Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes
June 13, 2023 6:30 PM
Board Present - Alli Cassel, John Hermanstorfer, Chelsea Lieser, Kristen Loth, Nick Nelson, Matt Paulson and Lorien Paulson
Public – Troy MacDonald, Amy Johnson, and Bruce Levine
Meeting agenda was approved, motion passes.
Board Election
Matt Paulson is elected as president
Alli Cassel is re-elected as member-at-large.
Lorien Paulson is elected as a member-at-large.
Now we have another open member at large since Matt has been elected
President, people are now able to apply to that member position.
Recap off cycle board actions and votes
PO Box
Our PO box is:
PO Box 22087
Eagan, MN, 55122
Matt elected to spend $388 to get a size three box that can accommodate registration packets.
Food Coverage for Road Crews
Matt proposed we change policy to allow for our road crews to have the cost of one meal per day be covered by the organization. Food and beverage only, not alcohol. This was approved by email. We never authorized a per diem for food or a dollar amount, but we figure we can trust the crew and if it becomes an issue, we can address it then.
Open Session (First 30 minutes) - Nothing
Any members of the community can bring new business to discuss with the board.
Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners – None
Charitable Giving Requests
Como Park Japanese Obon Festival Participation – Partnership
Alli recommends we do it again, we did a lot of detour registrations, and we could throw it to the ambassadors or make it a joint event.
Matt- anything that is a board activity could easily be a detour activity. We could do registrations with the online ticketing system.
We will need to make a general Anime Detour register account so people can log in and sell those. At Acen we used a QR code and that went great. We could have it pre-set so people can do it from their own cell phone.
Saint Paul - Nagasaki Sister City Committee (SPNSCC) Cherry Blossom Festival
Matt attended and helped.
Coordinator Updates
Anime Detour
We visited Des Moines con with the ambassador team. We had the first staff meeting of the cycle. Vice chairs have conducted their one to one with teams, we will continue that. Finishing out the budget cycle with departments. Preparing for new initiatives. We are looking to do a tour of the Hilton as some due diligence since they sent us a proposal to do a tour of the convention center for future purposes.
Communications – None
Finance – None
Scheduled break – Skipped with no objections
Board Topics
The Treasurer Position / Financial Coordinator
Kim is ready to step down, and we are determining whether we would like to hire a company or not. We could make an amendment change and make the financial coordinator role which would be a non-voting position, we would either appoint a volunteer or hire an accounting firm.
This isn’t really a job you can learn on the job, it requires a certain set of skills and it would be nice having the ability to interview these candidates and to make an appointment based off actual ability. Having this role would be in the orgs best interest.
Kim is in support of this, but this is just a preliminary discussion to get thoughts before it gets brought up.
VP
We should also formalize a VP position and instead of the treasurer election have a VP election, this could be someone to fall back on if the President is out.
We should have an off cycle meeting to hammer down the details of a VP position, a non-formal brainstorming session.
For both roles it would be good to discuss the requirements, like if they should be located within a certain range of Minneapolis.
Badge Prices
Anime Detour would like to increase child badge prices from $15 to $20 to change that we would need to vote to allow it, we think we should let the Detour coordinator decide what it should be priced at.
Rescind current board policy, let the current coordinator set the badge prices as they see fit.
Seconded.
This passes
Motion carries, Troy can change as appropriate
6:49pm meeting adjourned.