[Penguicon-Concom] Minutes of the Dec. 2 meeting

[Dawn Wolfe]

With my apologies for the delay.

-Dawn

Penguicon ConCom meeting

Dec. 2, 2006

ConChair: Working on the budget; overly ambitious with the GoHs – need
lots of attendees this year. Rough budget – potentially losing 4K this
year. Either need to get a substantial number of new attendees or find
alternative sources of funding. 

Discussion – bring in new Nifties for free if they’ll do a panel to
bring paying attendees? Also discussion about current efforts to get
new attendees. Ex: Eric Schwartz. 

Need to cap Nifties this year. Programming is getting “full-ish,” not
as full as Matt wants. Matt’s having trouble getting people to do cool
events bec. He can’t offer free memberships. Idea: offer discounted
memberships. Other option: $15 day rates without access to the
ConSuite. Need to make the badges different colors. And $10 Dance-only
memberships. ConVocation brought in an extra $500 with a Dance-only
membership, incl. about $300 who wouldn’t otherwise have come. Idea:
set up a reg table at the dance to sell Sunday memberships. 

Decision: Matt will contact John in advance when he wants to offer free
memberships to cool people. Three hours of paneling/s hows = discounted
membership. Kung Fu guy doesn’t want to pay to get in. 
One day membership cost: $25 Friday, $30 Saturday, $25 Sunday
Idea: comp people who do demos or classes one day memberships? 
Morgan: Bring Scott McNeil in as an anime GoH. Need to work with Matt
on that. 

Action item for Matt: send Dan a sample mailer
Action item for Matt: Contact U*Con for their ad for the program book

Programming: Matt’s still trying to get more ideas, sending out the
list of topics to ask people to join the panels. If anyone knows anyone
who could serve on a panel contact Matt so he can get them the topic
list. 
Food track: people have made noises, but nothing confirmed yet. We have
a recipe for Dork Tower Igor Bars – a brick-like substance, Matt says
they’ll store well. Chuck Child will head up the Food Track. Two
sushi-making demos, a chocolate tasting, a stuffed animal tea party.
Food Track subsidies will depend on the cost of the events; get people
to donate more expensive items, ex. Wine. Idea for a food panel: ways
to “dress up” Ramen noodles. Idea: Pastafarian Ramen ritual – with
Pirates!
Theatre track: is lost and confused and post-adolescent and can’t quite
find its way. Cynthia is talking about events that Matt doesn’t think
will happen. Cynthia is in charge of the theatre track but Matt needs
an organizational producer – for Shoggoth on the Roof specifically.
Cynthia is working specifically on Buffy but hasn’t come up with a cast
list yet. Idea: live performances of Monty Python skits. 
Matt has “a ton” of movies that could take up the Oak room for most of
the weekend. We need a non-anime film person to run it. Need at least
three, if not six, volunteers for that. Matt and Aaron need to work on
assigning the equipment to the different rooms. Aaron will see to
getting the equipment again this year. Idea: just burn all the films to
a disk or hard drive and play them. Matt needs to get a copy of “Star
Wrek – in the Pirkinning.”
Gaming: going about the same as last year. People submit events in
early February; need to get them to do it sooner. Clark hasn’t been
getting emails. Shay needs to know what gaming events Randy Mulholland
will be doing.

Matt would like people to take charge of different kinds of events, for
example the auction. John has a source of auction items. People who
have inherited “a ton” of art. 
Idea: do an auction benefit for Triangle and REC. 
Auction: John and Dawn and Aaron will catalog. Ann Muphy will tell the
GoHs so they can publicize it and add auction items. Put the items on
the Web site – Ron will do this. Dawn will talk with Charles Alexander
for a donation. 
Auctioneers: Dawn, Chuck Firment, Sean Kosofsky, Collette from REC
Sell auction/dance memberships at $10. Get cheap wrist bands. Dawn will
check Triangle’s stock of wrist bands from Film Fest. 
Volunteers to run the actual auction. Idea: have people go to Ops to
pay for their items. Hand winners a coupon that they can take to Ops.
Get volunteers from Triangle and/or REC. Set up Ops to take credit?
Dawn will ask Triangle. Lease a credit card machine for the weekend.
Idea: ask Tammy to look into leasing a credit card machine for both
registration and the event. Need to make sure ops folks are trained to
use it.
Tags: pre-printed perforated business card sheets
Also need to be able to give receipts for cash purchases. 
Discussion about time slots for different events. 

Clark will look at the Birch Room for possible gaming.

Can we get large numbers of Subgenii for a Devival? Idea: Stage a holy
war between the Subgenii and the Pastafarians?


Aaron: plans on getting every slot filled up by the end of the month.
People are hesitant to confirm this far out. Aaron isn’t adding
anything or one to the schedule until everything’s confirmed.

According to Morgan there’s another function space in the hotel that we
didn’t know about. Down toward Charlie’s Crab? Called the Birch Room?
It’s not on the hotel map. Discussion of The Phantom Room. John will
talk with Melissa to find out if it will be usable space by April.

Discussion about available space for staff, panels. 

ConSuite: Averaging about $5-6 per person. 

Palladium books may want to buy the inside back cover of the program
book per Morgan. Amanda would like to do the program book – needs to
meet with Matt to learn how to do it. We have a program book graphic
designer and layout person – still no one in charge of Communications
in general. Need someone to solicit sponsorships. Matt can put
sponsorship materials together – need to set donation amount, and find
someone who can sell them. John has someone in mind - Markel Lynch.
What will the sponsorship levels and perks of each level be? Idea –
give sponsors free advertising and let them set up displays in the
computer room. Go to publishers, Chris DeBono, Google. John will take
on the task of setting the sponsorship levels. Note Action Item: Aaron
has a contact at Google who has a line on their money. Aaron will call
her about sponsoring the ConSuite. 

Marshal will talk to Lansing LUG about how much room they’re going to
need, layout, etc. 
Bill Putt is looking into hot tub rentals. 

Info kiosks – Ron will work on them. One of the kiosks is at Aaron’s
house. Need to get mice or trackballs that work. Action items: new
input, new content, testing session in advance of the con, decide where
in the hotel to put them. Note: need to find complete idiots to run the
tests. Concern: a user messing a kiosk up so it doesn’t work. Check
Gibralter trade shows for cheap computer equipment. According to Ron
the kiosks are “idiot proof.”
Need to get good information about surrounding restaurants this year.
Need to sell restaurant flyer or program book coupons to area
restaurants – need someone to do the sales. Morgan had the YoumaCon
book which had the restaurants.
John will go hit the local restaurants for advertising and coupons. 

GoH dinner: It’s not been a money maker. Cancelled for this year. 



 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Any questions? Get answers on any topic at www.Answers.yahoo.com.  Try it now.