CONvergence Convention Committee Meeting Notes
Sunday, November 16, 2014

Board Announcements

The Election Committee was voted in during the meeting.

The Election Committee Judges will consist of the following GPS Board Members:
Ann Roubik
Danielle McKay
Jeff Boucher-Zamzo

Alternates:
Ange Straatmeyer
Seth Chmelik
George Richard

Candidates for the Board Positions up for Election in 2015:
Administration
Liz Hernandez
JJ Virnala

Data Transmissions
Jonathan Palmer
Foro Pasquarette
Amy Purdes
Matt Resong

H.o.M.E.
Ishmael Williams

Election Committee Email box

[email protected]. Please direct any questions in regards to the Election to this email address.

Budget Discussion

Department budgets will be communicated to your department by your Divisional Director.

Department Email Boxes:

The boxes should be used for all official CVG communications, and converting to actual email boxes allows for groups to handle email and response better as well as gives access to the Convergence Events Google Drive.

In Drive, there will be view only access to the current ConCom list and previous meeting notes through the departments email boxes. This will allow for access to current ConCom lists and the ability to view, downloads, and email prior ConCom meeting notes as needed.

Artist Alley

Due to the logistics and focus of the Convention, Artist Alley will be on hiatus for the 2015 Convention. We will be assessing the space and needs of the convention and will discuss Artist Alley possible return in the future.

Open Committee Meetings

With the ConCom meeting now closed to those not on the ConCom , we will be holding four Open Committee Meetings through out the convention cycle. These will allow those members who wish to become voting member to get updates throughout the year and meet the two meeting requirement to be eligible to vote.

Unlike ConCom meetings, these are open to the public and have info about the administrativia of the organization.

The first open committee meeting of the 2015 Convention Cycle will be held at 5pm on Sunday, November 16th at the DoubleTree.

The second open committee meeting will be the Election Meeting on January 18th, 2016 at 4pm at the Double Tree.

The third open committee meeting is not scheduled at this time but we are considering April.

The fourth open committee meeting is not scheduled yet but will be held during CONvergence.

Department Announcements

Please submit your Department announcements to your Divisional Director. If you have a last minute department announcement, please bring it up during your divisional meeting and let your director know. Divisional Directors will be announcing their departments that have announcements at the Concom meeting.

Please provide write ups of your announcement to your Divisional Director within 48 hours of the ConCom meeting. (These will be included in the notes.)

Administration:

Volunteers
Now is the time to review your list, and check it twice. That is your list of Volunteer positions you want filled at CONvergence 2015

Please Check your department’s listing on the CONvergence web site: http://www.convergence-con.org/get-involved/volunteer/volunteer-positions/.

Please double check shift times, duties, and how they compare to jobs in the fictional mundane world.

Email any changes to the Volunteer Department at: volun…@convergence-con.org. We will update the information for the web site and for the Help Wanted books available at Con. If your department uses volunteers but is not yet on the web site or in the Help Wanted book send us an email and we can send you a form to help make sure essential points are covered.

People have been contacting the Volunteer Department since the end of Con expressing a wish to volunteer next year. Their information is forwarded to the appropriate department(s) with copies back to the potential volunteer.

Logistics

  1. If you are planning to store anything in either the storage units or the pods that had any kind of food or beverage in it, please clean it before giving it to us to put into storage.
  2. Space is tight, if your department is planning to make purchases of items that will need to be placed in storage after the con, please let us know by April what the dimensions of those items will be
    1. If you come across items during this year’s convention that you haven’t used in a while, are broken or you don’t anticipate a need for in the future, please consider recycling or disposing of them, this will help make room for the new items
  3. If you need to access the storage unit a new request form will be available to fill out. The form will be available for users by the end of the month. You can find it out on the Google Drive.

You can also contact us by sending an email to logistics ([email protected]). If you need to escalate your request, please contact Liz ([email protected])

Systems:

Finance
Payment Request Forms Now Available

There are now Payment Request forms available to use when submitting a request for payment to the Finance department. These forms are used when a department needs the Finance department to pay for something (an online order, paying an invoice sent to your department, etc). To clarify:

You paid for something yourself and want your money back = Reimbursement form

Something needs to be paid = Payment Request form

Productions:

CVGTV
As of this morning the bulk of CONVergence Masquerade videos from 2014 have been uploaded. The rest of the CVG-TV Mainstage videos will be uploaded over the next two weeks. I’d also like to say that one of the goals Mike and I have for this year is to increase the brand, really get CVGTV consistent so it looks more like an actual television channel. To this end we are making our production resources available to all departments, so please let us know if you need a promo, ad or Mainstage video done in a very high quality way. That’s it!”

HoME

Resume (Still awaiting write up of the announcement.)

Nerf Herders (Still awaiting write up of the announcement.)

Ops
Ops Outing
Date: November 23, 2014
Time: 2pm
Location: Memory Lanes – 2520 26th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN 55406

Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/541245745976817/

Some additional information that has been posted:

  • Memory Lanes has a full menu and a bar as well as video games and things for the kiddos.
  • Free parking in the lot.
  • Bowling on Sunday after noon is $4.49+tax per game. (I figure we will probably bowl 2 games)
  • Shoe rental for $2
  • Happy Hour starts at 3pm!
  • Things change there all the time, but usually there is a specials menu that is reasonably priced.
  • A burger with all the fixins and awesome tots or fries runs about $9.
  • The Appetizer specials are always a good deal.
  • Even if you don’t want to bowl, feel free to join us. Comments from the peanut gallery/cheerleaders/hecklers make things even more entertaining!
  • Please RSVP!

Publications
We will be using Freedcamp online project management software to manage tasks, eliminating some of the issues with lost emails. Forms are being created for Graphics requests, Souvenir Guide submissions, and Change requests. They will be sent to a central email address where they can be entered into the Freedcamp software and assigned out for proofing.

A unified Branding and Style Guide should be out by December 1 as well as the previously mentioned forms, and published to a public space to be decided. A link and notification will be sent to the full ConCom list.

We are creating the role of Branding QA, initially staffed by Christopher Jones – he will be reviewing proofs of artwork used by 3rd party vendors of official Convergence items (Merchandising, COF2E2, t-shirts, etc.) to check for distortions.

PRELIMINARY DEADLINES FOR 2015

  • Custom Artwork Requests – March 1, 2015
  • Souvenir Guide text – April 1, 2015
  • Proofs and final text – June 1, 2015
  • Send to printer – June 10, 2015

Partners

GPS:

Announcements (Ann Rubick)
Reminder to Departments that there is a center with meeting space that you can reserve for your meetings – department, training, builds, etc. Here is the link to the form you use to make your space requests. http://tinyurl.com/awdnc67

GPS Open Forum is Tuesday, November 18. We invite our partner members from CONvergence to come and find out what’s been going on and what’s in the hopper. This Open Forum we will be having a special presentation from 2014 Space Camp Scholarship winner, Gunnar Laughlin, who went in August.

2015 Space Camp Scholarship – Please help us spread the word about this scholarship. The deadline to receive submissions is 11:59pm Wednesday, December 31, 2014. We’ll be sharing a Facebook community action page this week. We’ve also attached pdfs of signs and flyers for folk to print and post in their neighborhoods and flightpaths (e.g. library, school, grocery store, coffee house, etc.).

ConCom Meeting Sign

We will be trying a new way to sign in for the ConCom meeting. We will be sending out a Google for to those on the Google Group list. For those who have an electronic device with them, they will be allowed to fill out the form and sign in. For those who do not have a device with them, there will be several laptops set up to provide a way to sign in. Someone will be nearby to provide assistance if needed. The form will be available for about an hour after the beginning of the meeting.

2015 ConCom Meeting Dates (2pm):

  • 1/18/15: Saturday, January 18th
    • 4pm Open Committee Meeting: Election Meeting
  • 2/15/15: Sunday, February 15th
  • 3/14/15: Saturday, March 14th
  • 4/19/15: Sunday, April 19th
  • 5/16/15: Saturday, May 16th
  • 6/7/15: Sunday, June 7th
  • 6/20/15: Saturday, June 20th
  • 7/25/15: Saturday, July 25th Post Mortem