Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes
December 12, 2023
6:30 PM
Board Present - Alli Cassel, Kim Hofer, Chelsea “Buttons” Lieser, Kristen Loth, and Nick Nelson
Public –Samantha Cozort, Kevin Ehrler, Amy Johnson, Bruce Levine, and Troy MacDonald
Recap off cycle board actions and votes –
There was one off-cycle board action, which was the removal of a member (Matthew Paulson).
Current active members are Alli Cassel, Kim Hofer, Chelsea “Buttons” Lieser, Kristen Loth, and Nick Nelson.
One member has been suspended and one has been removed.
The motion to approve the off cycle board actions was seconded and then passed.
Interim Board President-
Kristen nominated Alli Cassel to be the interim president until we can get someone in as the new president.
This was seconded and the motion passes, Alli is the current interim president.
Addendum- Matthew Paulson has been removed as President/Executive and he is being replaced as an executive on the bank accounts with Skyler Dunn-Sperling.
Open Session (First 30 minutes) – Nothing
Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners – Nothing
Charitable Giving Requests – Nothing
Coordinator Updates
Anime Detour
Troy-
Last month we opened up hotels and this past Friday we sold out the Hyatt which took about 8-10 minutes, for the Millenium it was a bit longer than that, which was estimated around 20 minutes.
We are continuing to work with these hotels to revamp a few of the issues that came up this year, where a few people got in early, but this has happened in the past as well.
Registration prices are increasing for adults on January 1st.
We had our last staff meeting of the year last weekend.
Guest announcements to continue to come.
Coming up we will have the programing and theme book deadlines. Due to the increase in attendance the count of books is also increasing, and we will need an earlier deadline to print to account for that. We are prepping the department to get that information ready sooner.
That is the last of the large remaining deadlines as we push towards the final preparation window.
Communications – None
Communities – None
SOS - None
Finance
Kim – The financials were sent out.
Current account balances are:
Business Checking: $338,755.52
Education Fund: $3,097.53
Savings: $14,503.33
Since there wasn’t a meeting last month, we were not able to talk about this topic, but the board should consider combining the education fund and savings fund into one account.
It takes a lot, 10k at least for a scholarship and at this point there aren’t really donations going into those funds, the old system used to allow people to make donations but the current registration system does not, so for several months there hasn’t been a donation.
That should be fixed, Troy asked to have that mentioned at the executive committee meeting.
We will determine for the community fund if it is worth combining the savings fund and the community fund.
We have sent 1 person in our total time utilizing the fund, not that that means it isn’t worthwhile, it is just something that we are not hitting very frequently.
Bruce- We were able to have donations in the old system, also we should be tax writeable for donations, which is something we should make note of / emphasize so we could get more people donating.
Troy- We will look into how to address that through Eventeny. We will have to determine what the best timeline for the board is post detour in terms of combining accounts.
Kim- It doesn’t have to be immediate; Wells Fargo doesn’t charge a fee but that could change, which is something to consider in the future. It would be as easy as taking a trip to the bank, moving the funds over and then closing one of the accounts.
Nothing in the financial report is surprising.
The one thing that happened is that Taylor got Kim the money from the sale of the speaker, which ended up being a $1200 deposit.
There has been a lot of income from the exhibit hall and artist alley. Not sure if everyone has paid, but we assume the Eventeny side will keep track of that and will inform Sky and Kim if there is an issue.
Expenses have been nothing out of the ordinary, purchases are starting to be made. Sky made a payment for programming for one of the first acts, Kim made some purchases for marketing and other items. Sky is doing great and getting more accustomed to the role.
The 990 went out today.
Will check on Nick’s title in the document and check on Tristan being added, and Brittany being removed from the list of members.
We need to have the address settled on the website as well as the about us section updated, and the documents uploaded.
Scheduled break – Skipped with no objections
Board Topics:
Co-treasurer / Office Manager
Kim needs to have Sky designated as a co-treasurer / office manager. She needs to be an executive and we can’t have two treasurers so if she is an office manager for the executive side, Kim can have her setup so she can get more reimbursements out.
Motion to make Sky an office manger so she can continue to work under Kim and eventually take over.
Seconded.
Motion passes.
Storage Locker
Kim notified the board that the storage locker lease will be renewing soon, but we are just going to stick with the locker and are fine with it renewing.
It will probably be a 1-, 2-, or 3-year option.
Open Member Vacancy
We had an open member at large position for a while, and we received an email of interest from Bruce Levine.
We will vote on Bruce as a member at large.
Motion to appoint Bruce Levine as a member at large so that can then be ratified.
Seconded
Motion passes
We will send out a ballot to ratify that.
ATC Website
Bruce brought up the idea of having a new site for ATC.
Kevin can help with updating the about us part of the current website.
Bruce can help with getting that setup.
Since Anime Detour is also getting a new one it would be great to have both websites using WordPress / the same infrastructure.
For now we need to get the about us section fixed and the address, and then we can start over with a new website.
Donations / Hennepin County Library
Troy-
We have an issue with the Hennepin county library partners.
In the past the board would send out a correspondence to our partners to see if they needed donations. The two libraries (Hennepin county and St. Paul) were the only two we were regularly donating to after covid.
Communication fell through the cracks on our and their end, but Hennepin county recently reached out to us.
We are the sole provider for their teen programming and our manga lounge, and we haven’t donated any funds post cycle this year.
Since the friends at Hennepin county reached out to see if we are still able to help, we should make an effort and should consider donating even if we are late in the cycle.
An event has been created post Anime Detour so this won’t fall through the cracks again.
This would not start as a board motion proposal, but if it is feasible the friends of Hennepin County are looking for between $1-$5K for support.
A good amount would be $2500, that would be a good starting point to get them to the end until our next charitable giving period.
Kim doesn’t have a problem with doing a donation now, and if in May when charitable giving comes up if we want to give them more than $2500 that is fine keeping in mind that it would be given early. We do our Charitable giving at the middle of the fiscal year.
If we are looking to give it to them early, then we should do the $2500 and then word the correspondence to explain it is getting them through to Detour and then after Detour 2024, it would be within the same fiscal year.
Alli – We donated $2500 already to the St. Paul library so matching that to Hennepin seems reasonable.
Troy – This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but we would like to make sure it doesn’t happen again in terms of these yearly donations with partners getting missed.
Motion to donate $2500 to the friends of Hennepin county.
Seconded
Motion Passes
Kim will reach out to Hennepin and will note that it is a partial donation and that they can submit a request for an additional donation in May. Troy will get that to Kim tonight
Other Items
Sky isn’t a board member but will be in the future when Kim is off and can take over.
Still trying to backfill all the positions on the ATC website.
Bruce will reach out to see if we need approval for any of the website changes.
Motion to adjourn
Seconded
7:22pm meeting adjourned.