Meeting called to order 18:32
Agenda: Recap off cycle board actions and votes:
None
Agenda: Open Session
Christina: Been to several meetings and the way things are being handled there’s a lot of disjunction, confusion, and frustration. When negative things get handled as a Detour Matter it’s a detour thing, if it’s a happy thing ATC handles it.
John: We plan to discuss this in closed session after this meeting and bring it to open session the following meeting. It shouldn’t be this way. It should be a clear delineation. Long multi-year vision should fall to ATC, and year to year Detour, but we need to talk about it and smooth it out.
Christina: Examples: The SG thing. How it was handled. It was supposed to be AD/ATC was a united front, and it was AD who took the hit, and ATC stayed back and didn’t do anything and Troy/Buttons taking care of things on social media. And when we had a staff meeting it was supposed to be a united front, and there was no united front, only a very few people.
John: We had hundreds of emails flying back and forth and the issue is Troy gets to call the shots, but even as president he had no authority without quorum, and things were happening in the middle of the day. Second it was happening on AD pages and not coming to ATC. Even though Buttons was under great stress we didn’t want to step on AD by posting on their behalf, and we were told to stay off. From an outsider looking in, we understand how people can see us not doing stuff. Attempting to get quorum was difficult, and since it was all work day people can’t always answer at work. It is not a fair explanation but some of the stuff Michelle was working on with Code of Conduct/Harassment to get policies on this will make it easier to get a vote.
Christina: Some mention about fundraising and grants, and grant proposals have been brought up a couple times this year. And there has been no action taken to that. Wondering where we can go with that. Whole point is know we can’t do it by ourselves, nobody has the time. What I’m asking is if you guys need help can we ask the community to help? Ask Detour members to help, post online to help. Ask our macademia, furry, people we donate to and ask for help, we need to start changing things. We are slowly getting there but we are only doing one thing at a time.
John: Falls on the board, one thing we try to convey to people is you don’t need to be on the board to do things. Anybody can volunteer to do things like join the code of conduct, or the grants. If people have the passion and wants to take the lead we are willing to let them run with it. I’m trying to keep a list of board projects, and we can add board grants on it, but it wasn’t on the initial list we had. There’s finite resources we can try to find stuff.
Jay: The chain of command we have between president,board, and child organizations, we have made it a little policy mandate. If we need to ask anyone from AD we have to go through Troy.
John: We can always do it during the open session of AD meetings. So it exists, and we just have to step forward and do it.
Tony: Part of agenda each meeting when we go through board projects, maybe it’s something the ATC board member who is bringing up the projects can get the list and we convey it across every Detour meeting, there are the board projects that need assistance/help does anyone want to step up and help with these things.
Christina: Nobody knows what the board does, when you run it’s always about how to run detour. Something needs to be explained at a Detour meeting or have an open help sometime.
Erick: At room parties we run we do talk about some of the stuff we do. We have interactive trivia game we developed all about ATC and what we do in the community. We don’t hit people in the face with what we do, but try to have intimate conversations about what we do. We put it on the website we have open meetings but few show up.
Tristan: One thing I proposed is to change bylaws to require people to show up to meetings to be eligible to run for the board. So they are aware of what is going on and not, I don’t like it I will change Detour.
Agenda: Planned Discussions from scheduled parties/partners
None
Agenda: Equipment Rental Requests (Lauren)
No new requests.
Still hashing out what was missing from 2D con.
Fusion one is upcoming
Furry we plan to write a check next weekend.
Agenda: Coordinator Updates
Anime Detour (Troy)
Had budget meeting Saturday.
Some forms have opened. Work with social media to be aware those are open. Trying to find out when the others intend to open. And their content is right on the website.
Charities (Anton)
Had a successful Macadamia conference. About 65 people in person and over 100 virtually. Fashion show went very well. They sent us their grateful grateful thanks, and it was a very good conference.
Send document to update leg fund for. ACTION: John to send to people in IT to convert to writable PDF and post.
Copy of program guide for Macadamia exists if people want to see.
Clubs (Erick)
Everything is going fine. Nobody sending any updates, so assuming club masters are fine.
Lauren requests anime club schedule is posted.
Erick: GPS runs the anime club we just help sponsor, so things are on their calendar. But it’s just what they watch.
John: Post what has been watched then.
ACTION Erick to reach out to GPS to see if they can do something
Community (Lauren)
Getting Fusion their stuff next week. Check is in for that.
Has to update contract still with last things
Went to Macadamia. It was the first event with new table cloth. For those who need to use them there are 4 total. All have branding for both ATC and AD, but there are an ATC and AD each focused one. One each in promotional bin, and one each in the cardboard tube packaging they came in. We have a backup bin with additional flyers as well if we have two events at once. The post card holders worked great.
Media Relations (Äge)
Newsletter is out. Podcast version will be out soon.
John: no applications yet for this position, but will bring it up this weekend. ACTION
SOS (Heather)
We met a couple weeks ago and set dates for next several events. Said email will be coming in shortly to IT for webpage.
Akiba - Going to try to reserve table thing, and collectors thing again.
Got all dates reserved through end of Jan
Waiting on budget
Finance (Kim)
We closed the fiscal year last month. Overall we all came in under budget to almost $23k.
Now focus will be working through the 9-90.
Have engaged Accounting Angels LLC (who did forms last year)
SEPT Financial Handouts given. Management Report for year given out.
We spent more than we brought in last year.
This hits our ‘banked’ account
Currently: BANK: $195,979, EDU: $2000 COMMUNITY: $14,894.
Sunday met with Coordinators to discuss budgets, excluding Detour Budget.
Originally started with a happy number and added to that, and took away from that, and settled on a number just a little more than originally.
ATC Coordinators (not Detour) $59,745 of the $60k of what wanted to budget.
Just a couple hundred more than last year. Very doable. Had a big increase in commitment to GPS in this next year to the tune of $8k. But we will lose quite a bit in the Wells Fargo merchant fees and will come out a little less with Swipe/Square.
VOTE Kim proposed ATC coordinators not Detour can spend $59,745. Tristan votes no, all the rest vote yes. Motion Passes.
Troy: Detour Budget we talked with Kim on Saturday
$327,000 for the budget this cycle, this is $7k increase over last cycle.
VOTE: Troy motions to approve the $327k budget, seconded by John. Kim Abstains, the rest of the board approves this. Motion passes.
Interview Charities Head Opening: Anton Petersen
John thanks Anton for application, and acknowledges he’s been doing it since about May already.
John asks Anton about goals he wants to accomplish
Been a member of this since it was established.
Wants to do this for a year or two and find a younger/newer person to come in and do it.
Working on timeline/form
Look for a better way to get input from staff members and what they want us to be involved with.
John asks about goal to how to find someone to replace him
Wants to get two new people on committee by mid next year and hopefully one will be interested in stepping up.
Troy asks how import communication will be in this role there has been a noticeable lack of updates by coordinates on the board and doesn’t serve anyone. And if this will be an issue/how change
Last meeting couldn’t make but sent in email
Wants to find someone from committee to give updates appropriately
Tony asks what he feels his job is as coordinator
Shepherd through process of charities we give to
Manage through fund requests if necessary
Christina asks how he plans to promote existing charities we work with and continue to keep those lines of communications with existing ones we work with; and if he plans to continue/intend to work with new charities
Plan to assign individuals to work with individual/group of charities directly.
Wants suggestions for new charities, and to grow.
John piggybacks wondering if he can make more meetings coming in
Has agreed that he will be able to do more.
VOTE: John motions to accept Anton as role, seconded by Tristan. Tony opposes, everyone else approves. Motion Passes.
Agenda: 15 minute break
19:28 -- 19:40 Break
Lauren: Gave Kevin a copy of the bylaws that aren’t in the document. ACTION Kevin will get them updated in the next month. Lauren says we have 3 months to have something to have the membership at large to vote on, it doesn't have to be what he worded but some version of it.
Agenda: Charitable Giving Amount
Tristan: Majority of our income comes from AD. As we see last year we were in the red. We increased the things next year and why voted no to increase budgets of other coordinators.
Kim: Increase is due to what we owe GPS
Tristan: If Detour goes down we go down.
Tristan: Proposes until such point as we are in a better position coordinators and charities should be capped at 10% of previous years ATC budget except for amounts given as Donations.
Tristan: Reason after going over notes we increased our number 2017 to 2018 and if it changed the same we would only be $13k in the hole not $18k. I want us to grow but if our main source of income isn’t growing we can’t grow unless we find another source of income. We can’t give more money than we have. And it needs to stop.
Lauren: INstead of what you are suggesting, suggests instead of what we do do $15/registration based on our bylaws. Since we are about $6k over what ATC took in through our bylaws. So if your concern is not taking in what we are spending a flat percentage won’t...
Tristan: Open to this just think we need some kind of cap.
Tony: Sounds like we have a cap just haven’t enforced it.
Troy: Our growth from last year to this year is 90 people. Under opinion the years we capped were no good then and no good now. Stegency in number of areas like guests didn’t help us grow. If we cannot get people to come to Detour this will be a significant issue.
John: Is this just a policy or is this bylaw?
Think it should be a policy.
John: Needs to be badges sold and not badges given away. Also they can just give us $15.
Can a coordinator offset their budget?
POLICY VOTE: John Motions, Anime Twin Cities budgets with the exception of Anime Detour budget, shall not exceed the ATC membership fees collected. Seconded by Tristan. All present voted for this. Motion Passes.
Agenda: Five year financial Plan
If we can sign a hotel contract this year out we can plan our finances out this long too. We have a duty and responsibility to plan more than 2 months ahead.
Tristan proposes over the next some timeline, start to plan something and maintain it. Keep to it. I know we are on an offset two year cycle, but this is no reason we can’t change it in the future, but no reason we can’t have it.
Erick: Knowing how trends have a way of changing instantly, how would we be able to do a 5 year plan in the entertainment industry?
John: A five year plan exists for a lot of industries even entertaining. Point of a 5 year plan isn’t to have a budget 5 years out, but to say we are going to try to grow by blank%, and in two years out we can saw we aren’t approaching this properly.
Tristan: Intent to set a bar, a minimum we want to do this. We want to meet these goals here.
Erick: Is there things the other coordinators can do to strengthen Detour? We are stronger together.
Troy: Why I might have a plan for Detour, and Heather for SOS, how we answer plan for ATC plan? What is the plan?
Äge: It would be nice for all coordinators to have a 5 year plan, so new coordinators stepping in know where they are going.
John: I like the idea. My concerns are, who is going to come up with this plan? And who does it fall on to maintain this plan? We want to be clear where this responsibility lies up front. Does it get crafted at a certain meeting and annual updates or every 6 months or monthly?
Tristan originally intended a yearly update.
Christina: Most business who have a business plan review it annually. When we have our post mortem we could review it then while it’s fresh in everyone’s head and ideas are still there. It seems best time while everyone is thinking of what went good/wrong and how to innovate.
John: Start of a financial year seems like a good time, since it’s a yearly cycle, and new board members have time to settle into their roles.
Or review July so time for budgets, ratify fiscal.
John: Think it’s a good idea. Don’t think we can draft it in this meeting.
Tristan wants to vote we should have one, and wonder if 3-4 months a good time frame to iron one of these out?
At the end of the fiscal year we should vote on plan.
Coordinator goals is July. How do you create goals if you don’t know what the plan is.
John will add as a board project.
Have something by next meeting to at least see direction and where we are going.
Agenda: Board Attendance For eligibility
Tristan’s emailed as a bylaw amendment requiring membership to attend X board meetings before being eligible as a board member.
John likes this as it forces people to understand what the board does and not running on platforms of how to change Detour/tell the chairman how to do their job.
Heather: We’ll limit the candidate pool, and we are already low on people who want to run.
Limits people who are interested but haven’t made the meetings.
The slightest obstacle/hurdle discourages people from moving forward, no matter how reasonable or simple. Have heard people saying board is a click, and are unapproachable. And this might reinforce this instead of getting new people involved.
Troy: Given complications/understanding people who are going to run have to attend meetings thinks this is fine, and people who show up are more likely to be voted in.
Ally: Also think this is a good idea. Rather than 5 meetings, make the number smaller so you don’t need to know 6 months before you run. Maybe 2 or even 1 meeting.
Sam: Working most Tuesdays, so if my scheduled freed up, I might not be able to hit enough meetings before running as a board. Think 5 is a little too much.
Erick: Whole discussion is people who run have no idea what the board does. Why don’t we make it more transparent what the board does at the Detour meetings so they know what’s going on?
John: People tune out and don’t pay attention; we do discuss what we talked at meetings.
Lauren: We should make it more intensive to apply for the position. The only requirement to run is you have to live within 600 miles. Don’t have to attend 60% of coordonator meetings. Should be a requirement at least you are an ATC member.
The problem sees is next election we come up with 3 open spots. 4 if we have to replace secretary by then. We may find ourselves in a position that only these 2 or 3 people showed up to enough meetings. Perhaps a trial thing to improve application process. We have a series of questions we put on the website so the electorate read why they want to run a series of targeted questions to let them know what the candidate knows about the board.
Äge since people don’t read notes on website, willing to put them on social media/monthly newsletter.
Tristan: Yes media, link in newsletter.
Troy: Lauren is working on a position description for a board member. So at least they will have something to read what they are getting into.
Michelle: We should have a list of topics we have reviewed over the last year.
John: Policy wise we could have board topics, questions to ask them
Kevin: asking people questions if we are saying our membership doesn’t know what people are doing having people understand this might not help.
Sam: Asking people what fiduciary means might be a good question to ask people. Since people might not know it’s a legal thing.
Tristan: Can we get more pamphlets from Propel?
Lauren: Since budget got approved we have some money to send some people independently. And next year cycle to get the whole board again to go.
ACTION: Tristan (with Kevin and Jay) to help write up a policy/bylaw proposal and how we run our elections/get more information.
Agenda: Updates on current Board Projects
October <John> - Present revisions to ATC Anti-Harassment and Code of Conduct
November <John> - Finalized changes to ATC Anti-Harassment and Code of Conduct (Vote)
November <Caretaker TBD> - Corporate Sponsorships *NEW ITEM*
January <Troy> - Anime Detour Prices for 2021
April <Anton> - Charitable Giving Proposals
May <Anton> - Charitable Giving Vote
June <President> - Board Members’ Projects
June <President> - Coordinator Reviews
July <John> - Review ATC policies
July <John> - Coordinator Goals
Tristan to give update at next AnimeDetour meeting on Saturday
ACTION: John to email Tristan projects
Agenda: ATC Anti-Harassment and Incident policies
Given handout of conduct.
“ATC and the branches of ATC” could cover better in some places
First bullet point about singing, if something changes in there, we are requiring someone to tell us. Timely manner is vague. Confirm contact details may need to be differently handled.
Lauren: most department heads don’t know how to update phone numbers. There needs to be a clearly defined chain of command for things because if not things will die there.
Erick: Concern is assuming this be CoC for clubs. FF14 as an international club have members from Japan/France/Germany/Mexico how am I supposed to collect all this data?
They are members, not staff.
Wonder how things like this work out for some of the admins though.
More specifics you get the more loopholes people find.
Troy: Legal Restrictions section, hypothetical concern is if we made an unfounded report to local authorities we might open ourselves up.
Sam: Every cities have database to look up sexual offenders
Michelle: What happens if Bob Smith joins staff and someone says they are on the reported list. And we look at this point you have broken our laws and now will be reporting it to legal authority.
Sam: On a daily basis school we get alerts of people moving in, etc..
Michelle: We won’t actively look, but it comes up.
Troy: Verification is missing step.
Erick: As soon as we find out someone is working for us and we find out they are not supposed to that’s when we begin taking those steps.
Tony: Want to add, it’s in here twice, same change: Harassment based on, “race, ethnicity, national origin, ....” - does not include sexual orientation, though it might be somewhat legally protected we may want to make sure it’s solid here.
Jay: That was on draft, so we must have edited out by accident. Meant to be in there.
Tony: “Examples of harassment” - foul language is listed, and might be a potential ambiguity/negative style loophole.
Sam: Certain sports games small words they ignore but strong things they get you kicked out.
Erick: Harassment is in the eye of the beholder. Friends just because we are talking like sailors won’t bother. But say someone else is very sensitive, they may report you because of this.
Troy: Sometimes we use superiors sometimes supervisor, sometimes both...do we want to use a single designation?
ACTION John to get a digital copy for people to edit/draft, and send out to ATC staff so everyone has link to document.
Michelle: Don’t let edit to staff
John: Editing will only be Michelle, not others
Diana: List of individual races, .... -- one thing we might want to add is, “not limited to”
Sam: Sexual identity is very important in our organization, and in a year they might officially ruel those are not legally protected. So we can still protect us.
Lauren: This is code of conduct not just harassment policy, do we want to include something like, “disclosing if you are not legally responsible to sign for yourself”
In addition: Do we want to have people disclose that if they have a restraining order against them.
Troy: Typically it’s recommended that the person who has a restraining order cary the document. Not sure if we need to have someone disclose that.
Doesn’t always come as part of a criminal thing. Like through mediation/divorce.
ACTION please send revisions to Michelle
Tristan: We should have a list of what qualifies superior.
John: And requirement for each person to bubble it up the chain to some level. At least one level higher.
Sam: Will there be a formal documentation system for this?
John: Actual execution document will be seperate
No other topics in meeting.
Open Meeting Adjourned at 21:02.