July 2025 Board Notes

Date:

07/08/2025

Attendance:

Board Attended: Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Jeannette Wallen, Kevin Ehrler, Lori Fischer-Fairbanks and Nick Nelson
Board Absent: Bruce Levine
Observers: Alli Cassel, Sherilyn W. Brown, J.C. Horvath, Jessica Silver, Michael Anderson and Jacob Warner

Notes:

Anime Twin Cities Board Meeting Minutes


July 8th, 2025
7:01 PM

Board Present - Christina Kramer, Hope Kronen, Jeannette Wallen, Kevin Ehrler, Lori Fischer-Fairbanks and Nick Nelson

Board Absent - Bruce Levine

Public – Alli Cassel, Sherilyn W. Brown, J.C. Horvath, Jessica Silver, Michael Anderson and Jacob Warner

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
     
    • New Special Events Coordinator – Alli Cassel
      • We selected our new Special Events coordinator Alli Cassel.
      • We interviewed her and thought she was great and would be a great fit for the role.
        • Motion to make Alli Cassel the new Special Events Coordinator.
        • Seconded by multiple people
        • All in Favor (All Present Board Members voted affirmatively)
        • Motion Passes
           
  • Planned Discussions from scheduled visiting parties/ATC Partners
    • None
       

Coordinator Updates
 

  • Finance – Jeannette Wallen 1
    • Dollar amounts:
        • Business Checking: 340,032.72
        • Education Fund: 3,098.45
        • Business Market Rate Savings (Community Fund): 14,507.63
        • We got the funds to Toshocon
        • Jeannette has emails for approvals, but we need to get the amounts for the charities sent to her and figure them out.

 

  • Anime Detour – J.C. Horvath
    • The next staff meeting is Saturday, July 26th
      • 2-4pm, we will make sure to get an email out and discord message out.
    • We were at Pride, very successful and fun, we sold tickets and gave people information
    • Convergence / Geek Partnership Society also handed out flyers at Convergence.

       
  • Charities – Jacob Warner
    • No major updates on his end.

 

  • Communications – Makaila Kozitza
    • Makaila could not join, but she gave an update to the board that there were not any updates at this time.

       
  • Special Events – Alli Cassel
    • Just got started 3 weeks
    • Kitsune Kon – This weekend Hope is taking the lead.
    • Obon Festival - Next month, she is starting to recruit for that and to get our table up soon.
    • Twin Cities Pride - We had a joint table, handed out all the flyers and cards for staff, got our names out there and had a lot of people happy to see us at Pride. Big thanks to the group who loaned the tent so our stuff didn’t blow away during that storm.
    • No official Convergence presence but GPS was kind enough and brought our flyers and will plan to bring them to future events.
    • September – Inbound BrewCo approached us about an anime day with us an Anime Fusion we will get part money for drinks from that day, we will do different events it will be like a mini anime con at a brewery.
    • Lots of other things are getting lined up to come out soon, if you are interested in being on the team send an email: to (specialevents@animetwincities.org)


15 Minute Break (If the preceding topics take little time, the board may vote to skip this)

Motion to Skip
Second
All in Favor (All of the present Board)
Motion Passes

 

Current Month Board Topics

 

  • Rental Requests – This draft of the document was shared on screen, which you can follow along with here (https://www.youtube.com/live/_F4ZuDuHQJQ?feature=shared&t=603)
     
  • This section details a number of points of feedback or questions when going over this draft of the Rental Request policy. Anything that was left as feedback within that document includes an * at the front of the bullet point.
     
    • We have a lot of equipment that will sit in storage all year so we would like to offer/lend it out to people that we know will take care of it and will utilize it properly.
    • *Tiers: New Relationship 1. Never rented from us with this rental policy or lent us any equipment
    • *Established Relationship 2. has rented us equipment or used this rental policy to rent equipment
    • *Shouldn't be free, need to collect some kind of fee for the time / inspection / wear and tear
    • *Deposit amount can be set by department in charge of equipment, within a range
    • Alli - We need to be realistic about deposit timelines and equipment condition after the fact.
    • *Insurance implications on both ends?
    • Two tiers, everyone starts at a base level. If they lend us stuff that can be a point if they return to us what we rented to them that can be a point.
    • If we are going through a large group it should be unanimous.
    • In the contract is there a guarantee on the people who own the equipment that the people who will use it are trained?
    • Switch it to have the chair of the convention in that list of 4 and thae final one who determines or approves is the equipment owner department head asked to clarify this section.
    • *Need to have something about grace period for time to do equipment return inspection
    • *“Any final determination or approval of any part of this policy and any rental agreement will be made by the Chair of the Convention.” Should this be the department head? What was meant by this?
    • *Add something about familiarity with equipment we are renting out to ensure it is used properly and not damaged
    • *Get proof of liability insurance
    • *Even with two tiers, we are not comfortable with this, we should get all of this information for all requests (in reference to primary partners not being required to submit certain information).
    • *No equipment to be rented out in the 30 days after Anime Detour.
    • *What is the standardized grace period? That should not fluctuate also add our inspection grace period to this section.
    • *”Any equipment held for longer than 60 days after the return date (“the late fee period”) is considered lost for the terms of the rental agreement.” Change to 45 days.
    • Jeannette - We need condition sheets of the outbound and inbound period, the whole idea to have physically something that is broken and to say its from the last person, where is the checking for usability in play here?
    • Lori - Tiering needs to be based on something empirical, like years of experience with them.
    • *Partnership Levels section, this whole thing needs to be scrapped, as we said earlier, only two tiers established after the policy goes in place, only difference should be the price. Grace period, late fees, and documents should all be the same.
    • *We need to have a physical inspection form for outgoing and incoming. We also need to have a grace period for us to do inspections to make sure someone from the dept can get to the locker and can make sure the equipment is functional. That needs to be part of the agreement.
    • Jeannette - Who updates the value of the equipment? It would be the department head who sends it to the treasurer annually.
    • The replacement value would be the most beneficial for the % of cost.
    • We have gathered a bunch of feedback that we can send back to Cass/Bruce to keep working on it for a 2nd draft.
    • We need a physical inspection form.
    • We should have 3 weeks once we get the items returned to be able to inspect them. If we don’t complete it in that time period then that would be on us.


Open Session (up to 30 minutes)

  • Any members of the community can bring new business to discuss with the board
    • Nothing

       

Open Board Projects/Future Meeting discussions

  • Policy Updates
    • Board Training


Motion to Adjourn
Seconded
All in favor
Motion Passes
 

8:14 pm 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.