[b]NZLARPS Auckland Committee Meeting 9-04-2014
In attendance: Dave Luxton, Mikaere Curtis, Hannah Jackson, James Cooper, Ryan Paddy, Reuben Strom, Brad Thompson, Nikki Brown, Muppet Brown
Note: These minutes are a record of the discussions and decisions that took place at the meeting. Discussions are not word for word.
Start: 8:14pm[/b]
Acceptance of March committee meeting minutes: – 4 yes, 1 abstension, 0 no.
Acceptance of March gear meeting minutes – 4 yes, 1 abstension, 0 no.
Dave Agnew has resigned from the committee as it is taking too much time, given his other responsibilities.
Reuben is here to stand for the position, if the committee decides to vote to appoint a member of the society to the position. The position has been advertised on Diatribe. Reuben’s understanding is that it’s about updating the website, co-ordinating the NZLARPs stall at Armageddon, advertising for larps including campaigns, and promoting larp in the community.
Motion to accept Reuben as temporary marketing officer until the AGM – Proposed by Nikki.
Committee votes unanimously yes.
Gear Storage:
Nikki – Brad has volunteered his garage for gear storage. Nikki has checked out the space – the garage is as big as the storage options we were looking at. It’s an (almost empty) single car garage. We are allowed to put shelving up. Brad understands that we wish to use it for long term gear storage and twice a year gear rationalizations. He is happy for us to use his backyard and covered patio for the rationalizations. Location is in Sandringham, so it is central. Understands there will be intermittent access, including 3x a year for big events and smaller events.
Brad owns the house so it will work as a long term option. We can cut a key for the garage so we can access it directly.
We should be able to offer the same koha as provided to Hannah’s mum ($500 per year). Brad would like to be able to borrow weapons and gear occasionally.
It’s larger than our current shed – about 50% larger, and also taller. Nikki thinks it is large enough that there is room for growth.
There is a dryer in the garage, and this is unvented. Brad is happy for us to install a vent, to avoid moisture from the dryer getting to the gear.
The garage is available as soon as we move the gear in.
Discussion of gear charges:
- Nikki – thinks we should still charge projects for gear, so we can maintain it in good condition.
- Mike – could make the gear charge cheaper, but let people know that it will go up in time.
Motion : NZLARPs Auckland gear to be stored at the house of Brad Thompson. Proposed by Nikki, seconded by Dave.
Passed unanimously.
- Nikki will sort out logistics – working bee, shelf building.
- Hannah may be able to sort out cheaper timber for storage.
Discussion about insuring the gear: Do we need to insure it? What options are there? What would it cost?
Action Point: Nikki to investigate insurance for gear.
Maybe contact Linda Cormack’s father, as he is an insurance broker.
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Gear from Crucible – Jordan has put 5 bags of gear through wash; we don’t think it has been returned to the gear shed yet. Clare has a bag of gear that has been washed as well. Hannah has 2 boxes of props/set dressing/lost property.
Action Point: Nikki to contact Jordan about gear, to co-ordinate return. -
Nikki – thinks we should sell the gear shed after the gear has been moved to Brads. Either sell as a shed or sell as scrap.
Motion: Do we sell or dispose of the gear shed after the gear is out of it? – Proposed by Nikki, seconded by Hannah (??).
Passed unanimously.
- Nikki will put it on Trade Me.
- Mike suggests contacting Hannah’s mum’s neighbours to see if they are OK with someone taking a truck down the right of way.
Action Points from Last Meeting:
- James is still following up banks, regarding changing the bank account to another bank. Currently collecting information from different banks about what they offer.
- Marketing gear for Armageddon (banner, photo boards, business cards) – this needs to be retrieved from Vanya.
Action Point: Reuben to contact Vanya and Dave to find out where the marketing gear is. - Idea of producing a newsletter:
Action Point: Reuben to contact Ryan about the idea of producing a newsletter. - Hannah messaging Ryan about giving Reuben access to the Committee forums.
- Need to ensure we report on things that occur in the Committee forums.
- James to post on Diatribe about the requirement to provide a budget to committee before advertising game – this is underway. If people advertise an event before the budget is approved by the committee, they need to make it clear in their advertising that their event is dependent on committee approval of the budget.
- Dave – suggests that people book venues under own name, not under NZLARPs, until their budget is approved.
- Discussion around whether this should be a policy or a guideline. Recommend that they do not advertise until budget approved. Our policy is that the project is not supported by NZLARPs until budget is approved. Best practice is not to advertise until the budget is approved. - > work on further backstage.
- Teonn website: Muppet has checked it, it is no longer active.
- Clare: has not looked through secretary box yet to see if we have a copy of the affiliation agreement with the AMERICA club.
Action Point: Clare to check secretary box. - James: Talked to the person who emailed us, advised them that we might be changing our affiliation agreements anyway.
To dos:
- Reuben to contact Nick about website, as Nick is creating a new one which will be editable by non IT people.
Other Issues: - Hannah has received an enquiry for a person interested in their son joining a roleplaying group, and a person interested in selling merchandise (weapons etc).
Clare to reply to first email. With the second email, we will provide them with Ryan’s contact details and will also suggest they post on Diatribe. We will also suggest they apply to be an affiliate so they can access Diatribe’s banner advertising. - Action Point: Reuben to fix up the NZLARPs website, to add Crucible to “What is Larp”.
- Archery Certification: Dave to follow up with Callum. We will probably need to find someone from the committee to run with this.
Online issues:
- No Quarter – Interested in becoming an associate of NZLARPs. They are not sure at this point whether they will be an affiliate or project.
They have also been asking about Adam P, as he has enquired about coming to the game, to find out what NZLARPs policy is. Our policy constraints only apply to projects. [Cliff’s notes: our constraints are that Adam should contact the committee if he wishes to participate in a project, and the committee shall pass that request on to the project. Projects should come up with a management plan if they wish to allow someone banned from NZLARPs to attend]. - The No Quarter ruleset has wrestling as part of the rules. They have a low contact and harder contact option for this.
- If we take it on as a project, would we be liable for injuries? - > people have to be responsible for their own risks.
Other LARP events:
- Robin Hood and the Golden Arrow: This was run by Prema. One no show.
Crucible:
Landfall / Lands End games: Jon Ball has been chasing up outstanding payments, most people have paid. We are down to a couple of outstanding payments. They appear to be people who are new and haven’t been along to any other games so far.
Discussion – we should add the late fee to them, and if they sign up for another game then make sure they are aware that they need to pay for this first.
First Weekend game:
Jon Ball has provided the committee with provisional actuals for the game.
Action Point: James to send information to Jon regarding catering payments. The catering costs came in under budget so this needs to be carried through to the actuals.
Non Attendance:
The actuals include a couple of people who paid but did not turn up to the game, who want to transfer the money onto the next game.
Teonn had a policy if people paid and did not turn up and did not tell the GMs that they were not going to attend, that they would not get refunded and the funds would not be transferred forward. This is because when people pay for a game and don’t provide any notice of non-attendance, money is spent on accommodation and food for them even if they don’t turn up.
It is up to the Crucible GMs as to what policy they wish to implement.
Props:
Crucible purchased about $4500 of props for the weekend game. This will provide significant benefit to NZLARPs in the future.
Action Point: Nikki to contact Jordan about transferring Crucible props to gear library.
Food:
We discussed the catering, in particular that for people who are gluten free or on special diets. Gluten free diets were not catered for at the game. While this was specified in the Welfare guide, we think it should be advertised more clearly in future.
An opt out option for food payments might be a good idea in the future, for people with specific dietary needs, if they are not being catered for?
Action Point: Dave to provide feedback to the Crucible committee.
Budget for next game:
We do need to see a budget for the next game – advertising has started and we haven’t seen one yet.
Debrief: The committee would like to have a debrief with the GMs at some point, to discuss what worked well and what didn’t. Will need to arrange a suitable time with them.
Discussion around role of NZLARPs in supporting projects:
A bit of discussion around crew engagement with GMs.
Discussion around role of NZLARPs in supporting projects:
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How should the community go about supporting GM teams, especially relatively inexperienced ones, in running games?
-> Need to develop a culture where GMs feel supported in asking senior members for help and mentoring.
->Would be good to get future GMs involved in running weekend events before they take up large GM projects. -
Senior GMs from previous projects are getting older, getting married and having children – this is likely to limit involvement in the future.
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Should NZLARPs support larger games?
->We should be aiming to support all of the larps that the community wants to run.
->Crucible is not the only game where there has been a big learning curve for the GMs. Previous flagship games have provided a big learning curve for the GMs as well. Other flagships had games where they barely broke even the first game. -
Registration scheme worked well for Teonn; they did not count people as coming until they paid. Also had a first come first served policy for bunks and player spots, and those were numerically limited, which provided an incentive to pay early.
-> Crucible could potentially pull back the player cut-off payment date to encourage people to pay earlier.
-> Discussion of fixed cost of accommodation – the Crucible provisional actuals indicate the game still made a profit. -
Currently we don’t have any documentation all together for people wanting to start a project – would be worth pulling this together.
-> Would be good with large games, to have catch ups to ask questions, to ask to see if they have thought of them to make sure all possibilities are considered. Get them to think of things they may not have thought about, so they can be mitigated.
-> Have to be careful in approach – want to make games easier to run, not harder.
-> Have been talking about writing a guide for a long time; this is more like a checklist of things we should talk to new projects about/ask them, and a checklist of things they need to consider when putting on an event.
-> Debrief process? Teonn had a debrief process that they followed with committee, and the GMs had their own debrief too. -
Projects are only accountable to NZLARPs in as much as they follow the Code of Conduct and provide financial details.
Do smaller projects and conventions suffer when we have large games?
- Hydra and Chimera have been getting less GM involvement.
- Players have been writing character sheets and getting involved in the start of the plot – takes time and energy at this point. They are unlikely to be investing so much time and energy later as they will have settled into their characters.
- Timetable of Crucible games is different to Teonn; other events may need to shift to compensate. Crucible has shifted it’s games to compensate for Chimera timing.
- Different events in community do have an impact on each other.
Committee meeting timing:
Committee meetings will now start at 7:30pm, to make it easier for committee members to get to the meetings. The next meeting will be on Wednesday May 14th.
Meeting finish: 10:43pm.
