1Minutes of the 10/3/09 Sick Pups Meeting

Meeting Attendees: Dora (left early), Tina, Rich & Stephanie, Marcie & friend Lois, Sue T., Pella, Kathy, Toni and Darlene.

We made the serious error of looking at the photos of the WorldCon masquerade before starting the meeting. This took long enough that Dora (and Sebastian) left before we engaged in meeting business. The remaining officer present was Marcie (treasurer), who moderated the meeting.

Marcie reported that the NJ/NY Costumers Guild (the Sick Pups) have $1,337.17 in the treasury at present.

There were reports and comments regarding recently attended and upcoming conferences.

The Medieval Faire at the Metropolitan Museum’s Cloisters location is to take place on the day following this meeting.

It was reported that the next venue for Arisia (in 2011) will be the Boston Westin Waterfront hotel. This is not particularly well located, aside from subway access, and aside from the hotel’s restaurant there are few food options in the vicinity.

The upcoming Philcon convention in Cherry Hill NJ has a track of costume programming which is being set up by Lisa Ashton. Several of us said we planned to attend, including Byron & Tina (working the Green Room), Sue, Rich & Stephanie, Toni and Diane. Toni said that she put in to appear on 11 panels, on their programming website. Darlene said that unfortunately neither she nor Dani would be able to attend, as there are a couple of big anime conferences coming up in November. Darlene also said that she has been very busy preparing for her clinicals for central service studies, to lead to a tech position in materials management.

There was a lively review of DragonCon, which took place over Labor Day weekend. Diane said that this con typically draws 35 - 40,000 attendees, and that Atlanta loves them, as the con generates something in the neighborhood of $50 million for Atlanta each year. They get some of the “big name actors” such as Nimoy, Shatner and Stewart. The hotel prices are the biggest cost, at around $200/night, but offsetting this is the membership rate ($60) and plenty of inexpensive places to eat in the vicinity. The food court is open 24 hours. The con has three huge dealers rooms, a juried art show, and a big print show. Diane said she feels that there is more commercialism than we are generally accustomed to at SF cons.

It was noted that KatsuCon and Far Point both fall on Presidents’ weekend in 2010. These are held in the Baltimore area; it would be possible to attend both if one really tried to. Diane commented that Jim’s birthday also falls on Presidents’ weekend.

Although Dora was not in attendance by this point, there was a discussion of what to do about the Pups website. It has been well-nigh impossible to get timely updates done; some listings on the website have been over a year out of date. On occasion updates have been sent to Bill which have never been implemented, or which were not updated until months later. Tina said that Bill should be compensated for his provision of the website, which he says he has been providing to the Pups for free. Marcie said, in response, that she has in her treasurer’s file notes of her discussion with Bill last year, in which they agreed that his provision of the website would serve as an in-kind “payment” in lieu of dues. It was the general consensus that although Bill is very enthusiastic, and has been an asset to the Pups overall (especially his makeup expertise), it would be desirable to have a website that we could count upon to be kept up to date.

Diane made a motion that the Pups get a domain name, that we pay for it, and that the passwords be shared with those persons who will be maintaining and updating it. (It was noted that this would also serve as insurance against it becoming inaccessible if anything happened to the primary webmaster.) The motion was seconded by Pella, and was approved by acclamation.

We needed to set up the next meeting date before adjournment. Byron & Tina volunteered to host the next one on February 27^th, at the Summerfield Suites in Whippany NJ. Pella volunteered to host a meeting at her place in Philadelphia in April (date to be determined later).

Miscellaneous nattering and enthusiasms (formerly, “the good parts stuff”):

Toni finally broke down and got a (plain vanilla) cell phone. She loves it – it’s so simple!

Considering how strange some of the people on the NYC subway are anyway, how do the subway police decide what is “suspicious” on Halloween?

Toni saw T.J. Glenn at the Cloisters Medieval Faire last year.

Darwin Awards: a woman who smeared her daughter’s face with honey so she could get a photo of a bear licking her face. Fortunately a ranger saw this and stopped her in time!

Diane is planning to go to France in late April or early May to, among other activities, see the castle where the show “Merlin” is filmed.