October BoD Meeting

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October BoD Meeting

Postby Fiks » Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:00 pm

Attention board members:

Since only four of us were present for the meeting tonight, and most of the four of us decided we can't do a Saturday meeting in October, we need to figure out a new night of the week to hold the meeting,

For me, I know I'm not available the evenings of the 1st, 2nd (FoM, dummies) 5th (Young Frankenstein), 7th (secret, shhh), 25th (RiffTrax) and 31st (Halloweenies). Time wise, if we hold the meeting during the week, I'm usually available after six, but sometimes not until after seven. Like this last week where I worked three 11-hour days in a row. :P Sunday nights I'm usually busy being social until 8 or 9.

That said, and to progress discussion forward, I'd like to propose we meet on the 21st. I think there was an issue on the 14th someone mentioned.... But correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway. Post if you're available and if not, make a different suggestion, please.

The Board of Directors for the Kingdom of Westmarch shall be meeting on Saturday the 22nd of October at 7:00PM for our monthly meeting. This meeting shall be conducted on Google Hangouts and can be viewed by anyone interested at this link: YouTube Broadcast. Shortly after the meeting, a video recording can be watched at that same link. The agenda for this meeting shall be as follows:

Call to Order and Roll Call

Reading of the Last Meeting's Minutes

Old Business
Land Contracts (BP, VotF)
Westmarch PayPal Proposal

New Business

Open Floor

Schedule November Meeting

Meeting Adjournment
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby Collin the Red » Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:45 am

I'm busy 2nd & 4th Saturdays, all Fridays, 10/18 & 10/20, Wednesday work (but a lot of back ground noise)
FOM, Qualls, and Coronation weekends are of course bad.

Early morning 7am Sat or Sun are OK (other than Amt events)

Weekdays unless listed above I'm open fairly early (like 2pm) so it won't be my schedule holding us up.
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby ravenb » Thu Oct 06, 2016 6:27 pm

have we decided on a definite day and time?
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby Laoric » Thu Oct 06, 2016 6:42 pm

I don't think I can make the 21st. I might have familial obligations.
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby ravenb » Sat Nov 05, 2016 12:56 pm

Westmarch BOD meeting
October 22, 2016

Meeting was called to order
Angel Traub BOD liaison
Baylis Weaver BOD Treasurer
Ian Crawford BOD president
Marcus Bergman BOD VP
Mark James BOD alternate
Robbie Starks WM PM
In absentia:
Jodi Begley secretary
Bryan Wheeler WM Monarch

Last meetings minutes were read and a motion made to approve.
A
B
I
M
M
R

NEW BUSINESS
I. Land Contracts
Belial Peaks: Ian had it, signed it, marked as completed, scanned it and sent it off on the 10th. BP has not confirmed receipt of the contract. But from BOD perspective, so BP has contract and BOD has completed this item. Baylis and Angel will be at Joint Quals tomorrow so they can confirm BP received contract. Ian messaged Jordan as well to confirm. No response, so Angel and Baylis will confirm tomorrow at Joint Quals.

VOF: Angel signed it, scanned it, sent to Robbie and sent back to VOF. Still need scanned receipt of contract.
All land contracts have thus been completed and motion was made to close land contract item.
A Y
B Y
I Y
MB Y
MJ Y
R Y
Unanimous aye. Land contracts closed.

II. WM PayPal proposal
Collin: withdraws all complaints about PayPal.
Robbie is proposing opening a PayPal account and have it linked to a WM checking account (independent of main WM checking account), creating a stage of separation between where we keep the bulk of our funds and where these funds would go for transferring, since Wells Fargo (WF) allows transfer between accounts instantly. It won’t cause accessibility issues down the road, and it would create a layer of protection between a potential PayPal hack or loss of password. They would only able to access one account which would have minimum funds day to day. The account would not have a debit card or credit line linked to it at all, to avoid associated fees. The only money transferred through it would have to be money transferred out directly through the checking account (no fees for transferring money out). Ideally, we would want to establish that whoever received funds through it, e.g. money deposited from an event or fundraiser through PayPal, would send them as a money transfer and not as a payment to avoid fees. If we maintain a policy of always transferring to and from bank accounts, never using it as a vendor and not linked to any kind of credit line or debit account, no fees will be assessed. We would reevaluate this if PP changed their terms of service. Robbie could have the account set up this weekend to reimburse people promptly for FOM purchases. He can have everything set up in two days by Monday.
Do we have a scheme in place for opening another WF checking account without incurring fees? As a business entity, you can have multiple checking accounts without incurring fees if they are all linked together. Robbie’s concern is that it is better to have the bulk of our balance in a savings account. 1. A savings account is interest bearing, and 2. more importantly savings accounts are more insulated as we don’t distribute routing numbers and write no checks. Checking would only have a minimum amount.
Can we make sure we don’t overdraft protection on the PP-associated checking account so it does not pull from other accounts? OD protection is a standard mechanism, so would we need to make sure OD protection is not automatically set up? If someone does hack this PP account, they could potentially draw from our other accounts. Robbie provided this example: Let’s see we send Ian $150 through PP. When the transfer is made, it does not “write a check”. It physically pings the WF checking account asking if there are sufficient funds. If there are not, transfer is not made. Since there is only one account linked to it, it is not connected to a second overdraft account. Money transfers act differently than debit transactions in this regard. It is not a concern unless it is linked to a debit account which we are not doing due to the fees. Is OD protection required for the account to stay free? Usually you need to have checking-saving linked to keep account free. Robbie will ask WF when he sets up another account, if there are issues with turning off OD protection, if not, turn off. If yes, leave on and revisit later.
Motion made to accept proposal and give Robbie permission to set up a PayPal account.
A Y
B Y
I Y
MB Y
MJ Y
R Y
Motion passes to have Robbie set up a PP account with a link to a WM checking account.

NEW BUSINESS
None

OPEN FLOOR
1. Concerning the two lands; AS has gone defunct, AH hasn’t submitted paperwork for a while, what kind of review have we done of their finances or accounts? Pretty much just what is in audits which has been almost nothing since nothing from AS for several audit periods, and AH was incomplete. At what point, do we want to have our treasurer investigate their financial status? We did get an audit from AH this last period, including a financial audit. In AS, Dizzy is still trying to reactivate that but Baylis can investigate if BOD would like. AS last audit was 2013 first half. We can go back and look for cash on hand at that point, dispersal and who has it. Ideally, when a land breaks apart, dues paid members should get their money back. Sums beyond that never belonged to Kingdom so it would go back to individuals playing in that land. We should check the WM corpora for guidance. In the original principality corpora and the WH Corpora, which is what the WM corpora is built off, it stated that when a land went defunct the money got divvied up between current members of the land, but that probably has not survived. If there is a cash box and no one wanting to claim it, and Kingdom doesn’t want to claim it, would we hold it somewhere in a trust? BOD Treasurer will consider this, and BOD can discuss later any corner cases that may pop up. Ian and Baylis will work on this further after this meeting. How much money was in last AH audit? Their last balance March 10, 2016 was $209. AH is still meeting, but just not great with their paperwork. Previously other lands that have gone defunct were so small they didn’t have significant financials. AS has been quiet for so long, it is likely not a big concern and maybe more of a formality. This is a process we should do, forward to the Corpora Committee and have it formalized. AS audit shows $242. AS dues paid members listed: Skye, Tevis, Saladin, Ephriam, 2.0, Seath, Se Virux, Jareth. Jareth looks like the only active member from that group. So, let’s ask our treasurer to find AS funds, and if there are funds and they haven’t been dispersed, assuming there is no corpora guidance, or land contract from WM or Amtgard, we can discuss it at a later meeting.
Motion to audit AS
A Y
B Y
I Y
MB Y
MJ Y
R Y
Motion passes to have BOD treasurer audit AS finances.

2. In September notes, there was a minor conversation about using square-was that at events in addition to or instead of a cash box? PayPal has ability to take payments mobily (sp?). As an example, we had someone write an out of state check for $137 at gate at FOM, which was a large amount of money and a huge liability. So, if we had the ability to take cards at gate, that might be convenient for people. Having a PayPal account does give us the ability to do that, but it would be something that needs to be considered by crats when they were creating their bid. Any one of those companies, e.g. Square, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, charge a huge fee; 2.5% assessed per transaction, so the crat would need to include that in their budget either as money lost, or tell people there would be an additional 2.5% charge to cover the fee. It was just a thing we could do if we wanted. In the discussion last meeting, was there a concern that if we used cards only, there would not be enough cash on hand for emergencies? If it was discussed to have both, that concern is less. Some people prefer to use cards and don’t carry cash. For them, getting cash is an encumbrance, so opening the option to use credit cards could possibly boost attendance for those people who don’t have cash. Hi Allen- PayPal sends out 4 card readers when you open a business account. These could be held by PM. These readers are compatible with Android or iOS, and plug into the headphone jack. Or you can continue to use Dongles if you prefer.

3. There was a conversation about scanning contracts and passing them around. Is it possible we just make an editable pdf and send around for e-signatures? The options are there, if we integrate with something like BOX, which has unknown costs, but offers e-verification and e-signature processes. You can host a document up on their site, add digital signatures off their account through an encryption key, with a verified by date and time stamp. There are probably free sites like the Adobe version, or possibly more secure options. For the number of WM land contracts we process, they are few and far between so would this be worth a paid program for land contract signing? It is only because we had three lands join last year that it seemed like a lot, but that was unusual. However, if we factor in EIN# requests, money requests, event bid forms, child releases and waivers, it might be worth it. But so far, for what we do, the paper option has been most feasible. Using electronic signatures would expedite this process. There was some discussion in the beginning of year about what was the actual appropriate timeline. Do they submit contract and then we know they want to be voted in and then after we sign it then we vote them in? It was all happening at different points. In addition, there are conflicts within the corpora regarding this process. If we were physically able sign a whole the contract within a week electronically, it might be easier to format a more realistic timeline. It is hard to gauge everyone’s availability and access, passing it around and driving it to different parks. Also, the form should be changed to require our signatures rather than just our names.
Are we talking about typing it in in a fillable form, or a signature? Robbie uses this at his work with Acrobat. He physically drops in a signature, dragged and dropped into signature field, Adobe tracks it as a time and date as when that signature was attached and authorizes it with his encryption key. This creates legally correct signatures. This generates a font by adding actual signature. For example, if you open a pdf with the latest version of reader, the first time you add a signature it asks you to set up an encryption key and generates a unique password for access, then anytime you use adobe on your computer to digitally sign, it alters the file you signed it with your encryption key based on the time and date, creating a legal signature. Would the average Amtgarder be able do this? Probably. Is it appropriate for the types of forms we use? Yes- it is appropriate for legal documents. We will look into this item further. If we implement it on EIN# request and payment forms- BOD jurisdiction. Event bids- not BOD. Waivers-who would approve that modification? Parental release of minors at events- signed ahead of time for children sent with other people-BOD? There is already a form out there so modifying the form more of an event coordinator or autocrat versus BOD. Maybe CAKE system once up and going would be the appropriate body.
Ian has a copy of the form that Azus and Yrduna have been using and distributing for “Westmarchification” and consistency of WM forms. Ian can add in a digital signature form to see how it works.
Square mobile readers: we will be getting readers.
Digital signatures: We will resolve to investigate the scanning of documents and electronic signing of documents and see if that’s something we want to pursue in the future.
Allan is watching the BOD meeting and has information to add about using PayPal at event gate: He will be added to the meeting. Meanwhile:
Motion made to investigate scanning and e-signatures of documents.
A Y
B Y
I Y
MB Y
MJ Y
Robbie willing to vote yes, but offered to present information on electronic signatures now as he is on Adobe website, but as the vote has already been started, we will need to wait.
R N
Motion passes 5Y:1N. Motion passes, and item tabled.

Allan Wong (Stereotype) joined the meeting.
Allan ran Darkshore this year. PP allows the crat access to funds they would not otherwise have. They do charge a 2% fee per pre-pay transaction since it’s a business account. Allan has a reader to hand over to the next Darkshore autocrat. There is a standard 2.7% fee per US swipe for reader on site, and they accept most credit card types. PP allowed people who didn’t have cash to pay. He told people to go to PP website on their phone, where he had he created an item (Darkshore). 5-10 people who did not have cash used this, and it allowed Allan not to have to follow them around to collect their money.
Allan did suggest that if we use PayPal for events that we need to implement a lot of checks and balances as there is the potential for abuse. Yu can send checks for free. He sent rest of money from PP account to Azus and took pictures. He also suggested that the WM treasurer and monarch also have access to account, maybe each month send a statement from PP for them to review for any unauthorized spending. It was very convenient, e.g. Allan could send the Feastocrat $500 to buy food early for discounts, and also handy as the King City site is now requiring earlier payment.
He suggests using early, and increase the gate fee to offset PP fee and increasing event costs. Maybe $35-40 now due to rising costs, and food storage costs need to be accounted for as well.
Thanks Allan!

4. Scheduling next BOD meeting: Saturday November 19 7 pm.

Motion to adjourn meeting:
A Y
B Y
I Y
MB Y
MJ Y
R N
5Y:1N. Meeting was adjourned.
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Last edited by ravenb on Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby Collin the Red » Mon Nov 07, 2016 12:32 am

Check AH and AS references as the section on auditing shows both initials, yet it is only AS being audited.
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Re: October BoD Meeting

Postby ravenb » Sat Nov 19, 2016 8:58 pm

corrected meeting notes
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