Meeting notes for 3/15

This is for the people who couldn’t attend, and a reference for the people who did. I’m not going to promise I’ll do this every meeting, but here it is for this meeting. Also it is really not the same as actually attending.

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Upper staff were asked about price for this year. After some discussion we will be going to $40 for our final price. The $5 bills at reg are burdensome, and it’s just easier for everyone. Additionally, since we have so much more space this year, it’s an easy justification.

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Are we going to do a Day-Zero party again, and more importantly – are we going to spend money on it? I thought the sodas were insanely expensive and it was like $300-$350 to run. What about a karaoke night with refreshments or a cash bar instead of a dance?

Karaoke Party Day Zero – cash bar

Staff discussion is that Karaoke sounds like a fun day zero activity, with probably a cash bar instead of us buying outrageously expensive sodas – we need to talk to AW about it but Whirlwind has a backup system. Additionally, we will run a day-zero swap meet. Putting day zero on our fliers and having be a thing from the start instead of a last-minute addition should increase attendance.

Swap meet – AA is up for running a day-zero swap meet, there’s also a group that was suggested we talk to who might come in and do a more significant swap meet. Cost for swap meet is up in the air until we know whether it will be day zero only, or run for more days.

LIKELY costs (may change) are $30 ($15 + $15) for day zero, or $40 ($15+$25). No matter what, it costs us $15 for a person to sell or advertise.

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Fan table? Where, how much, and who runs it?

We will have a new division of merchants for clubs/fans/orgs. It will be handled by artist alley and will be a segregated section of artist alley. It will be priced the same. There will be a different contract and a different title for it.

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Staff Business Cards – dept heads & upper-levels who have been with us 3+ years. Email me with your preferred details.

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Press Staff – We kinda need a press liaison / press ops – can anyone do it or do you know anyone who can do it? Want someone with experience as to how it works.

Reg, contract, gopher

Gopher is taking on this new department. It’s not that we haven’t done some of it before, but we really need someone dedicated to it. Additional staff welcome to join under Gopher.

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OTRS – Reg wants to move away from OTRS into something else but it’s what we have so until that happens I’m going to start putting people on it.

A few things to keep in mind – BCCing to your dept is a GOOD idea, but it will reopen your ticket, so you will need to close it after the final email goes out. Otherwise no one really knows you answered, or how.

We will not be going to every dept until we have a permanent setup, but we want to set up departments which have a heavy qty of email.

It is NOT intuitive, it takes a bit of time to learn it, so I want to get everyone who’s going to need to use it on asap.
I did a small tutorial, and will work on some screenshots to assist people. It’s not really difficult, it’s just not intuitive.

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Start of general staff meeting –

Meeting protocol -
- Please do not be disruptive to the meeting.
- Please do not have private conversations during the first part of the meeting. Just make a note and have that conversation in the second part of the meeting. Don’t think I don’t see/hear you – I do and I do call people on it.
- Please DO ask questions and make suggestions. That’s what we’re here for.
- Please do not leave immediately when the first part of the meeting is over. Try to stay 10 minutes in case someone needs to talk to you (especially important for dept heads). This is a good time to introduce yourself to the rest of your department, exchange contact info, and start planning.

The first part of the meeting is for announcements and questions, the second part is a free movement where we all group where we need to to have the private planning conversations.

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New staff policies -

• To qualify to be staff all members need to attend a MINIMUM of three (3) meetings. If you’re already attending all meetings, please keep attending all meetings. Meetings will be tracked and you must log in to be counted (LEARN YOUR USER/PASS). You must log out when you leave or have someone log you out. This will MOST heavily affect gaming and a few department heads. Eventually I expect that dept. heads will be required at more meetings, but this is a start for 2014.

YES, if it is a hardship for the staff member to come to meetings we will work with them but only if notified in advance. We will not work with people the week before the convention (or at the convention) – they will have to volunteer for 2014 if they’re that late to the game.

• Contract needs to be initialed, signed, and turned in before online registration closes – llama doesn’t want to track people down at con. Not doing this WILL disqualify you as staff for the year and you’ll have to pay and volunteer. It’s long, but it’s YOUR responsibility to read and understand it.

• Don’t mess with tech’s equip unless tech has qualified you to mess with it.

• No one can make announcements on main stage except Main Stage Department or those authorized by Main Stage.

• No one can use the mics at all on main stage except main stage dept or those temporarily authorized by main stage.

• Lights are to be controlled by the person in control of that room (panelist, event coordinator, etc) with the exception of the main area which is to be controlled by the tech department only. People (including Chairs) can tell tech to do something with the lights, but only tech is to mess with it. There were too many problems last year with people messing with the lights and panicking tech. Both Nathan and myself, along with a couple of other staffers, added to the problem, so from now on, all light changes in main room go through tech.

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At-con refunds are being phased out. As of 2014 if you are in a group then you will no longer qualify for a volunteer refund, your time will go towards a discounted badge for the following year. 12 hours will discount your badge for next year completely.

As of 2014 if you are not in a group you still qualify for a refund – 12 for a weekend badge, 4 for a day badge.

This may affect volunteer numbers, but we need to stop refunding people at reg. I’m hoping that by doing it slowly we will be able to compensate for it over time.

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No panelists took the refunds so we are going to start automatically appling panelist refunds to the next year instead of refunding the amount at-con. Panelist hours will still combine with volunteer hours.

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Reg opens . . . soon? I was going for 15th, but didn’t happen. All attending staff can log in “now” if we set you for that at the meetings. (Anyone attending could add their name to the list so they could log in to the system now before it’s ready for the public)

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The Registration line was a surprise for some staff and volunteers last year, so here it is – If you don’t want to wait in the line then pick up your badge early. THERE ARE STAFF HOURS. The staff hours are on Thursday and early morning Friday when you should be there anyway.

OTHERWISE, Staff will be in the paid line, so it is shorter, but AT Con it’s too hectic to give you special treatment.

You know how many staffers picked up on Thursday? This isn’t an exact number but it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of 5, not counting the reg people who were there. That’s why I did not have patience for staff members trying to pick up on mid-day Friday. We were lonely on Thursday. We were playing games. Friday morning was equally uneventful.

Pick up your badge on Thursday evening or Friday morning, or don’t complain when you have to wait in a line when you show up at the busiest part of Friday.

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Progress Reports -
Reg is moving servers. There should be no difference to users and we should not have to reset email passwords.

Google Checkout is shut down, we are paypal only for this year. We are also moving to the Paypal API so that payments will be automatically applied all the time instead of only when the user clicks back to the site when they’re done paying.

AA contract is done and ready to open.

Vendor contract is done we just need the map for the year.

Panel feedback is in the system and will be displaying for the panel dept and applicable panelists soon and should be ready before we open.

Promotion for Karaoke dept. Can AW head? (Did not attend for personal things so don’t know yet.)

Graphics has our mascot for this year but hasn’t done any graphics yet. I’m poking, it will be soon.

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I would like to encourage everyone to go to the forums and try to make a few posts. It would be good to make it alive again.

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Achievements! – Totally a thing now, and the points are based on participation so the more a person participates the more points they get. Therefore the points are skewed heavily towards staffing. Anything we can track can add points.

All departments tracking things (COSPLAY) needs to add a badge number to their forms so I can add it in the system. If you want attendees to receive points for something that’s going on in your department, then you need to track it as well. (Example: participation in the bottlecap lottery might have been a good thing to track.)

Some items which are tracked and were entered into the system recently are peacebonding and panel feedback. Panel feedback is effectively anonymous, but linked to an account so that they can get points. IOW – admin COULD look up who said what, but we won’t because we don’t care. Panelists do not have access to the info.

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AMV Contest is happening – spread the word. It’s our first year trying it so it’s a little jagged around the edges.

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Marketing

We bought a button machine and supplies. I will be making buttons for various marketing purposes, some free, some for a small cost.

Other marketing ideas?

Also the button machine means we can do button-ribbon prizes. I just need to know who wants them.

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Ending Note: Fully Unscripted (Improv group) is performing at BLFC on March 28. April 5 will be their review of the BLFC performance and they will be open for new auditions. Do not audition if you can not commit to every first and third Saturday for like 4 hours of improv workshop, critique, and practice.

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