Penguicon Concom Meeting
4 April 2009
Attendees
Aaron Thul – Registration
Amy Zrnich – Food Track
Angie Fox - Dealer Room
Bill Korsack – Gaming
Bill Putt – Signs, Music Head
Chick Tower – Brazilian Beef
Chuck Child – Producer
Dan Ramirez – Video Game Track
Dan Deslover – Program book
Courtney Galloway – Literature Track
Garrett Kajmovicz – Ops, Geeks with Guns
James Hice – Eco track assistant
Jer Lance – Hotel liaison, hospitality, lots of other stuff
Jess Zerwas – Treasurer
Kristine Blanchett - Photographer
Limey Zrnich – Costume Track, Construction
Matt Arnold – Chair
Molly le Blanc – Talent Wrangler
Rachel Weisenfeld – Life track
Randy Bradakis – Scheduling Wrangler
Ron Blanchett – Web Tech
Sarah Slovik – Eco track
Chris Wordsmith(?) – Lights
Greg – observer
Bill Massen observer
Nicole Yates – Former volunteer
Peter Smith – Computer Lounge
Nick, with Jess
Dave Adams – Webcomics Track
Gerald Gentry – Last year's convention chair
Steve DeHart – Consuite
Registration
Ops
Still a few scheduling windows for staff. (4 hours left to fill)
Last opportunity to let Ops know if you need them to do something. Let Garrett know by Monday, or the answer will be no.
Treasurer
Jess is writing checks. See her if you need reimbursements.
No update on how much we've made in registrations.
Jess needs to know how much cash to have on hand at the convention. Send Jess an email why, as well as a description of what is needed.
For feeding GoHs: liaisons need to talk to GoHs to determine whether the GoH prefers to spend their own money and get reimbursed rather than the liaison paying for them directly and getting reimbursed, as normal. If so, do they/the liaison prefer to have cash up front for the weekend, or do they/the liaison prefer to use their own cards & then get reimbursed. If that is the case, overage needs to be giveback, and receipts are required.
Brazilian Beef
As of Wed., there were 157 people pre-registered.
Planning for 450 servings.
Still looking for more people to cook. The more volunteers there are, the fewer hours each needs to work.
Dealers
All dealers have paid ($2500+), and checks have been given to Jess.
17 dealers in the room, and another 18 dealers that had asked for tables.
Noted: we do have limited access to the service elevator on Friday for setting up. Just let Jer know so that this can be coordinated.
T-shirts, including those that were pre-ordered, will be available in the Dealer room.
Volunteers
Need to finalize what we are paying & for how much. (value system)
If you need volunteers, weigh in on rates.
Current: 1 wuffie per 1 hour of work for crash space (first come, first served). 3 wuffies/hours for Brazilian Beef. 6 hours for registration reimbursements. Discussion ensued regarding whether this rate is too low.
Limited number of next year registrations, t-shirts, bronze medal available. Have a bit of a competition for making these awards.
Have digital photo prints w/ people's names to have a leader board charting hours over the weekend to let people know where they stand.
Recommend that quantities be limited for awards, be on a first come, first serve basis, and be budgeted in advance. Publish that there are limits, but don't publish the specific number of each limit– this gives us the ability to decide at the time which reward to cut off if there is a high demand for it, to preserve the ability to give out the other rewards.
Further discussion will be off line.
GoH
Looking for GoH liaisons. Matt has been sending out requests, but has received a number of polite rejections. If you know of someone who is reliable & available, email Matt.
Airline tickets are largely purchased.
Need to get higher resolution pictures & longer bios for each GoH for the program book.
Signage
If you need large signs, contact Bill.
Bill was hoping to purchase his own cricket this year. A cricket is an x-y potter that cuts vinyl, and can cut up to .25 inch. Downside is that you can only print on cartridges that you have to buy.
However, he has a program that can let you cut absolutely anything. Kristine Blanchett has a cricket that we will ask to borrow, and see if it is the right kind. We seek more contributors to purchase one for conventions to use permanently. The funds raised would need to be $200.
Hotel
Cable (CCTV) looks like it will happen. 95% chance we'll be able to broadcast on the CCTV. Planning a prototype for the April 25th meeting.
Hotel is full.
There are going to be, periodically, one or two rooms opening up over the next couple of weeks. Jer will let the list know if/when we have rooms available.
There remain 8 smoking rooms, and 0 smokers left. These will go to 8 people who are accepting of smoking rooms, or the last 8 people to check into the hotel. Smoking rooms are located on the 6th floor, which is also the party floor.
Layouts are remarkably close to being 100% solid. If you haven't looked at them recently, do so. Jer has received one edit this week. Only notable addition is that Monster will be in the Consuite & will be supplying energy drinks all weekend. Monster will be the exclusive energy drink provider.
Jer will be turning in rooms on Thursday. If you haven't submitted a room requirement, you can still submit up until then, but it most likely will not be met at this point.
Pool is ours until 3 AM. For those who have balcony rooms, do not throw things off the balcony into the pool.
In public areas, please wear shoes. Dress code to be published in program book.
Marketing
There are more clings & ad cards (which have Spider Robinson and a wrong
URL) available.
Jer will post an updated flier.
We are getting a pair of ads in the Metro Times. Two ads in the “Best of Detroit” issue. One up front, and one in the Night & Day section. In the front: standard blurb. In the Night & Day: push the nightlife aspect. For that, Jer needs a visual background that will pop in a black and white ad. Looking to have pre & post articles written up here as well. Email pictures that are creative commons to Jer. Does not need to be pictures just from prior Penguicons, but would prefer something from SE Michigan fandom. Needed this weekend for ad to be made on Monday.
Con Suite
Computer Lounge
Everything under control, though we are stuck with the piano.
Still don't know if there is any interconnect in the atrium. Where is the network drop?
Should be able to use ITT Tech volunteers.
Are there any events that are scheduled for this area? Right now, there's just the intro to Unix scheduled for that area.
Programming Department
Literature
All of the panels for track are in Dabble & spreadsheet.
GoH has limitation on Sunday afternoon due to flight out.
Only 3 panels were too large for the assigned room.
Note: Randy needs to know all the times that GoHs are leaving on Sunday.
Last summer, had heard that Jane M. wanted to be on a couple of lit panels, but did not hear back from S. Kennedy. She can join in where she wants,
Gaming
Publications – Program book
If you haven't sent an ad, but wanted to, (example; list of people sponsoring auction), need to forward information to Dan & Jer.
Only issues: Matt is arranging for the print vendor.
Who is doing the new fliers (to replace the postcards)? No one has been asked yet.
Tomorrow night: deadline for programming information to go into the book. Anything after will go into errata. We may need a couple of days slack so that this can be run by GoHs for final approval.
Anime schedule was unreadable. If not received in readable format, this will just be posted on a separate sheet.
Panel blurbs need to be done within 24 hours to be in the program book. If no blurb is provided, Randy will write one and that's what we'll go with.
Still need time for proof-reading. Dan to send what he has to the list for proof-reading.
GoH Dinner
Waiting for responses from the GoHs.
Matt will call an end to it in the next couple of days.
We need to cap dinner. We have 5 GoHs, plus their guests & their liaisons. This dinner does count toward the $150 budgeted to each guest for food. We only cover the GoHs & their companions.
Cap is tentatively 40. In the past, we've never capped this. If we are doing a cap, we need to publish this to the concom list.
Matt will decide who gets to go.
Looking for a place to have a dessert after.
Follow Up Items
Ron –
Matt –
Discuss art for badges & Brazilian beef with Aaron after the meeting
Determine print vendor's deadline and send it to Dan.
Find a place to have a dessert and hang out after Thursday GoH dinner.
Future Meetings
April 25th - At the hotel
May 16th, , late afternoon/evening: Hand off/Kickoff Meeting