CONvergence Convention Committee Meeting Notes
Sunday, January 19th, 2014
ConCom Calendar
All ConCom Meetings are held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel at 2pm
February 15 2pm
March 22 2pm
April 13 2pm Resume, New Art Requests, and Radio Requests Deadline
May 17 2pm Publications/Art Deadline for all Publications/Signage/Advertising
June 8 2pm Hotel Room Drawing, Final date to submit all ConCom names for badges
June 22 2pm Hotel Room Drawing, Final Radio Training
July 3-6 CONvergence Convention
July 19 2pm Post Mort em & 7pm Volunteers Party
Convergence Events Board Announcement
Election Committee: Andy Murphy, Eric Knight, Ann Roubik
Elections Results: 119 Total Eligible Members Voted in this year’s election.
Margaret Eastman for Activities Director 109 Votes For, 10 Votes to Decline
Christin “LeXi” Davies for Communications Director 104 Votes For, 15 Votes to Decline
Referendum:
To extend the term for the Director of Productions and Director of Systems for 1 year, to end August 15th, 2016.
The referendum passed.
95 Votes For, 18 Votes Against, 5 Declined to Vote, 1 Invalid Vote (two boxes were marked on this ballot)
Open Positions:
We need your help, we have several departments that do not currently have any volunteers and we are at risk of having to cancel these for the year if we can’t find volunteers to fill the positions.
CVG TV, Decor and Art Auction
If you know someone who might be interested please have them contact volun…@convergence-con.org
Hotel:
On January 5ththe room request system went live to the public. At the end of the process, the hotel sold out of the remaining rooms in 10 minutes (Tom Harty says 5; IT says 2. I’m being generous).
Along the way there was a catastrophic crash, if you have not heard. We have posted a full explanation to the website, but the short story version is web-hosting failure coupled with a caching failure. In short, DreamHost failed to deliver the promised ability to handle the load.
So in the end we are sold out. Capital S. Capital O. Nothing in the Double Tree. Nothing in the Sheraton. Overflow hotels are listed on the website and I am encouraging people to book elsewhere as the chances of filling rooms from the waitlist are slim and none. We have and do apologize for the inconvenience of the crash and will be enacting a different process for 2015.
Next – we learned that the Sheraton Bloomington, formerly the Sofitel, has taken their function space out of commission FOR THE YEAR. They are not booking anything into those rooms, or so we’ve been told. This has been confirmed and will be confirmed again.
As always please direct your hotel questions to ho…@convergence-con.org.
Registration:
As of Dec 31st midnight – 3246 which is up 13% from this time last year. It looks like our downward trend has more than reversed. People are really waiting to the last minute to register. Dec 31st was really busy with hundreds of people registering. Thank goodness the system held up!
Registration is now $75 through May 15th.
We are having to merge 1300 duplicate accounts by hand, so if you haven’t registered yet, please try your email and “forgot password” first, so if there is an account we created in 2013, we won’t end up with duplicates.
Our membership ID’s (Otherwise known as ‘badges’) will be physically different in 2014 than they were in 2013. This should come as no surprise to anyone, as this has occurred almost every year.
The new form factor will remain in a landscape orientation however the width will be shorter by approximately 1/2″. This year’s badges will be 3 1/4” in width.
Keep this in mind when ordering ribbons. Please note that any ribbons already purchased or left over from last year will still work on the ID however they may hang over the edge a bit or, if you are a perfectionist, you can certainly trim them up a little on each side.
We are not able to release more detailed information about the ID’s at this time so please do not ask.
Guests:
Along with our current list, which includes C. Robert Cargill, Scott Lynch, Amy Berg, Emma Bull, Sarah Clemens and Greg Weisman, we are very pleased to announce that we will be joined by Thom Adcox.
Thom Adcox’s extensive career has included being a dancer for Janet Jackson, as well as many other roles in major films. It took off when he landed the voiceover role of Lexington in Gargoyles. He has voiced many characters since then, including Klarion the Witch Boy in Young Justice, Phineas Mason in The Spectacular Spider-Man, Sammy in W.I.T.C.H. and Simon in Invasion America.
And also joined by Marina Sirtis.
British actress Marina Sirtis was the voice of Demona on 27 episodes the Gargoyles series. She was also Deanna Troi on Star Trek and has made guest appearances as Troi on several of the Star Trek series, as well as Family Guy. She was the voice of Queen Bee on Young Justice and was also in Castlevania. Recently she has been on NCIS as Orli Elbaz and Grey’s Anatomy as Sonia Amin. She has an extensive theater career as well as her work in film and television.
Resume:
Those departments with space in the hotel should be hearing from their resume guru by January 26th with information on what you had in your resume last year and what’s going forward. The resume deadlines this year are as follows: resume is due in April, the first sign off is in may, and the final no further changes resume deadline is in June. These are the same deadlines as last year.
Nerf Herders:
Nerf Herders will be holding an open meeting on February 23rd at Waterbury.
Operations:
Operations will be holding an open meeting on January 26th at 2pm at Grumpy’s Downtown Minneapolis
GPS:
Feb. 8 (Saturday) is the next GPS Movie Night. It’s a double header of Dick Tracy and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. RSVP to Eventbrite at https://gps-movie-night-feb2014.eventbrite.com.
Feb. 18 (Tuesday) GPS Open Forum. Open to all folks interested in who we are, what we do, what you do, and things geeky. We go over what we’ve been doing, what is coming up, and what we need for volunteers to help spread the squee. We want to here from you. Social hour starts at 6 pm, meeting starts at 7 pm.
GPS Donations for auction @ CONvergence –
Dates to donate: All remaining CONvergence ConCom meetings, at GPS MovieNights, Thursdays 7pm-9pm and by appointment.
Volunteers are also needed for creating bid sheets, set up,staffing at con, and tear down. Please emailsilent…@geekpartership.org.
Hold the date:
Apr. 12 – GPS Team Trivia Contest – This year it will be held at Pepito’s Parkway Theater on Chicago Ave. in Minneapolis. 2014 Reading List includes:
Preacher Vol. 1: Gone to Texas by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Sweet Silver Blues (Garrett, P.I.) by Glen Cook, Dreams and Shadows: A Novel by C. Robert Cargill, and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
Communications Director:
I need your help in completing the ConCom Calendar and ConCom Guide. If your department has a deadline for something that affect other departments or ConCom members or the Public, please send them to me.
For example: Resume has a deadline of the April ConCom meeting for the submission of all resumes from all departments that have space at the Hotels.
Publications has a deadline of the May ConCom meeting for all submissions to the printed publications and signage.
I really need to get all deadlines on a calendar that the whole ConCom can refer to through out the year so it is easier to make sure all deadlines are met.
Your cooperation in getting this to me as soon as possible is appreciated.
Send these to le…@convergenceevents.org
Reminder:
If you or someone in your department are not receiving emails from the google group, contact le…@convergenceevents.org so she can get it fixed for you.
Does your department need to make an announcement to the ConCom at the meeting?
If so email it to le…@convergenceevents.org no later than 6pm the Thursday prior to the meeting to be added to the Agenda. We can’t guarantee that you will be able to have time at the meeting if we don’t have you on the Agenda. When making your request, please submit a write up of your announcement so it may be included in the Meeting Notes & Information sent to the ConCom after the meeting.
Directors:
dire…@convergence-con.org
Michael Lee Director of Activities (Vice President) mic…@convergenceevents.org
Liz Hernandez Director of Administration (Treasurer) l…@convergenceevents.org
Christin “LeXi” Davies Director of Communications (Secretary) le…@convergenceevents.org
Ishmael Williams Director of H.O.M.E (President) ish…@convergenceevents.org
Amy Mills Director of Productions a…@convergenceevents.org
Thomas Keeley Director of Systems & Finance tho…@convergenceevents.org
Margaret Eastman Director of Activities Elect marg…@convergenceevents.org