Minutes, 11 May 1997 Recorded by Eli Bohmer Lebow, mailed to hrsfa-announce 13 May --------------------------------------------------- Minutes, HRSFA general meeting 1997-05-11 19:07; J.D. 2450580.5 Sever 110 Recorded by Eli Bohmer Lebow The senior brunch went well, although there were more seniors than ex-seniors. The movie: About 190 people came. This produced about $570; we had spent $1350. "The short version is, we got hosed." --Chris Hall. Potentially we can get a $130 refund because the security guards didn't show up for all the time that they were supposed to (I think it was the second night they didn't show). A possible reason mentioned for this overall badness is that we had a bad slot, what with reading period and house formals. Not to descend completely into gloom, please note that Aaron Landry has tagged many, many movies and just generally been a diligent External Secretary. [His recent posts have more details that I managed to write down.] A sidenote on Fusion that, chronologically, belongs in the middle of the next paragraph: Fusion is OK financially, in fact it is better off than HRSFA as a whole, but it does not have a lot of submissions. It will come out over the summer. We need art; I gather Jed Wahl can't supply all the art we need. Booksale results: $26.25 is still owed to us from various sources. We made over $130. What will we do with the money? Keep it, buy books to fill gaps in the library, or buy wood for bookshelves? That last one would be if the plan to get free wood (described at previous meetings, but briefly, leftover or unused wood from theatre groups) fails. The gaps include the Lord of the Rings. In fact the gaps are repeatedly referred to as the Lord of the Rings and other books. The only other books I recall being mentioned are some Greg Egan and Honor Harrington books; there are said to be not many specific suggestions thus far. The treasury has about $800, Chris estimates, although he hasn't had time to do the calculations yet. We usually like to keep $1000 in the bank minimum, for safety, so we don't go into debt. Moses Liskov has donated a $25 book certificate. (We later voted to count this as $25 towards a lifetime membership.) Suggestions: Set a spending limit for books and go down a prioritized list of books. Get some magazines (subscribe? I wasn't listening too well at that moment). Another comment is that we just got 1000 books, perhaps we don't need too many more right now. Alden Strock and Kyle Niedzwiecki made and revised a motion through several steps. It was kinda complicated. I'll summarize as best I can the motion we actually voted on: The spending limit is the booksale proceeds plus the book certificate. The officers will decide what books to buy and how many; they are to spend wisely. The recommendation is to spend the amount that would leave $1000 in the treasury while spending between $50 and the spending limit, if that is numerically possible. The more-than-$50 part is, I believe, waivable if there aren't that many books we decide we want. Anyway, the upshot is that the officers have some discretion. We voted on this rather elaborate motion, and it passed, although Chris briefly channeled Charles Keckler. Then we began discussing the Loker Thing. The Loker Lady has offered us one bookcase (as in, many shelves) in Loker Commons, with a glass sliding door, locked with a key. (We can make as many copies of the key as we like. Proposals were later mentioned to make the key attached to a combination lock, or something complicated, to make it a de facto combination lock.) It must have books only; no videos or games or comics. We must staff the Bookswap (which will, I gather, be right next to HRSFA's shelf). These must be "regular and consistent" office hours, according to Susan Groppi; perhaps 1 hour/day or 1 afternoon/week. (We'll get the second shelf if the whole bookswap idea goes bust, I gather.) What do we get out of this? Visibility, people knowing about HRSFA's library and thus choosing to pay Chris $5 or $8 depending on the time of year. Dean Epps wants the books to be in Loker. Dean Epps loves us. Chris argues that the publicity we get is more good than splitting up the library (between Loker and Pforzheimer) is bad. (How did I slip into the present tense?) We're no worse off in the end if they take this bookshelf away. This splitting issue led to the topic of which books go where. Suggestions: Rotate random books. Put the most popular books in Loker. Put TSR, Star Trek (except for the signed book!), and the Year's Best Anthologies in Loker. [I'm sure there are more possibilities than this, but I think these were all that were listed.] What about keys? It costs $1.50 to copy a key, someone estimates. Would we give keys to all members? Make members who want keys pay the $1.50 themselves? We'd like to put up a sign that says something like, "For more books, see our library in Pforzheimer, and give Chris money". Most likely, they'll only let us put up a small tasteful laminated sign. The UC has some plan for a Student Resource Center, or something. Apparently Lamelle is interested in our being part of the aforementioned S.R.C. This might require a "looser" commitment to regular office hours. Lamelle has not in fact bought a HRSFA membership. We could have people leave their IDs when borrowing books, to enforce the eventual return of the books. (HRSFAns will still be permitted to borrow books, I think.) Something complicated was mentioned regarding baseball cards and baseball card holders which I completely failed to understand. The Loker advisory committee has not, in fact, approved the plan to have us in Loker. Will they take the bookshelves away if we don't staff the bookswap regularly? No one seems to know for sure. If someone knows in advance that they can't make the office hours they're supposed to, they could change the office hours posted. Dean Epps will probably know if we miss an office hour. [At the officers' meeting there was great worry over how feasible keeping regular office hours are, considering especially how difficult it is to get people to have office hours in our Pforzheimer library. Not that much was said about this, but:] It may be easier to have people come to Loker office hours than Pforzheimer ones, since Loker is so much closer; distance may be the overriding factor. Can non-Harvard people staff the bookshelf and bookswap? We think so--the regulations about Loker and non-Harvard people just concern food. There was a motion to accept the administration's offer (the offer to have a bookshelf in Loker with all the other conditions attached). The motion passed 10 to 4. During the previous discussion there was briefly mentioned the idea of a HRSFA study break; whether this is a new idea or we've done it before is not agreed on, but there seemed to be general likingness for the idea. Kyle reported an emergency decision made by the officers. A group of Winthrop students wanted to from a new student group to show movies, especially science fiction, in the Science Center. The deans asked us if giving the new group official recognition would be OK with us; apparently they were afraid we would riot. We were most amused at this idea, and pleased that the deans fear us. The officers said OK, let the new group form. We plan to assimilate this new group. "They will join us, or die." --Chris. They don't seem to realize the magnitude of showing movies in the Science Center, and they would have trouble yellowtagging anything out from under Aaron. Kyle had us vote on the officers' emergency decision. The decision can't be reversed, so the two options we are voting on are: 1) No, the officers did not screw us over. We are happy with the officers' decision. They should keep making such good decisions. 2) The officers did screw us over. They should stop doing stuff. Option 1 won, with only Chris and Aaron voting for #2. |----->SIG<----->Reports<-----| Siswai'aman (aka Swiss Why a Man): GAT went well. Aaron was there 61.5 hours. Mage has two meetings left in the year. Kyle found a "big honking sword". Rose changed characters. In Lords of Chaos, Kyle died for the final time. The Lord of the Dark is dead. In Ravenloft, they are recovering from wounds. Vampire is finished for the year. There may be a summer vampire. Many people killed other people, far too many for the poor Internal Secretary to write down, although I managed to catch that the Tramir were part of the general killing process (among the killers, I think). Igor's campaign will begin again next fall. Aaron has been trying to organize a gaming convention, but HRSFA's dire financial straits suggest that it will have to be postponed. The summer gaming people were to cluster around Aaron after the meeting. Matt Ender made Lords of Chaos Madlibs. There was a unanimous vote to found Summer HRSFA. Babylon 5: There was a new episode that night. Moiraine asked if anyone has written papers on Star Trek. If so, contact her, the papers may be published. The soon-to-be-released Summer Shrubbery has her address. Ig SIG: We're the primary sponsor of the Igs. We're negotiating for the right to have more than eight HRSFAns come free to the Igs. "What is it that everyone has against Robert Jordan?" --Aaron X-files were to be (that night, I think) in Mower common room. The meeting ended at 20:10.