrections to or obtaining clarifications on the minutes. Please don't stray too far off-topic. If there are any complaints about the band, go ahead and start a topic in General Discussion or PM me.

[RemSaverem]

Thank you for these minutes. A huge help, as I got there late due to my work schedule.

Now please some quick clarifications regarding the plushy kerade and the Creation Station.

(1) Would dollies made in the Creation Station's Dolly-Making Workshop also be eligible for entry (assuming that this panel is held before the kerade)?

(2) My understanding that in this, our debut session of our Fandom Teddy-Bear Felting Panel, patterns and instructions will be handed out for folks to make their own teddy bears, but also thrift store teddies will be on hand for alteration (and some of course might bring in their own favorites). Will only those teddy-bears that have been made or altered be eligible (assuming that this panel is held before the kerade)? Or conceivably regular store bears without alteration other than handmade costumes? What if someone participates in our Panel and has time to handmake a teddy bear, but not clothes for it? Would such an item be eligible to be entered? I'm sure folks will ask us, so it would be great to know in advance...Thank you.

[Runa]

clarifications regarding the plushy kerade
Would dollies made in the Creation Station's Dolly-Making Workshop also be eligible for entry (assuming that this panel is held before the kerade)?
(2) ...r Fandom Teddy-Bear Felting Panel, ... Will only those teddy-bears that have been made or altered be eligible (assuming that this panel is held before the kerade)? Or conceivably regular store bears without alteration other than handmade costumes? What if someone participates in our Panel and has time to handmake a teddy bear, but not clothes for it? Would such an item be eligible to be entered? .

The point of the plushie kerade is to be Cosplay for stuffed animals (dolls allowed, though    ). Regular cosplay rules (such as rules regarding allowed content, etc) apply, except time of presentation is MUCH shorter -- 45 seconds maximum. Those rules do include: "entrant must be wearing a costume."   So no nekkid teddy bears, since no costume is NO COSTUME.  :wink:  
The plushie / bear / doll may originate from any source (hand made or purchased), however it's costume should have been made by the human presenting the plushie.  
So creation station creations (assuming that scheduling works out and those critters are created prior to the plushie kerade) are eligible to enter, but they need to be dressed in a costume.
Do note that if the entrant remembers to point out that the critter and/or costume were made at the convention, the judges will take that into consideration (if there are enough entrants from creation station creations, we'll have to create a prize category for them).    hope that helped.

[AzuKyo]

"Looking for stuff for the charity auction"

With whom do I contact about donating items? It has been talked about amongst the Random Panel panelists that we might donate a few items and I figure the sooner we get that sorted out the better.

[guspasho]

"Looking for stuff for the charity auction"

With whom do I contact about donating items? It has been talked about amongst the Random Panel panelists that we might donate a few items and I figure the sooner we get that sorted out the better.

You can talk to our charity auction coordinator, Sarah, who is Antares on the forums.