MeetingMinutes:2002-01

Atlanta OutWorlders Business Meeting

January 21, 2002

Members Present: Mike Allgood, Mark Shewmaker, Kirk Tsouros, Scott Johnston, Alan Siler, Ed deGruy, Jeff Smith, Kris Harter, JP Rhea, Maylon Walker, Ken Gunter, Virginia Foster, Will Gauvin, Ed Tharp, Mark Gravitt, Harry Sharp, Mike Hwang.

Meeting started at 8:10pm.

Coordinator Reports:

Events—Alan Siler

• The movie outing with ASFS Saturday went well. There were about 20 Outworlders out of nearly 85 people total. ASFS is thinking of making this a bimonthly event.
• The viewing of B5:LOTR and Joe’s house, was a big hit. Thanks to Joe for hosting.
• February 9th is the one year anniversary of Dr. Who night at Alan’s place.
• Friday February 1st is a game night at Ed and Kris’ house.

RPG—Ed deGruy

• Champions got off to a good start. Martin will send out more information, once he gets the schedule together.
• The Vampire LARP will be resuming on Friday the 8th. Everyone is welcome. Contact Ed for more information.
• Possible upcoming games: Solar, Dark Ages of Camelot
• Work is in progress on a newsletter or website.

Book Group—Alan Siler

• The Book Group restarted last Thursday, after a break for the holidays.
• The books for the coming 4 months have already been picked out, and posted on the Discussion list.
• OutWrite will give a 20% discount on these selected books.

Writer’s—Alan Siler

• Writer’s Group has not met in a while. Alan will check with Lorelei to see when the meetings will resume.

Website—Mike Allgood

• Mike is working on redesigning the website. It will keep the look and feel of the old site, but will have more functionality.
• New features will include a calendar function, and forum for the SIG’s.
• When the new site is stable, Mike will post a link and let us try it out for a month or so before going live.

Chattacon—Mike Allgood

• The room party this year, will be a Mardi Gras theme.
• Everyone who enters the room, MUST be carded. If they are not over 21, they do not get in. No exceptions.
• The decorations are mostly covered, but any donations of decorations will be happily accepted.
• We will be holding a raffle for a fundraiser during the convention. Members present voted to approve this (with one abstention). We will be raffling off a DVD player, a boxed set of the LOTR books, the first season of Buffy on DVD (Scott Johnston will donate), a Mardi Gras gift basket (Mike Allgood will donate), and Gift certificate to Amazon.com.
• The proceeds of the Raffle will be used first to pay for the prizes that are not donated, second to pay for the costs of throwing the room party, and third any leftover profits will be put into the treasury.
• Raffle tickets cost $2 apiece. There are only 200 tickets available. Mike has created some wonderful tickets. Thanks for the hard work.
• The estimated cost of the prizes that are not donated is $120. To pay for the prizes, 60 tickets will have to be sold minimum. This should not be a problem.
• Any donations to help defray the costs of the room party are welcome.
• It was decided that alcohol would be purchased by donations only, and not by the group treasury.
• Flyers will be printed up before Friday. Alan to take care of this.
• Mike will check on the raffle laws of TN, but should be no problems.
• The possibility of running some tracks at Chattacon next year was brought up. Mike said that this would not be likely, as the convention is not geared towards tracks, and if possible, would not have any at all.

Pride—Mark Gravitt

• Mark has an application and will be turning in our request for a booth very soon.
• The cost is again $300, Mark can cover the cost, but will need to be reimbursed ASAP. This will come from the treasury.
• The booth will be 10x10 with one table and 2 chairs, like last year.
• A committee will be put together soon to plan for the booth.
• Pride is on June 28-30, 2002.

Dragon*Con—Kris Harter

• Our proposal for the track at the convention was denied, not because they did not want us, but because there is simply no room for another track.
• Many people expressed an interest in our track, and anyone interested in running a single panel is urged to contact the heads of the current tracks to see about working with them. Their email addresses can be obtained on the Dragon*Con website. www.dragoncon.org
• Other cons were suggested to try our track at: Deep South Con, River Con, Vulkon.

Positions—Alan Siler

• Open positions were filled.
• Events Coordinator—Mike Allgood. Will hereby be known as the Events Demon.
• Treasurer—Jeff Smith. Approved by a vote of members present (with one abstention).
• Historian—Kris Harter. This position is voluntary, and will be basically keep a scrapbook type record of the Outworlders.

Dues/Membership/Organization Status/Fund Raisers—Alan Siler

• Alan presented the OW annual report as his last act as Treasurer. (See separate file, or contact Alan to get a copy)
• The possibility of dues was discussed. Issues that were raised were: The definition of a member, what benefits does a dues paying member get? Should they get any?
• Kris gave a good case for instituting dues, yet did not want to give dues paying members any benefits over non-dues paying members.
• Kirk is against dues.
• A newsletter was suggested as a benefit for paying members, as well as the right to vote in any business meetings.
• Kris suggested that a solicitation be put out on the Discussion list, for funds for the upcoming year.
• JP suggested putting a poll up, to gauge the feelings of the membership. It was agreed that Alan would put up this poll on the Discussion list, and send a link to the Announcement list. The poll will be left open for 2 weeks.
• The question was raised about our status as a Non Profit Organization. Blake was to compile information about this and post it to eh Business list.
• It was decided that we needed an educational meeting about this before any major decisions were made.
• Ed had a bunch of ideas for fundraising.
  • Book Sale (used books donated by the members)
  • Yard Sale
  • Pot Luck dinner, charge for tickets.
  • Iron Chef Bake off.
  • Raffle (like what we are doing at Chattacon). We will see how Chattacon goes.
• We will create a position for a Fundraising Coordinator when these ideas are up and running.

Meeting Times

• The officers have conferred, and came up with two possible times for meetings. Sunday Afternoon, and Monday Night.
• A vote was taken of the members present. 11 voted for Sundays, and 2 voted for Mondays. (with 3 abstentions)
• It was suggested to put a poll on the discussion list to see what was best for the majority of people on the list. (It was suggested that this poll should be on the Business list only, and a link posted for those interested to join that list to vote, but that idea was rejected)

Meeting Adjourned at 10:10pm.

Next meeting to be held at Alan Siler’s home on Sunday February 24th, 2002.