October 2024 Board Notes
Date:
10/08/2024
Attendance:
Board Attended: Alli Cassel, Alyssa Johnson, Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Bruce Levine, and Nick Nelson
Board Absent:
Observers: Allen Sanchez-Capers, Collin Ireland, David K Vetrovec, Erick Hofer, J.C. Horvath, Jessica Silver, Kaida Moran, Lori Fischer-Fairbanks, Michael Anderson, Samantha Cozort, Sherilyn W. Brown, and Tristan Anderson
Notes:
Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes
October 8th, 2024
6:50 PM
Board Present - Alli Cassel, Alyssa Johnson, Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Bruce Levine, and Nick Nelson
Public – Allen Sanchez-Capers, Collin Ireland, David K Vetrovec, Erick Hofer, J.C. Horvath, Jessica Silver, Kaida Moran, Lori Fischer-Fairbanks, Michael Anderson, Samantha Cozort, Sherilyn W. Brown, and Tristan Anderson
Agenda is available in the link in the description of the livestream, these meetings are counted for attendance for voting rights please comment your name in the chat and fill out the google form in order to gain voting rights.
Agenda
- Recap off cycle board actions and votes
- Started doing some board training (some have it completed some don’t yet), and we will work on writing a policy on board training and what responsibilities are for new board members.
- Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners
Coordinator Updates
- Coordinator Positions Open:
- Charities
- Communications
- Special Events
- Budget
- Hope is helping to fill and build this coordinator position; she will be going over the budget.
- Special Events Budget YT TimeStamp
- Most of the funds will be for hotel accommodations.
- We have Spotify premium for the ambassador table, we are looking to use a custom tent the tent we used at the last festival works but it sticks and is difficult to put up. This would be branded with ATC decals.
- The total budget is $11,260.
- Car rental is another larger expense in the fund, so we don’t need to have ambassadors going out of state use their own vehicle if they are unable to.
- Not a direct comparison but the Ambassador budget for 2024 was $13,800. This is under the Detour budget and not the ATC budget.
- Motion to approve the Special Events budget.
- Seconded
- All in favor (All of the present Board)
- Motion Passes
- Anime Detour – J.C.
- Budget
- The Chair team had a sit-down in person meeting this Saturday. Went really well. Did not cut anything that would sting at all, and they got to a good number. All the department heads were responsive and got the budgets on time to us to make things easier.
- Anime Detour Budget YT Time Stamp
- The Grand total of the budget is $486,675.47.
- This is 21K+ over what was spent last year, it is a bit of an increase but we copied over last year’s income and we still have a net profit of $59K+ when comparing this year’s budget to the income that was brought in from last year and Detour has been experiencing significant growth so we should come in a quite a bit under what we will make this year.
- For the stuff we are getting in addition, we are getting a second hotel for event space, which is the Millenium now but will be a different name next year, besides that we will also have the greater staff room benefit, this will be made clear at Sunday staff meeting that will be at Hyatt Regency (our event hotel). Those coming to the meeting will need to figure out how to park downtown or take public transportation. We have the tour afterwards, let J.C. know if you would like to be a part of that tour.
- The guest budget is buying some stanchions. These are posts and ropes that we use for crowd control. Now that we own them, we won’t need to rent as many which will save money in the long-term and will help to make our lines better.
- We are also adding two new departments, both are still coming but we are budgeting for them assuming we will get them up and running. Charities including the charity auction we are planning on bring back and in full force that has a budget as well as a Video Production department that is taking some things from the current Tech department some from the current Marketing department and a little bit from Video Photography and some others. We are trying to make sure we have capacity to make videos and interviews that go out into the world, before and after the event.
- We will also have increased cosplay guests this year. Not just judges but a couple additional cosplay guests we are trying to push that more and be something we prove we care about.
- We are getting new vests and radios for Operations since they have a lot of old stuff, and we want to make sure they can do what they do to keep us all safe.
- We are increasing the tabletop library, making sure we have some games of our own that are Anime Detour’s. We have great partners that bring a bunch of stuff, but we want to make sure we have some of our own stuff as well.
- There are some upgrades in Tech. They always need new equipment to modernize things.
- All of that is in there, and we have managed to keep a very modest increase for adding all of that, don’t think we will miss anything that was cut.
That is the presentation unless there are questions.
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- Christina – For the total income does that include or not include the $15 that is technically sent to ATC. J.C. – It does include that. Christina – I’m pretty sure based off those numbers it does but wanted to make sure.
- Bruce – Wanted to note in terms of the Tech services budget and items, once Anime Nebraska is wrapped up we need to sit down and have a meeting with Encore, to lock in rates for the next four years so we can save money in the long run and also as well to hopefully drive down the costs, like he said in the initial stuff sent to Cass, if we can do that again we should be able to negotiate that down and then hopefully the increase in the wireless cost will do for that and then just for awareness the meeting to get Video Production lined out will be set for Wednesday night. J.C. - He had been closely paying attention to that, Cass is the division head and has been leading it, but J.C. is right with it and agrees with what Bruce said.
- Bruce – On the Video Production budget what is that going towards? What kind of equipment, he saw $9K approved for that. J.C. - That is a better question for Cass she put that budget together and knows that kind of equipment a lot better, Bruce will ask her about that tomorrow. Accessibility has a budget.
- Motion to approve the Anime Detour budget.
- Seconded (Bruce)
- All in favor (All of the present Board)
- Motion passes
- J.C. – Last bit, to expand a bit if there are any departments or a couple of sub departments that don’t have current heads we still made a budget for those within the division that fall under, that is how that happened.
- Finance
- ATC Budget
- Anime Twin Cities Budget YT Time Stamp
- A lot of this is the same as last year.
- All the items basically stay the same year-over-year
- Last year we had 5K for annual charitable givings, we increased it to 10k since that is what we did this year.
- She put in a line for the bylaws rewrite, we are working on a referral, but we haven’t talked so not exactly sure on the cost, imagine it won’t be 5k but that is the number that she put there.
- Bruce - is that outside of whatever the charity auction does (charitable givings)? Christina – Correct, this is how we gave $1K to a bunch of organizations and what we did with the Obon festival with the St. Paul Nagasaki Sister City Committee
- Motion to approve the ATC budget
- Seconded (Hope)
- All in favor (All of the present Board)
- Motion passes
- Dollar amounts:
- Business Checking: 315,537.79
- Education Fund: 3,098.22
- Business Market Rate Savings (Community Fund): 14,506.54
Skipped the 15-minute break
Current Month Board Topics
- We have received a referral for the bylaws rewrite, we are waiting to hear back from them on if they want to work with us (they usually work with bigger organizations).
- Just a note that many of the lovely board members here are on staff for other conventions in October, so we probably won’t be able to do a lot this month, but we will work on getting the board training policy done.
Open Session (up to 30 minutes)
- Any members of the community can bring new business to discuss with the board
- Bruce – This is more so something to consider would we have any opposition to moving the start time of the meetings going forward to 7?
- Christina- We have to give a month notice based off the bylaws; she would be okay with it.
- Bruce – It is something to consider so we are not pressed for time, he apologizes since he was out for dinner, just something to consider, would give them more time if they want to eat as well.
- J.C.- I know I can’t officially second things but I second it.
- We will throw it into an email to vote on it, but as long as it is a month before we should be good. The next board meeting is November 12th, so we may plan to have this voted on a month before that meeting.
Open Board Projects/Future Meeting discussions
- Bylaws Update (In Progress)
- Policy Updates
- Bans
- Coordinator Reviews
- Board Training (In Progress)
- ATC Policies Documment
- Trademark renewal (due by December)
Motion to adjourn
Seconded
All in favor (All of the present Board)
Motion Passes
7:10pm meeting adjourned.
Please contact atcboard@animetwincities.org or atc_secretary@animetwincities.org if you would like to be added to the agenda for discussion items.