BOD

9:08 Rob Himmelsbach convened meeting

Roll Call:

Aurora Celeste – Silicon Web, Recording Secretary
Robert Himmelsbach – DVCG, President
Kevin Roche – Silicon Web
Bruce Mai – St. Louis CG
Stacey Feldmann – Madison Area CG
Michael Bruno – DCCS
Patrick J. O’Connor – CCG, ICG Newsletter
Jennifer Old-D’Entremont – KCCG
Jan Price – T-Chapter
Dora Buck – NY/NJ
Janice Dallas – Northern Lights CG
Ann Catelli – Northern Lights CG
Margaret Decker – Silicon Web
Dawn McKechnie – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada
Maral Agnerian – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada
Jeanine Swick – Silicon Web, Treasurer
Ann Catelli – Vice President
Pierre Pettinger – Parliamentarian

Business:

Budget approval 2010 (attached)

Explanations from Pierre:
Assume newsletter is still paper and will need mailing
Web hosting increased from $10 to $13/mo.

Kevin Roche, SilWeb – move we accept the budget as read
Ann Catelli, VP – second
No Discussion, passed by acclimation

Discussion on proposal for Animal Costumers’ Guild

Kevin Roche, SilWeb – Move we present the following as the board’s proposal on this issue
Jan Price, T-Chapter Rep – Second
No Discussion, passed by acclimation

The ICG is not, in principle, opposed to the formation of (a) Chapter(s) based on mutual interest in a specific area of costuming.

However, this proposal does not meet the guidelines for formation of a chapter as set forth in the bylaws located (), and hence we regret that we cannot consider this proposal at this time.

9:42 – Board in Recess until 10:00

 

General Meeting

10:02 Rob Himmelsbach called meeting to order

Roll Call:

Aurora Celeste – Silicon Web, Recording Secretary
Robert Himmelsbach – DVCG, President
Kevin Roche – Silicon Web
Bruce Mai – St. Louis CG
Stacey Feldmann – Madison Area CG
Michael Bruno – DCCS
Patrick J. O’Connor – CCG, ICG Newsletter
Jennifer Old-D’Entremont – KCCG
Jan Price – T-Chapter
Dora Buck – NY/NJ
Janice Dallas – Northern Lights CG
Ann Catelli – Northern Lights CG
Margaret Decker – Silicon Web
Dawn McKechnie – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada
Maral Agnerian – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada
Jeanine Swick – Silicon Web, Treasurer
Ann Catelli – Vice President
William J. Laubenhermer – Silicon Web
Leah Watts – Silicon Web
Anne Davenport – Anne Davenport chapter
Andrew Trembley – Silicon Web
Ron Dallas – NOEL
Steve Swope – SLCG
Catherine Swope – SLCG
Mikhail Lynn – SLCG
Katrina Lynn – SLCG
Byron P. Connell – NJ/NY CG
James Inkpen – SLCG
Jean Palmer – SWCG
Elaine Mami – SWCG
Carl Mami – SWCG
Jean-Luc Larose – FFA
Maxime Pinard – FFA
Jean-Luc Demers – FFA
Josianne Morel – FFA
Anne-Marie Morin-Berard – FFA
Genie Hillen – SLCG
Nora Mai – SLCG
Karen Heim – SLCG
Julie Zetterberg Sardo – BRCG
John Haverty – MACS
Vicky Assarattanakul – MACS
Sarah Bloy – MACS
Rosanna Caponi – MACS
Carole Parker – Silicon Web
Michelle d’Entremont – KCCG

Validation of proxies, roll call

Minutes of last meeting – online

Leah Watts, SilWeb – move we accept the minutes as published
Kevin Roche, SilWeb – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

Reports:

Officers:

Rob Himmelsbach – President – state of the corporation is good. Preparing to move to online newsletter. Made inroads in officer communication. See attachment 1. GEL completed. 2 new chapters in the guild: Oklahomasque and Madison Area. Chapters lost: CG Western Penn, Middle Tennessee CG. Trying to move the guild towards having a new president on a one-year cycle.

Ann Catelli – VP – I have nothing to report.

Jeanine Swick – Treasurer – We have monies. Over $8000. Current membership around 330, SilWeb is largest.

Kelli Lynch – Corresponding Secretary – Not present, read by Karen Heim. 2 new chapters: Oklahomasque and Madison Area. Defunct chapters are Western Penn, Dallas/Fort Worth, Middle Tennessee, and SouthEastern. Encourage chapter reporting. Have list of current officers of each chapter, please verify. See attachment 2.

Jackie Bowin/Aurora Celeste – Recording Secretary – Minutes online, Online meeting minutes online.

Pierre Pettinger – Parliamentarian – Nothing to Report

Bruce Mai – Archivist – new road shows being produced, 3 new ones at costume con. Copies were sent to chapters who requested. Facebook has 400+ fans. Have good stuff from Canada, Pittsburg, and stuff from Joseph Astler, Denise Gerardeau and Cat Deveraux stuff is being scanned. Inventory being done. Mais have new amazing scanner that is shiny. About 80% of holdings have been preserved at this point. Some promotions: flyers, facebook, yahoo list (A list), D list, webmaster stats: last year has 300,000 impressions per month, about 35,000 unique visitors per month. Most people find site through google, other search engines, and cosplay.com, and 2% are Japanese visitors, 2% are Canadian. Most popular page is gallery by far. Is there a link to become a member on the gallery page? Yes, kinda. See Attachment 3.

Committees:

Jeanine Swick – Budget and Finance – read budget. Do need members on committee if there are any volunteers: Margaret Decker Volunteered.

Patrick O’Conner – Newsletter – costs around $4000 an issue. Next issue (webmaster permission pending) will be an online issue. Email will be sent to members with a link and a password. Will also be mailed out to members for notification and comparison. Please please please send in submissions.

Nora Mai – Fundraising – remove Elaine Mami from board. Only efforts are Café Press shop, have added some new items and some new designs that are a bit more graphic and show up better than the delicate seal. Sharing ICG café press is hard, because site is only free when you have one design per item, but Nora is willing to help chapters set up their own.

Byron Connell, NJ/NY – Where is Café Press link? Homepage.

Byron Connell, NJ/NY – Can we put one on the Archives because of their traffic? Is it relevant? May need to make a better link to justify. What amount of funds have been raised? About $50?

Katrina Lynn, SLCG – Maybe make a banner ad? Willing to entertain other ideas for fundraising and volunteers for new members of the committee.

Byron Connell, NJ/NY – Contributions (Treasurer) – $94.

Andy Trembly – ICG Guidelines – Betsy Delaney resigned as co-chair. Not much activity on revising existing guidelines or developing new. Has contributed a bit to International Competition discussion. Membership is in flux and unsure.

Nora Mai – Archives Online – Additions (read from Archives above), See Attachment 4. Tons of pictures from A-F (last names) from Pettinger collection. Encourage people to upload their own pictures, so please create your own folder and put stuff there.

Jan Price – T-chapter – Nothing to report.

Kelli Lynch – PR Committee – Read by Nora Mai. Have flyer to take to conventions, if you need them please contact PR Committee for them. Have flyers in Borders, Hot Topics. Please “Pimp the Guild” to potential costumers. Also have cards for events and such. Also please report what your chapter is doing for PR.

Kevin Roche – Standards and Practice – Anime North requested recognition as an International Competition, were approved, but in the process board realized there was no standard to judge, so committee was formed to create them. The committee created thus: See Attachment 5.

Carole Parker – SilWeb – What was discussion on what “International” is?

Kevin – covered in point D. Does not include a numerical standard because we want to encourage it without disqualifying competitions that do not qualify through no fault of their own.

Byron Connell – NY/NJ – Do we have copies?

Rob – Working on it.

Michelle D’Entremont – KCCG – What about competitions that have both performance and costuming, can one be certified and not the other?

Kevin – Allows this as long as Costumes are emphasized.

Nora Mai – Generic but specific enough that we have leeway.

Steve Swope – SLCG – Case-by-case basis covers grey area.

Byron Connell – NY/NJ – Are guidelines too vague, tons of contests could be covered under these guidelines?

Kevin – unsure. More discussion later under New Business.

Old Business

Deech Mestel – Website – Report read by Bruce Mai. See Attachment 6. Website is not working well, host is “crap” and moves directories without notice and tech support is slow, causing problems at least monthly. Also, gallery needs to be redone software-wise. 3 recommendations: move to a new host, rebuild the gallery (may need money) which may involve paid developers for the software and let the webmaster maintain it, site itself needs a revamp to the current century’s standards by a website developer (may need money). Needs to be done quickly if possible. Would like a reliable and responsive person to assist him if he stays in the job to do random site updates. Has only had help from Susan Toker. Jan Price – T-Chapter – GCFCG has had people volunteer and have been turned down, they could be approached again.

Bruce – will look in to that.

Andy Trembley – Estimate $20-$40/mo for an actual hosting company.

Carole Parker – SilWeb – Do we need to pursue an increase in budget for this? If archives need to move within next 2-3 months does membership need to vote on it in order for that to happen?

Rob – will probably have to move to online meeting to allow time for discovery but still have timely decisions. Would like to create a committee, no volunteers, remanded to committee.

Kevin Roche – SilWeb – Move that the ICG establish a technology committee to explore and oversee the upgrade and migration of our information structure.
Byron Connell – NY/NJ – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

Patrick O’Connel – Newsletter into electronic format. Plan is July issue will be mailed to all, but in addition a link and password will be emailed to members to download a copy as well. Hope is that this will work well and we can move to online entirely afterward.

Steve Swope – SLCG – If we move to online will mailings continue?

Patrick – yes, if you are not on the list.

Aurora – How do we know if we’re on the list?

Jeanine – check with Treasurer to see if you are current.

Byron Connell – Does this get caught up in last proposal for tech committee?

All – yes.

Kevin Roche, SilWeb – Chapter Reps will also have password to get to members if email does not work, and back issues should be transferred with box.net, will talk about technicals later.

Rob – all officers should be making a collection of emails to send to Jeanine to get mailings updated. Can request paper copy, and if we do not have an email we will assume paper copy.

Karen Heim – people who want paper copy can always print out the online download.

Margaret Decker – SilWeb – Would be willing to pay for my paper copy.

Rob – noted, but probably a premature idea at this time.

Byron Connell – NY/NJ – sounds too much like subscription, which killed the magazine, and I would strongly oppose the “pay for copy” idea.

Carole Parker – SilWeb – I do a newsletter, only send out black-and-white copies as a compromise, it works for SilWeb and my online fiber guild.

Ron Dallas – Northern Lights – Request that online copy have a unified download, not paginated.

Steve Swope – SLCG – SilWeb is not exemplary because an “internet chapter” is inherently tech-savvy.

Byron Connell – NY/NJ – Are we voting? Kevin/Aurora – we are working off last year’s passed motion.

Steve Swope – SLCG – purpose of trial run is to see if there are problems? Patrick – yes.

Bruce MacDermott – GEL Status – no longer a committee, just an appointed position now to deal with the IRS. 4 current chapters: Delaware, Chicago, SilWeb, and St. Louis. Other groups can still join, but must go through the process, contact Bruce with questions about how to join and become Tax Exempt.

Standards for International Status Committee

Proposed draft standard must be adopted by membership:

Patrick O’Connell – Chicagoland CG – Move to adopt the draft as an official document.
Jan Price – T-Chapter – Second

Andy Trembly – purpose is to help MDs compare awards to place contestants in masquerade skill categories. Flexibility is in the document to address issues when they arise. Aurora – What happens when “ICG desires to revisit”? Kevin – purposefully left vague.

Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

New Business

New chapters recognized – Yay!

Proposal for an interest-based non-territorial guild chapter, Animal Costumers’ Guild. Board rejected for reasoning above, however, it brought up question of interest-group chapters. Byron Connell – NY/NJ – what are provisions for non-territorial chapter? Pierre – must have 8 members, pay dues, have a physical address. Is a way to have interest groups without being a chapter? Can be formed independently.

Ann Davenport – SilWeb – Does ICG have guidelines for non-competition places, and do they desire them? Rob – really up to the committee for each con. Kevin Roche – SilWeb – Art. Of Inc. and Bylaws encourage making and wearing.

Officer Nominations

New proposed slate:

Ann Catelli – president
Phillip Gust – VP
Jeanine Swick – Treasurer
Kelli Lynch – Corresponding Secretary
Aurora Celeste/Jackie Bowin – Recording Secretary

Nominations from the floor – none

Andy Trembley – SilWeb – move to accept the slate of officers as presented
Steve Swope – SLCG – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

Steve Swope – motion to adjourn
Byron Connell – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

BOD

Dora Buck – NY/NJ – move to ratify
Kevin Roche – SilWeb – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed

Kevin Roche – SilWeb – move to adjourn
Ann Catelli – SilWeb – second
Aye/Nay/Abstain – passed