Minutes of the 2020 SFFANZ AGM

Held at 2pm July 30, 2020 via Zoom during CoNZealand, the 78th world science fiction convention and 41st New Zealand national convention.

Meeting opened: 2.12pm after confirming a quorum was present.

Present: John Toon, Barry Norris, Lynelle Howell, Robin Johnson, Celia Van Vlet, Jo Toon, Joe Decker, Marie Hodgkinson, Wexnun Zhang, Jo Van Ekeren, Kin-Ming Looi, Stephen Litten, Jan Butterworth, Alan Parker, Eileen Mueller, Lorain Clark, Nigel Rowe, Judy Fletcher (late).

John Toon (as Chair) welcomed everyone to the meeting with a Maori greeting. 

Apologies/proxies: 

Stephen Litten asked that John Toon act as his proxy before leaving the meeting.

Matters Arising:

The website in wordpress is an ongoing thing. This will be a large focus of the committee for the coming year.

The SJVs were held as part of the 2020 Natcon which was a part of CoNZealand.

SFFANZ has significant money for future conventions, passalongs – about $9,000 in the conventions funds. Barry suggested we make a $!000 grant to conventions to assist with set up.

It was noted that convention surpluses do come back to SFFANZ generally, but if a convention makes a loss, then Barry suggested there’s no need to pay it back. There is a possibility that we’ll have an issue of running out of money.

This is all very much tied to SFFCONZ (Science Fiction and Fantasy Conventions of New Zealand), so not a decision we can make until after the washup from CoNZealand and SFFCONZ. The latter is currently registered for GST and we’d need that to be removed before taking any further action.

John Toon moved, and Celia Van Vliet seconded  “That we add an item to next year’s agenda to discuss the status of SFFCONZ and how that relates to the passalong of funds for future natcons.” 

Carried.

John Toon moved, and Alan Parker seconded “That the AGM minutes for 2019 be taken as read.” Carried.

Presentation of Accounts

Barry, as treasurer, noted there wasn’t a lot to report  – we made a small loss this year because we had a lot of expenses paying for about eight years’ worth of trophies.

Stable membership of around 60 members.

There is the ability to renew memberships online. Alan Parker asked to take up that option.

There was a generous donation of $3364.82 to the main account.
Jo Toon moved, and John Toon seconded “That the meeting acknowledge, with hearty thanks, the generous donation made.” Carried

Barry Norris moved and John Toon seconded “That the accounts be accepted.” Carried.

Election of Officers

The oard will discuss amongst themselves who’s doing what….

Nominations were received for Barry Norris, John Toon, Jan Butterworth, Norman Cates, Lorain Clark, Stephen Litten, Lynelle Howell, Celia Van Vliet.

There being no further nominations, nominations closed and those named above were duly elected.

President’s report

John reported “You’re all doing very well.” He expressed thanks to the members of the previous board.

He noted that SFFANZ hasn’t been tremendously busy due to CoNZealand taking up the spare time of many of the board’s members. Focus for the coming year is the website – overhauling it and making resources more user friendly. 

Once that’s done, lengthy push of adding content. 

John moved and Lynelle seconded “That the president’s report be accepted.” Carried. 

General Business

A further discussion of Code of Conduct policies

We have a recommended Code of Conduct for concoms.  This should be on the website, but may not be on there yet. To be done in the revamp.

Lynelle to recirculate the Code of Conduct proposed policy.

Website changes

Part of the plan was to fold in the current wordpress news system. Ross probably won’t move when the news site moves to the new integrated website. Anyone wanting to take on the news site, please volunteer. 

John expressed a hearty thanks to Ross for his service on the blog.

SJV list of works

Catalogue of New Zealand works – created by SF fans and authors. This has been languishing on the old website, but we would prioritise making the list up to date. Nominees created a list for 2020 which SFFANZ wasn’t able to link to. The focus should be on getting the list up to date and backfilling. 

A google form for publishers and authors to fill in was suggested. Eileen to assist Lynelle in the set-up of this.

Site selection

John reported he was aware of no bids to host a natcon for 2021. 

Hypothetical question – what would be the idea of having it at Labour Weekend? A suggestion was made of a one-day event  – afternoon tea and AGM, and party in the evening with the SJV ceremony. It was suggested the West Plaza Hotel might be a suitable location again.

It’s perfectly reasonable we book a venue for the afternoon to do that too, perhaps play board games. If someone puts together a bid. But it’s going to be up to a potential concom and board to mutually agree on a natcon. 

In 1985 because there were no bids that year, two cons that year, neither were a natcon.

We would need to have a bid created and voted on before the end of 2020.

An email vote would need to be held to ratify any potential bid.

Barry moved and John seconded “That the membership authorises the Board to fund the AGM and the SJV awards from the 01 account in the event there is no bid for convention.”

It was noted the email list needs to be addressed as some information is out of date – Barry is to look at that.

2022

There were no bids for the 2022 natcon. Bids for the 2022 Natcon can be deferred to next year’s AGM.

There being no further business, John thanked everyone for their attendance and declared the annual general meeting over at 2.57pm.