April 2007

Chapter Representatives and BOD members checking in:

Janice Dallas - Northern Lights CG rep

Maggie Smith - DFWCG Treasurer, observer/alt rep?

Erin - Recording Secretary CGWP, observer/alt rep?

Igor - President - CGWP

Marissa Wronka - President/BoD Rep SouthEastern Costumers' Society

Ann Hamilton - GCFCG rep

Rob Himmelsbach - DVCG, Treasurer & BoD rep

Karen Heim – ICG Corresponding Secretary

Dora Buck - Sick Pup Prez

Dawn McKechnie - Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada

Frances Burns – ICG Recording Sec

Ann Catelli – Moderator

Susan Smith - Northern Lights Chapter Treasurer, Alternate Rep

Betsy Delaney - Silicon Web

Pierre Pettinger – Parliamentarian Archivist

Jennifer Thompson - President – DFWCG

Henry W. Osier - Armed Costumers Guild

Jan Price - VP ICG

Nora Mai – President ICG

4/9/07 E-mail change – due to excessive SPAM the email addresses to the Treasurer and newsletter have had an "ICG-" added in front of them. treasurer@costume.org should be mail to:icg-treasurer@costume.org

newsletter@costume.org should be mail to icg-newsletter@costume.org) and so on

What is status of 501c3?

The big advantage of this tax status is that contributions to the organization with it are tax deductible. This can be used to great advantage. There are major corporations that look for 501 3 c groups to give money, just so they can take it off their taxes.

Per Bruce-T: Current Situation relative to the Group Exemption Letter (GEL):

Each Chapter has to send me a letter containing:

1. Information verifying the following:

a. They are affiliated with the International Costumers Guild, Inc.

b. They are subject to general supervision or control.

c. They are eligible to qualify for exemption under the 501(c)(3) section of the code (just say so, you do not have to prove anything).

d. They are not a private foundation.

e. Their Fiscal year is January 1 through December 31.

f. They were either organized within the past 15-month period preceding the date of our application, or, if not, they are willing to be exempt only from the date of application.

2. A detailed description of the purposes and activities of the chapter, including the sources of receipts (dues, yard sales, whatever) and the nature of expenditures (ICG dues, wild parties, educational events, etc.). These would include a Balance sheet, and an Income/Expense Report for the year-to-date. (In the future, the income and expense information from the Chapter that are included in the GEL will be included when the Form 990 is filed annually by the ICG Treasurer.)

3. Written authorization to the ICG that the chapter agrees to be included in the Group Exemption Letter. The letter should be signed by the President and Treasurer

4. The official mailing address and the EIN of the chapter.

Note that chapters should apply for an EIN and include it in the application to the ICG for inclusion in the GEL. (Per the IRS – “Each subordinate must have its own EIN even if it has no employees. The central organization must send with the group exemption application a completed Form SS-4 on behalf of each subordinate not having an EIN.")

The GEL will extend 501(c)(3) status to each participating chapter. Once the GEL is issued, all participating chapter can file their Federal Taxes through the ICG's EIN as long as they send the ICG Treasure their financial information on a quarterly basis.

Individual chapters will still have to file individual State tax forms!

Question:

It's my understanding that a 501(c)3 organization is a charity, religious or educational organization. At current, our group is really more of a social club than an educational organization since we don't hold classes for the public or visit schools, etc. Is there a reason we're looking into 501(c)3 instead of 501(c)7 for social clubs? Or will we need to follow any guidelines for educational organizations?

Answer:

The ICG is already 501(c)3 as an educational organization. Many of our chapters do participate in educational endeavors from lectures to classes.

Every chapter can find some way to contribute to the educational nature of costuming. You provide information to your members relative to the various conventions and events that are going on around your neck of the woods, and the rest of the nation. You can get together for periodic meetings and have someone do a demonstration of a technique that they just learned, or can have stitch and bitch evenings where you all assist each other in solving sewing construction problems. There is no limit to the educational opportunities your chapter can take advantage of, if you put your collective minds together.

Archive funding

From Nora Mai, - ICG Pres

One of the primary discussions at this year's annual meeting at CC25 was funding for the Archives.

The Archives has always had a minimal amount of funding included in the yearly budget, but has had to rely on donations for any extraordinary expenses. The idea is to increase the budget amount to help cover these.

The Board has been charged with finding a way to raise this money so that we can increase the budget in this area. So we need to find additional money, not reapportion the existing income.

And while all suggestions are welcome, we were directed to start with a possible suggestion of a dues increase with the entirety of the increase being earmarked for the Archives.

Current dues barely cover the cost of the newsletter without providing any sort of cushion for other costs. By increasing the dues by "X" amount, that entire amount would be added directly to the Archives yearly budget.

How much of an increase are we talking about?

The increase amount that was mentioned was $2 making the new dues amount $8 for individuals.

As far as other income generators, have you all thought about a Cafe Press store?

We already have a Cafe Press site.

Or something of the like creating a calendar?

The inherent problems with a calendar are

That it wouldn't generate sufficient or consistent amounts of money.

Getting pictures and even more importantly picture releases.

And finally getting someone to head up the effort and getting additional staff for the effort.

A calendar would be a great idea as a supplementary source if we could work out the bugs but don't see it as a reliable source of archive funding.

What are the Archives: The archives comprise some 100 boxes of material. While we hoped things could be taken care of when the Mami/Buck household moved, it was not to be. Carl's health hasn't been good and he could not be there to supervise the move. Elaine and Dora are doing their best to get things together so they can get me things here in July, but this could be put off again, depending. (That will cost money to transport it, by the way - not budgeted currently.)

Carl spent his own money and lots of time amassing what's in the Archives at present, and more time soliciting donations. Carl worked very hard to get digital conversion equipment, the Archives would not be at the point they are now without his work and donations he solicited.

Devils advocate questions:

What does archive funding buy the local guilds? Currently local guilds do not have access to the archives.

Do we have any sort of plan/time table on how the archives can progress?

Hopefully we can get some of the initial photo archives up in the next few months. That will be the part where anyone can upload photos to the site.

To Bruce M and/or Pierre: Without having the actual archives in hand, is there a reasonable estimate of what it will cost to get the archives up and running, then maintaining and growing it in the future?

Some responses:

Pierre: Unfortunately, it would be difficult to guess a figure since it depends entirely on how many conventions we try to cover, how many entries are in a masquerade, and how much the photographers charge. Some are going to services such as flickr and photos can cost as little as 0.29 per 4x6. Some work only by printing and charge per photos. (the Arisia photographer charges $7.00 per photo, though $1-2 is more common). Some photographers will offer a package charge for an entire set for a discounted cost. Others are going the disk route which can be cheaper, though still possibly costly.

My best guesses might be, for the following conventions:

Costume-Con: $50-200

Worldcon: $50-200

Arisia: ~$200-300

Balticon: ~ $25-50

Lunacon: ~$25-50

Baycon: ~$25-50

Archon: ~ $15-25.

These are what I generally have contacts for. (Note: it also only covers photos, not video)

Question: Why are Arisia, Balticon, Lunicon, Baycon, and Archon, in particularly covered as well as Worldcon & Costume-Con?

Pierre: I have contacts to get the photos and such. No other reason at all. I would love to have photos from other cons. Currently, I don't have the contacts for other cons.

Question: Is the ICG open to including some documentation of some of the other major cons?

Pierre: Absolutely!

One way to help the Archives: Call for Photos – preferably in jpeg

You can all help by getting photos from other venues: Either photos or disks can be used (jpegs and tiffs preferred, 200-400 dpi best). If you buy a set and donate them to the archives that should count as a donation for your taxes.

Also information is useful. A package of 50 photos doesn't mean a lot if we don't know who these folks are, what the costume title is and what if any awards they won. In the best of all possible worlds I would like the following:

Convention/masquerade

Masquerade Director

Judges (presentation and workmanship)

Clerk

Entries (entry #, title: designed by, made by, presented by, awards)

Also nice would be Green Room director, Tech crew heads and any other information.

Dues Issues:

$6 barely covers the cost of the newsletter.

Dues have not been raised in 3 years the last increase was approved in 2004, effective in July of that year.

If we're going to raise dues, let's make sure we've covered any and all for seeable expense increases for at least the next four to five years and *not* just settle on the $2 figure again. I'm sure someone will come up with something else that under funded in the next year or two and, well... here we go again with yet another increase.

Comment: It’s a minor frustration that this organization never seems to plan beyond one or two years at a time. And our dues increases (which have been few, like 2) have *always* been reactionary, and near crisis proportion, rather than a result of planning. A statement about the dues increase which advises the membership that for "X dollars a year in individual dues, the ICG can cover the following ongoing expenses and implement the following "new" or planned projects over the next X years..." is a much better way to approach this AND does not look like we (the corporation) are going a-begging to the members.

From SouthEastern Costumers' Society: We have already looked into something that we could offer as benefits to our members. Hancock Fabrics will give 10% discount to anyone who can show proof that they are in some sort of sewing club, we were going to print SECS Fiends membership cards but I would think showing the ICG newsletter would suffice. JoAnn's will give 10% discount to members of a 501(c)3 sewing organization assuming you can show proof of that.

We have received a petition from a group in Tennessee to become a new chapter of the IGC. Nora was contacted by their President, Denyse Hammen, shortly after CC25 asking if they'd have to wait until next year to be approved. She assured her that we could certainly process her chapter before then.

They will be called the Middle Tennessee Costumer's Guild, AKA: The Nashville Eclectic Sartorial Society (N.E.S.S.ies) representing Middle Tennessee.

April 24 – We have a motion (Rob H - Delaware) & second (Jan Price - VP).

Question as posted: Do you approve Motion 04-07-01 (moved by Rob Himmelsbach, seconded by Jan Price), admitting to the ICG as a new chapter the Middle Tennessee Costumer's Guild, representing middle Tennessee & centralized around Nashville, TN?

Result of vote in May’s minutes.