[b]Auckland Regional General Meeting Minutes 4-11-2013
Opened: 7:20pm
Members present: 16 in person, 9 votes online
Present:[/b]
Anna Klein, Mike Curtis, Hannah Jackson, Cameron Burns, Rowena Knill, Clare Stones, Cheryl Frederick, Gareth Sandford, Phillip Brown, Nikki Brown, Michelle Burt, Dave Luxton, James Cooper, Porl Bowdler, Matthew Brunton, Dave Agnew
Apologies: Prema Cottingham
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Committee Reports
Mike – Regional Director report
The committee explored new models for financial and game structures over the last year. The flagship games made a profit, some other games didn’t.
The people within the society are getting older– some are perhaps less involved, with other responsibilities. Some people have been involved for years, hopes they will take up roles in new projects.
Thanked the members. Has enjoyed his 3 years in the office.
Anna – Treasurer report
This year, more attention was paid to spending money, to avoid having to pay too much income tax on profits.
Anna provided a detailed financial statement. The main details were:
• End of year – income $8710, outgoings - $4822.
• Projects very strong – brought in $5000 in profit. Teonn brought in almost $4000.
• Financial year ended at end of August.
• Chimera was excluded from the financial year period, as it fell at the end (would have presented skewed view). Sabbat also excluded as it occurred in October.
• Only one game made a loss this financial year, which was a Witch house game, due to a having to hire a truck emergency.
• We spent a lot of gear –over $1500, outside of what projects spent.
• Getting close to 100K in turnover every year.
The financial software was updated this year, to a new version of MYOB. The new version will allow other people in the committee to view account details – this will make the job much easier for the committee and for project owners.
Hannah – Gear Report
The gear library has been expanded, with the following purchases made:
• Lots of soft costume, as it was needed for the increased numbers of crew at Teonn.
• More weapons.
• Cleaning/moving/infrastructure equipment- wet and dry vaccum cleaner, walkie talkies, electrical equipment, hand cart for moving equipment, more storage boxes, first aid kit.
• Bolt cutters were purchased – these are for opening up armour in the case of quick emergency response, for example opening up chain mail. Plate generally won’t need it, as buckles usually accessible.
A gear inventory, with photos, has been set up online. This should provide inspiration for games, and will indicate what props are available.
The contents of the gear shed exceed the volume of the trailer. For several games, people have had to take stationwagon loads of gear as well as taking the trailer. This is an issue for project managers to negotiate.
Gear shed is very full, some things have been overflowing into Hannah’s mother’s house – mainly delicate gear like electrical stuff, and food.
Rowena – Marketing Report
NZLARPs has great word of mouth, there has been an increase in the number of people.
Business cards are a great tool. Need to expand the use of business cards - maybe keep some in the gear, for day games in public places, as these often attract curious onlookers.
Website presence – this is an area we fall down in. The websites have been updated recently but will need updating again. The issue is our current websites need a computer person to update them. Mike is introducing an information management system that will be easy to edit.
The “What is Larp” site needs to keep being updated. Diatribe and Facebook are great, but they are used frequently by members for internal business so are not so good for marketing purposes.
Cameron – General Officer Report
We have had discussions around alcohol at events, and the code of conduct. These have been about keeping the community safe and stable. Keeping the community going going and promoting it.
A lot of things do get talked about in committee, and don’t fall under anyone’s purview.
Clare – Secretary
One of my aims this year was to ensure the minutes represented a full and accurate description of the discussion and issues from the meeting. I think this was achieved. Full and accurate minutes are useful to the society as a whole, so the community can read an accurate representation of the meeting, but are also important for the committee, so they can look back on the meetings and see what was discussed.
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Candidate Profiles
The candidates for the positions gave a short description of themselves and why they are interested in the position they have been nominated for. The candidate statements have been posted on Diatribe. In the event that a candidate was not present, their statement was read out by a society member present at the RGM. -
Voting
The following people were voted in as the new committee:
Hannah Jackson – Regional Director
Clare Stones - Secretary
James Cooper - Treasurer
Nikki Brown – Gear officer
Dave Agnew – Marketing
Dave Luxton and Prema Cottingham - General Officers -
Gear Storage Discussion
We held a discussion around gear storage after the voting was completed, as this is a pressing issue that will affect all members.
Anna – An actively worked out financial plan will be needed to manage the cost, if we do go down the route of paying for storage.
A fee applied to games is a good idea and could work. Would need consultation with Crucible, the new flagship event. With events like Chimera, would need to have a fee staggered to take into account people who only play for one or two games.
Paying for gear storage is the next logical step to go down. Would need at least 2 fundraising events a year, and for GMs to be brought on board. The NZLARPs accounts should be last resort to fall on, and not the starting place.
Want gear to stay a resource, not a giant money sucking parasite. Whatever happens, the Crucible GMs will need to be on board.
Fall back options need to be thought of.
Don’t want smaller/experimental games to suffer.
Hannah – The committee shouldn’t be making these decisions in isolation, that’s why this issue has brought up at the RGM. Several options have been suggested in past (for example, applying for grants from lottery boards/lions foundation/council, hiring a venue from the council for storage, going in on a collaboration with someone else the society has contact with (eg Chantelle), container at Motu Moana, lease of land for space, Tangleweed community space)…
Nikki - Has started looking into these options. She is all for exploring options, especially funding with council. Doesn’t want it to be stalled, we have discussed this so many times in the past. Wants some support in actually moving this project forward.
Mike - Wants to see committee do a feasibility study on a range of options. Doesn’t see any way around obtaining the money from larps. We might get lucky and get some funding sometimes, but not all the time. The financial recession means that there is not a lot of money around at the moment. Perhaps the options should be discussed at an SGM.
Anna - Trusts the committee, should be OK to be handled in the committee and between the main project stakeholders plus other interested parties. SGM should not be required, but process needs to be transparent.
Nikki - $5 extra per person from Crucible would cover the $3000 cost of gear storage, given that there are 170 players and weekend games will be held 2 times a year.
Cheryl - Community is getting older and getting jobs. 4/20 people at Sabbat paid for by donation. People could donate money towards gear storage.
Porl - This is what the committee is there for. Step 1 is to find out all the options, and then work out how to pay for it.
Rowena - Community buy-in needed. Authough we have a large community, 15 people turned up to RGM. Prices of venues are going up. We need community buy-in. We don’t want to outprice ourselves, a lot of our new people are students.
Hannah – There is no hard deadline for the gear to go off her mother’s property.
Nikki – when is $500 koha to Hannah’s mother due?
James – There are two distinct questions – 1) where to put gear and what facilities needed, 2) and how to fund it. The second is where we really need to get buy in from community, as it affects the people who turn up to games.
Anna – Need to discuss with Crucible GMs, as Patrick has ideas for Crucible storage. Advertise meeting where the decision is to be made. Committee has the power to make the decision, but there is a lot of value from the community having input.
Cameron - May be something in the constitution about a limit to payment levels, where an amount larger than that has to be approved by a specific mechanism.
Anna - Thinks the something in the constitution is about whether the society is allowed to get into debt.
Mike - Crucible is going to be expensive to run, not sure whether we can make a profit at first. The part of the budget that can be changed most easily is props for games; maybe games could put money towards gear storage rather than props.
Nikki - Would like to sit down with Crucible team and look over their budget. Flagships do have a responsibility to make some profit, as the flagship game essentially supports other games.
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Incident register discussion
We also had a discussion around the incident register, which is meant to report details of any accidents/injuries that occurred, as well as code of conduct violations and other problems arising. This was discussed, as it has privacy implications, and also because it hasn’t really been used because there is uncertainty about how to use it.
Hannah - Incident register: there is some confusion as to what this should be. It’s a health and safety report – code of conduct violations, medical incidents, allegations etc.
Nikki – There were some teething problems with committee, regarding the Teonn project – we need clearer protocols. Would like to sit down with Crucible and committee and discuss protocols.
Hannah - Would games get to see incident reports from previous games?
Rowena - Should people be allowed to reply back to their own incidents- ie, right of reply?
Mike - Good to keep a record of incidents, for example if people keep getting injured at a particular venue.
Rowena - There were incidents in Teonn of people accusing others of things.
Porl - The event organisers should be the ones that make the decisions, for example the possible causes behind injuries or incidents. Need to be the arbitrators who make decisions about who comes to the games, etc.
Mike - GMs should collect data around incidents and risks, and pass back to committee. We don’t necessarily need to name names. Need to look at the privacy act issues around sharing data.
Meeting closed 9:16 pm.
