Board Meeting
Feb 16, 2014
Magic Mansion
The excitement builds as we inch daily towards the 2014 event! At this month’s meeting, a new board member was elected, and the ticketing option was selected. twenty four attendees squeezed cozily into the Mansion, while one board member and the Secretary were unable to attend. Jen “Jigsaw” took on the “Fakeratary” role, and wrote the board minutes. It may start feel like “crunch-time” but the good news is we’re on schedule and keeping up with the guiding timeline for the event.
Read on, enjoy the news, and take more ownership of the event by joining us at the next board meeting in March!
PUBLIC COMMENTS
Jay Tedder, DPW Red Shirt, gave props to the BOD for all the hard work each of them have gifted by saying emphatically, “the Board is awesome!” Snaps and claps ensued…
OFFICER REPORTS
President, Scott “Koda” Dudley reminded the crew that there were only 107 days until we open to the public, and he was proud to announce that we’re on track with the Timeline!
He also announced the online BOD votes on behalf of the Secretary:
- Motion to provide up to two free tickets, or, alternatively four $50 tickets, to the 2014 Apogaea event for use by the owner of prospective land.
- Motion to increase the 2013 Volunteer Appreciation budget by $400.00
- Adopt the art committee’s recommendation to accept the temple proposal forwarded to the Board on 2/7/14
Vice President, Sean “Sherpa” Sidelko, reminded folks that Noah Deep stepped down from the Board Member position, so the election would follow the Officer Reports.
Though it was due that day, he asked Department Leads to send reserve ticket counts to Caroline “Caroshine” ASAP.
Uncle Dave asked whether the BOD will be providing guaranteed tickets to rock star volunteers from 2013. Since the tracking in 2013 was not accurate enough, and the BOD is still trying to locate all the information, this will not happen for 2014. The BOD would like to improve this process for 2015, but there hasn’t been enough consistency in the Volunteer Lead role to do the follow-through.
The BOD is holding 100 additional full-price tickets in case they need to fill critical volunteer roles. These tickets will be released in the OMG ticket sale if not used.
Secretary:
The board approved the January minutes and shared the online votes (covered by Koda in President’s report)
Treasurer, Steve Merager, was thrilled to report the release of all checks for the 1st round creative grants. He added that the Finance and Art Committees are working well together to make this a smooth and pleasant process for everyone – kudos kiddos!
Check out the Creative Grant winners announcement! https://apogaea.com/2014/02/19/20140218ludicrous-round-art-grant-winners/
The Board met about the 2014 budget prior to the meeting. There are some preliminary approvals, but the BOD will send the finalized budget soon.
ELECTION
The brave candidates for the newly vacant position were John Perez, Claire Lay and CO Day. Co Day had applied but was not in attendance at the meeting. Jason Sherry stepped up to volunteer as the election official (rockin’!) and though both candidates were uniquely qualified, the board had to elect one member:
NEW BOARD MEMBER: John Perez was elected by the 7 board members in attendance! Good luck to John! He’ll now be the liaison for the vital Volunteer and Info Booth Departments. The neat thing is that Claire Lay was then ratified as the Volunteer Coordinator Lead, which only helps the overall situation. Thanks to you both for taking on these vital positions!
RATIFICATIONS
Check out the previous month’s ratifications:
January | December | November | October | September
ASS Daily Lead – Gabriel Citrus
ASS Daily Lead – Miracle Gash
ASS XXXO – Eddiey Hayes
Center Camp Daily Lead – Amie Spicer
Fire Lead – Cory Sutela
Fire XXXO – Ian Schwartz
Gate XXXO – Mark “eXit Wound” Claassen
Gate XXXO – Dakota “Dakota” Lyons
Map Lead – Tommy Doerr
On Site Sound Liaison – Kanyon Walker
Placement Lead – Luke Tilsley
Registration Lead – Peter DeBruyn
Sound policy – Matt Warden
New Position Created
Communications Quality Control – Bacon ratified
MEDIA DEPARTMENT – POLICIES
Daniel Gonzales (photography Red Shirt) announced the new spiffy name for the Media Department: Apogaea Media and Propaganda or AMP for short. Daniel presented the media policies that AMP has been working to clarify around photo/video consent. Though Apo’s ticketing terms and conditions give Apo the ability to use attendees’ images without their consent, no one intends to do this.
AMP has plans to educate the public about consent. The idea is to help make people aware that you need to ask before you shoot photos/videos. Stop shooting if someone takes an issue with it! AMP will also make a unique sign that can be posted to alert participants that photo/video is being use in a given area. This will be especially useful in theme camps.
Another great thing AMP is doing is equipping the event photographers with a list of stock photos needed during the event. Not only will this be great for record-keeping but also for website use.
TICKETING CHANGES
Scholarship tickets were to have been announced on Feb. 28th so that those that did not qualify could have a few weeks to buy a ticket for 1st round and even more time for the 2nd round.
The big issue of the day was about the new ticketing option presented by Brie Cook, our recently-ratified Ticket Lead. Kudos to Brie for taking on this big project so late in the game! The option included a switch from Brown Paper Tickets (BPT) to TicketFly (TF) and the use of paper tickets instead of will call.
1.) The Switch to TicketFly
TF transfers ticket money from sales faster than BPT. TF is providing an exchange program option as well (which may be unusable for 2014 due to some hiccups, but Brie is working with Piper on another option). There will be a $6.00 processing fee for transfers (includes shipping) and a 3.5% credit card transaction fee.
Let’s take a closer look at the change in Ticket Fees:
These fee amounts are based on the current ticket price of $115
BPT Fees: $8.36 (BPT $5.02 + Paypal charged an additional $3.34 to process payment. Total = $8.36…Note: Eventually the organization might be able to re-coup a portion of the paypal fees, but not up front)
Ticketfly Fees: $9.74 (This is it… we get direct deposit…no extra Paypal Fees)
TOTAL CHANGE IN FEES = $ 1.38
PERKS OF TICKETFLY
- Delayed delivery date (BPT would not allow that)
- TF Ticket Fraud Dept. will be monitoring the sales to flag accounts suspected of scalping
- Ticket Exchange still in development – should be available by end of March 2014
- People will be able to get through the gate quickly
2.) Paper Tickets vs. Will Call
Extensive discussion resulted about the pros and cons of paper tickets vs. will call. Initially, most were biased to keep the will call option, but by the end, a motion was approved — with some opposition — to move forward with the presented TicketFly paper ticket option. Jen “Jigsaw” Whitesell stated that she wants Department Leads to feel empowered to make decisions; it was evident that the Ticket and Gate Leads (Brie Cook & Julie “Kiosk” Murphy) had both thoughtfully weighed the benefits and setbacks to the options.
Considering the Options
(for those who want more detail)
In 2013, will call proved to slow gate processing and make transferring tickets difficult, but it did prevent scalping.
Scalping: Koda stated that he is okay with following Brie’s recommendation as long as Brie and Julie are willing to take responsibility for dealing with scalpers. Brie and Julie offered to set up an email address for people to report scalpers, to limit ticket purchases to two per transactions, and to work with telemetry to educate the community about why they should not buy tickets over face value. After the board meeting, Brie discovered that TF has a Ticket Fraud Department that will team with us to prevent scalping as well.
Gate processing: Julie firmly contended it would be necessary to have 3-4 electronic tablets (purchased within the month) to handle the will call system and larger crowds, and that handling the will call system would be expensive and difficult with the given time frame. She also added that with the will call system there were multiple instances of people saying a ticket had been transferred to them and providing the necessary documentation, only to have the original ticket holder arrive later and claim they never transferred their ticket.
KIDS POLICY
Papa Bear explained that he wants clarification on the kids policy in the survival guide because right now it reads that parents must directly supervise their kids at all times. That has not been enforced and he wants to know what he should tell parents.
The BOD voted to change the policy in the Survival Guide from:
“Everyone under 18 must arrive with a legal guardian, have a liability waiver signed by a legal guardian, and must be accompanied by a legal guardian at all times.”
to:
“Everyone under 18 must arrive with a legal guardian and have a liability waiver signed by a legal guardian. The child’s legal guardian is responsible for ensuring that the child is supervised at all times by a responsible adult”
NOTES: Supervised = be able to contact the legal guardian at any time. Not out of control. Not disruptive or causing problems. The Board Member on Duty (BMOD) makes the final decision about removing child and parent. If a child is a problem, they and their parent will be removed from the event.
<3 REPORTS
Nina Cress – Budget Lead
• She thanked everyone for getting budgets in on time
Brian Edwards– Board Member
• We now have a Fire XXXO and Fire Lead!
Matt – Sound
• Working on revising sound policies. There will be a TOWN HALL to address sound policies on March 16th right after the Board Meeting.
Eric Moutz – Board Member
• Fire Department has approved two burns!!!! He’s working on getting a larger burn scar approved at the property. The Effigy and Temple will burn Friday and Saturday, though which day is which is yet to be decided.
NEXT BOARD MEETING
Sunday, March 16, 2014
1:00pm-4:00pm
Fusion Factory