2018/19 Term 1 Week 3 Exec Meeting Minutes (Pt 1)

You can view the full powerpoint minutes for this meeting here:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q3pTMidAPRig3Hv2KUNBj3sALn9zludAJkaPCnqsw0/edit?usp=sharing
This meeting was conducted on 18/10/2018 at 1300 in S0.08 then James' Office (2 hour meeting)

Exec Present:
Ares (Sec.)
Patrick (Boardgames)
Callum (RPGs)
Jakub (LARP)
Jon (LARP Ass.)
Josh (CCGs)
Aleksa (Draft)
Finnbar (News Dude)
Nigel (Pres.)
James SF (Wargames)
Nathan (Treas.)
Alisdair (CCGs Ass.)

Exec Absent:
Ash (Web Admin.)

Orders of Business:
Reminders/Updates
1. HALLOWEEN
2. Lending board games to other societies
3. Online Storage (Ash) ? (Ash not present)
4. Secret Hitler

Reminders/Updates:
Info/To Discuss:
○ Have you paid john for your hoodie?
○ Have you uploaded your face or given Ash a good excuse?
○ Didn’t hear back from the leamington housing guy about board game social
○ Nigel - have you spoken to Rashida about storage yet?
○ Also Nigel - what’s happened with the inventory? Has it been updated?
○ Patrick - what’s happened to our copies of Catan?
○ Nathan - good news, we have money!
○ SOCS FAIR (SAT 20th) ! I’M PUTTING FINAL DUTIES UP TONIGHT!
○ PEOPLE WHO STILL NEED TO FILL IT: Ash, James, Josh, Tim

Actions:
○ Ares: remessage the housing guy today and if we dont get a reply by tomorrow we won’t do it
○ Ares: check up on Nigel and Patrick re Rashida next week
○ Inventory not done yet
○ Now have 1 working old copy of Catan!
○ Patrick: need to look at the Catan expansions this week; also, box the spare parts and label
○ Need to do any outstanding money requests - blank hoodie, advertising material, James ??
○ Try and sell the spare hoode to existing/old exec? If not, keep as a spare.

1. Halloween!
Info/To Discuss
○ Halloween (Oct 31st) is on a Wednesday this year! (Week 5)
○ So, it has been brought up that we could do a themed board games night - any objections, and any suggestions as to exactly what we’d do?
○ Initial idea: decorate, of course! Pumpkins (themed carvings anyone?), cheap store decorations etc (can also save these and reuse next year, not the pumpkins though obviously)
○ What boardgames could we promote?
○ Suggested we could also do spooky one shots on the Wednesday also - I’ve had prelim interest if i ran a one-shot
○ Could we get a couple of DMs? (Callum, Jon: opinions?)
○ Alisdair suggested doing a chaos draft on Tuesday to spice things up for halloween too (Aleksa, opinions?)
○ Ares: can do any promotional material we need (posters etc)

Actions:
○ Yes to boardgames
○ Callum: drop a message to DMs about one shots
○ Yes to chaos draft! (But need to decide whether to replace reg draft or do it a different day)
○ Maybe put an ad in the student cinema and/or piazza (look into it)

2. Lending Board Games
Info/To Discuss
○ We need a proper set of rules to potentially write up in the constitution
○ Eg. two (?) members of the society’s exec are heavily encouraged to have membership to our society?
○ We cannot lend out games that have been lent to our collection by members
○ (We should require lent games to have a name sticker on them to make sure they don’t accidentally get lent out)

Actions:
○ Start giving flyers when we lend board games for their society exec to put on tables/hand out
○ If they can’t gain membership, we should ask for alternative donation instead

3. Secret Hitler
Context: popular game that we've received many requests to stock at board games, but which has caused controversy in previous years due to the content of the game. Previous years' discussions included whether or not it should be banned, and whether we should stock it as a society.
As it stands up until this point, from last year's resolution: it's not banned, but we do not stock it as a society, and exec do not bring in their copies.

Info/To Discuss:
The following questions we need to answer/have a vote on:
○ Should we allow secret hitler full stop?
○ Should we allow (/instead) secret sith?
○ Do we get a copy of either as a society?
○ Do we allow exec to bring their copy?
○ Are we having an official statement that we’re putting out there publicly?

Opinions:
○ Nigel: previous complaint was not through a complaints system; don’t think we should ban or discourage, don’t think we should own it due to the controversy it has caused; we should write a statement so future exec know and can use if needed, but not put it out publicly unprompted. Don’t know what to do about exec bringing in copies. Secret Sith we could get as a society.
○ Patrick: shouldn’t own it as a society. Allow normal members to bring it if they want. Don’t think we should tell exec they can’t bring it. No public statement.
○ Jon: we’ve had people request it, we should definitely have a copy of Secret Sith
○ Callum: shouldn’t be having a discussion about a single game. We need a blanket ruling about what to do about complaints. Don’t ban Secret Hitler.
○ Jakub: doubt that a hard and fast rule is possible. Discourage exec from bringing copies of games that have been complained about as we have a responsibility to uphold. Should take complaints on a one-by-one basis.
○ Josh: until further notice our responsibility is to stock board games that are fun for people to enjoy. We also have to take complaints seriously. But how we respond to them needs to be fair, to both the complainer and the society as a whole. Don’t think that we should ever ban a single game. We can reskin Secret Hitler to avoid an obvious offense; it’s an easy fix.
○ Aleksa: don’t think anything should be banned by default, don’t think we should ban exec from bringing the game until a complaint is made through official channels this year. We're losing more people to other societies than we’re keeping around by avoiding offense.
○ James: we have a responsibility as an exec to uphold the image of the society. If an exec is at a society event, they’re representing the society. Secret Sith is an easy fix in this case. Might be more difficult for other games. Should attempt to avoid reasonable offense (i.e. we don’t own cards against humanity).
○ Finnbar: a group of people being offended is going to hurt their fun.
○ Nathan: shouldn’t ban it. Just get Secret Sith. Say no to exec bringing Secret Hitler (but no issue with Sith) as it’s representative of the society and is equivalent to the society owning a copy. Need to ask people to play games like Secret Hitler respectfully (Nigel input: this is already a welfare thing/responsibility we have so this is already upheld).
○ Josh: need some kind of disclaimer out there (like the BBC has warnings before sensitive programs). Nigel input: disclaimer before the anonymous complaints form, and clear directions on where to take complaints.
○ James, closing remark: we don’t have a procedure yet. Need to talk to the SU about what the role of equal opps entails.

(see Pt 2 for voting)