Sime~Gen™ Inc. Annual Meeting - 2006

This is a record of the formal meeting of Sime~Gen participants for the purpose of voting the Awards due for tasks accomplished during 2005, and for awarding Preferred, non-voting shares of stock in Sime~Gen Inc.

Below is the log of the business meeting. 
Informal discussion--before, during and after the formal meeting--was in a separate chatroom. 

The meeting was called to order by Jacqueline Lichtenberg <JL`>  & Jean Lorrah <jean>

Attendees:
<Mike> -- Mike Edelson  
<N'omi Rose> -- N'omi Rose  
<JL`> -- Jacqueline Lichtenberg  
<jean> -- Jean Lorrah  
<gurpsgm> -- Bruce Gray  
<MaryLou> -- Mary Lou Mendum  
<bae> -- Beverly Erlebacher  
<Seanara> -- Seanara Coyote  
<Laurraine> -- Laurraine Tutihasi  
<Kaires> -- Kaíres Tévesu  
<Patric> & <Bluestar> --
     Patric Michael, Simegen.com Webmaster  
<Karen> -- Karen MacLeod, Assistant Webmaster  
<MTZ> -- Margaret I. Carr

Sun Jan 01, 2006
...
'Sime~Gen Annual New Year's Business Meeting-- also join #sgtalk

<JL'> OK, folks the meeting is called to order. Someone get Jean in here.
<jean> I'm here.
<JL'> We'll open nominations for the Digen Award for Meritorious Service now.
<JL'> Are there any nominations for people you've noticed have done something extraordinary for Sime~Gen this year?
<jean> Lois Wickstrom has been running our store all year.
<Karen> I'll second Lois. Should I open the room for voting...it's moderated...
<JL'> Good -- Lois Wickstrom for the Digen Award for adding (and adding and adding) to our Café Press stores and actually earning us money in other affiliate accounts.
<Karen> Everyone can vote now....
<Kaires> Aye
<JL'> Vote here please
<Laurraine> aye
<JL'> aye
<jean> Aye
<Seanara> aye
<Mike> AYE
<Karen> aye
<gurpsgm> Aye
<JL'> I note also that Lois's Nessie children's book site brings us tons of hits.
<bae> aye
<nomi> aye
<JL'> Right now we're voting on Lois. Just a second, we'll take more nominations.
<gurpsgm> Describe?
<jean> Maybe we should list the awards and what they are for.
<JL'> 10 of 11 people have voted AYE for Lois for the Digen Award -- please record that.
<JL'> Unfortunately I don't have a list of all our Awards.
<jean> Neither have I!
<kaires>[There's now a list of "one-liners" about the awards on the Chat page,]
<gurpsgm> Oy gevalt.
<jean> I remember two yo-yo awards and an Arensti.
<JL'> I do have a note here to nominate the authors of Borderlands for creativity for the domain.
<Kaires> Supercouth! I'll second that
<jean> That would be the Arensti.
<bae> sounds good.
<JL'> Arensti is more for artwork -- we have an artist here who deserves that Kip Grimes.
<Karen> Awards site has a listing here ---- http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/awards
<JL'> The Arensti Award is not on that web page.
<Karen> Patric maintains that page...not me. Go ahead, Bev, name your cronies, here.....
<bae> Well, four of us are listed on the Borderlands introduction page. The rest may prefer to remain anonymous
<JL'> Is there a nomination for the Digen Award?
<Karen> Maybe our fiction writers should get it for "meritorious service" keeping us all amused.
<JL'> That was ruled out of order. I need a nomination here.
<JL'> Do I have a nomination for the Digen Award?
<jean> The Borderlands Crew
<Karen> Seconded
<JL'> OK, the Borderlands Crew has been Nominated for the Digen Award do I have a second?
<gurpsgm> Thirded
<JL'> All in favor of awarding the Digen Award for Meritorious Service to the creators of the Co-operative Fiction called  Borderlands  say AYE.
<Kaires> Aye
<Karen> Aye
<Seanara> aye
<gurpsgm> aye
<jean> Aye
<Mike> aye
<N'omiRose> Aye
<Laurraine> aye
<gurpsgm> That's eight of twelve...
<JL'> I have 8 votes -- of 12. The Ayes have it.  Borderlands  wins the Digen Award for 2005 regular contributions.
<JL'> Nominations are now open for all other awards. Is there anyone else who deserves a special award?
<Karen> Chris Jacobs -- "Karen" for Creating Foundations....
<Kaires> FWIW, I've listed most of the awards in the other room...Maybe they should be listed on this side? all in one place?
<Karen> No....that's what the chat channel is for....
<JL'> I have a nomination for Chris Jacobs for the Karen Award.
<JL'> Is there a second?
<Mike> second
<JL'> All in favor of Chris Jacobs (assistant to Domain Operations and manager of all our projects) for the Karen Award say AYE
<Karen> Aye
<Seanara> aye
<jean> aye
<Mike> aye
<Kaires> Aye
<Laurraine> aye
<gurpsgm> aye
<N'omiRose> Aye
<JL'> aye
<Karen> Guess we're done with Chris' nomination?
<gurpsgm> that's nine
<bae> aye
<JL'> I have 9 AYE votes of 10 people eligible to vote, the AYES have it and Chris Jacobs gets the coveted Karen Award. (very well deserved too)
<bae> 10, I'm distracted here...
<JL'> Nominations are now open for any other award. Give the person's name, what they've done and what award you are nominating them for.
<Karen> Laurraine for a Yo-Yo award -- getting things done for Reviews in spite of all the problems.
<gurpsgm> second
<N'omiRose> Aye
<jean> Aye
<gurpsgm> aye
<Seanara> aye
<Kaires> Aye
<bae_> aye
<Mike> aye...I am in Reviews..just getting started. Dunno if that is a conflict of interest
<Karen> aye.
<JL'> Mike your AYE vote counts.
<Mike> thank you jl
<gurpsgm> That's seven ayes out of ten remaining
<JL'> aye
<gurpsgm> Make that eight ayes out of ten people remaining
<JL'> 9 AYE votes for Laurraine Tutihasi for the GOLDEN YOYO -- or maybe half silver and half gold.
<Mike> hmm Platinum?
<Karen> I like that idea, JL... something new....a blending, silver and gold.
<Kaires> How 'bout Kip for the Arensti or the Silver YoYo
<gurpsgm> lol - but it is a good idea for a multiple winner of a single award.
<JL'> I nominate Ronnie Bob Whitaker for the Golden YoYo award for FINALLY (after you don't want to know how many tries) getting a very good start on re-designing the Sime~Gen Inc. stock awards database.
<jean> second
<Karen> Seconded, but like most of us long term workers, he'll say NO.
<JL'> Aye?
<N'omiRose> Aye!
<Mike> aye
<Kaires> Aye!
<Seanara> aye
<Karen> Aye.... though I think the Tech-Ton (technical tools) award may be more appropriate.
<Mike> can a person get two awards?
<gurpsgm> aye
<jean> aye
<JL'> Yes, anyone can get two awards -- this however wasn't so much a tech challenge as a do-it-over yoyo project that just comes back and comes back to be done and done. That's a yoyo.
<JL'> aye
<Mike> again thanks jl
<JL'> That's 9 AYE votes for Ronnie Bob Whitaker for the Golden YoYo.
<N'omiRose> Aye
<JL'> Next nomination?
<N'omiRose> I anoinate Karen for a platinum yo-yo award
<Seanara> Second
<Mike> second
<gurpsgm> aye
<Mike> aye
<jean> aye
<Seanara> aye
<Kaires> aye!
<Laurraine> aye
<JL'> Aye
<gurpsgm> That's our first Platinum then - Hi Patric!
<JL'> Karen went Platinum with 9 votes for the BRAND NEW PLATINUM yo-yo award for general service.
<N'omiRose> I nominanoinate Patric for a 2nd platinum
<Mike> second
<gurpsgm> Well deserved, if I may so state. And I did. :-)
<gurpsgm> aye
<Kaires> Aye
<Laurraine> aye
<Mike> aye
<jean> aye
<Seanara> aye
<bae> aye
<Karen> aye for Patric
<JL'> AYE -- for getting me back online after my network connection broke. You have no idea how many times (a month's worth) we did it over and over and OVER -- and here I am online. THANK YOU PATRIC
<Kaires> I nominate Kip for the Arensti
<JL'> 9 AYEs for Patric for the Platinum YoYo award.
<gurpsgm> That's our second Platinum today... : -) and equally well deserved.
<JL'> I nominate Kip Grimes for the Arensti Award for outstanding artwork contributed to CZ and the rest of the domain.
<Mike> second
<jean> second
<JL'> Many of her vampire paintings are displayed on the vampire page
<JL'> AYE
<Karen> Aye, for Kip
<jean> aye
<bae> aye
<Kaires> Aye
<Seanara> aye
<Mike> aye
<Laurraine> aye
<N'omiRose> AYE!
<gurpsgm> aye
<JL'> Whee! 10 votes for Kip Grimes who wins the Arensti Award for 2005 artwork contributions to the domain.
<gurpsgm> That's ten there...
<Kaires> Nominate Lexie for Silver YoYo
<Karen> seconded
<jean> aye
<Kaires> Aye
<gurpsgm> aye
<JL'> aye
<Mike> aye
<Laurraine> aye
<N'omiRose> AYE!
<bae_> aye
<MTZ> aye
<Seanara> aye
<JL'> 9 Ayes for Lexie Pakulak for the Silver YoYo for her contributions to CZ.
<JL'> 10 ayes
<JL'> OK -- next nomination? Or does that complete the awards to be voted.
<Karen> Not sure who else requires nomination.....
<JL'> All right then -- that completes the award voting for 2005


<JL'> Jean Lorrah, CEO of Sime~Gen Inc. will now tell us the decision of the Board of Directors of 
the Corporation on distributing preferred non-voting stock in Sime~Gen Inc. for work done in 2005
<jean> Actually, you have that list, Jacqueline. It's not on this computer. If you want to wait for me to go boot up a different computer, I can find it.
<jean>
    Patric, 6 shares
    Karen, 4 shares
    Lois, 4 shares
    Kaires, 4 shares
    Ronnie Bob, 2 shares
    Lisa Saunders, 2 shares
    Laurraine, 2 shares
    Wendy Fisher, 1 share
    Bruce Gray, 1 share
    Eric Berlin, 1 share
    Kip, 1 share
    Ann DellaCamera, 1 share
<jean> That's this year's list of recipients of preferred stock in Sime~Gen Inc. 
Value of our stock has remained static for the past few years because we are owed money we 
have not received. When people pay their debts to us, stock value will rise. 
* N'omiRose applaud s vigorously
<JL'> Does that conclude your report?
<jean> Yes, that's it.

Sime~Gen President's Report

Jacqueline Lichtenberg, President

There has been a lot of activity all over this domain this year.
 -  We have a contributing artist, Kip, see http://www.simegen.com/marketplace/cafepress/ for examples.
 -  We have so many café press shops due to Lois Wickstrom's diligent persistence, that we now have a page devoted to them which is on cafepress webrings: http://www.simegen.com/marketplace/cafepress/ Scroll down to see them all or use the index. You can also use http://www.simegen.com/marketplace/health/shop/cafepress.htm
 -  Also Kip's art is decorating the web page for the anthology I have edited http://www.simegen.com/writers/anth/vampire/ join anthology-l (ww.simegen.com/archives/ will take you there) for updates and info as it comes available.
 -  Kip's art also appears with one of our award winning stories in Companion In Zeor -- see below for more.
 -  We've had a number of postings this year, and other contributions to our various websites around the domain.
 -  We've put up a jewelry site in Marketplace with a professional silversmith: http://www.simegen.com/marketplace/jewelry/. This was engineered by Kaires and is the fruit of more than a year's persistence.
 -  But our premier site is /reviews/ -- Laurraine Tutihasi and Patric have created a section of this domain that is rivaling Lois Wickstrom's Nessie site (her children's books co-authored with Jean Lorrah about the Loch Ness Monster) for drawing hits to the domain.
 -  We'll be looking to move Laurraine Tutihasi on to another post soon since she's about finished the rebuild of Reviews. Let us know if you're interested in taking over the management of Sime~Gen Reviews. There's some training involved, so this will take time. Candidates should email simegen@simegen.com to apply. An appearance at the Chat would make a good impression.
 -  Kaires has managed to produce regular updates to the simecenter site through a number of major difficulties in life and despite all her other projects. She's done some fine work on the domain and on the side, engineered Sime~Gen parties at cons!
 -  This year has seen the first student complete the entire Essence of Story Independent Study course and go on to her graduate work in the Reviews Department. We'll be looking to move her as soon as she finishes there. She's slowed down because she's earning her living as a non-fiction writer.
 -  And don't forget our burgeoning fan fiction section. Companion In Zeor, edited by Karen MacLeod won 4 (count 'em, 4!!!!) coveted awards this year for the high quality of the fiction posted there, drawing a furious rain of hits on the domain. ( http://simegen.com/sgfandom/rimonslibrary/cz/ )
 -  And there's more fiction coming. Fans on simegen-l have conspired to bribe one of the premier authors, Mary Lou Mendum, with chocolate to give us another installment about her characters, Den and Rital, favorites in Companion In Zeor for many years now. This novel will take us to South America.
 -  And there's another novel set in interstellar civilization that is in preparation. Contributing long novel length fiction to /sgfandom/ does qualify for stock.
 -  Still don't forget achievement awards that could go to the outstanding work being done with cooperative fiction at http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/fans/bev/boom/
 -  Our regular monthly domain newsletter imaginatively titled "newsletter-l" has been REGULAR this year due to the unstinting efforts (I mean she bugs us to get stuff in on time) of Lisa. She also manages our ads department, working with coordinating Karen and Jean to be sure our clients get their advertising banners up as contracted.
 -  There's always sizzling news in newsletter-l.
 -  Our publicity department has been inactive. We have a call out for a Publicity Director.
 -  Despite that lack of publicity, the combined efforts of Bruce Gray and Jacqueline Lichtenberg in the Keybooks Bookstore, (http://www.simegen.com/marketplace/keybooks/ ) along with the ever increasing hit count at simegen.com/reviews/ augmented by the loyal people who start their amazon purchases using our search boxes or other links have kept the amazon.com affiliate revenues at or above last year's levels. That income goes a good way toward covering our bandwidth charges and paying for hardware upgrades such as we did recently which increased the speed with which our pages load.
 -  Patric our Webmaster, Sysadmin and Art Director (of course almost invisible to outsiders) is the centerpole of this entire operation -- keeping us online and not looking at all shabby. You have no idea what he's accomplished mostly because he makes it look easy. I keep sticking my nose over his shoulder. Trust me. It's NOT easy, what he does. The signature of success as a sysadmin is that people don't notice he's there.
 -  Another who remains mostly invisible but keeps this organization going is Ronnie Bob Whitaker, the School Registrar and database record keeper for Sime~Gen Inc. He's definitely earned his keep this year. We've signed on a large number of writing students -- and a constant stream of writers who have donated stories to SimeCenter. Details he's recorded pass over my desk constantly.
 -  Chris Jacobs got swept away this year by "life" -- deaths in the family, job changes, moving cross country, etc. -- but seems to be coming to life again as the Domain Ops Project Manager. We're going to need her!
 -  Eric Berlin has been handy on AIM when I needed help converting files, conforming or making banners.
 -  Carol Castellanos, who launched the popular Author Spotlights section in /writers/ has resigned to pursue her new career in Page Design now that she's got her degree certificate. We would like to replace her, and we also have room for another Reviews Columnist.
 -  In addition, the second draft of THE FARRIS CHANNEL has been completed, and Meisha Merlin insists Sime~Gen: To Kiss Or To Kill is on their schedule for June 2006. As a result, the corporation has not yet considered withdrawing Sime~Gen from Meisha Merlin.
 -  We submitted the Sime~Gen feature film script to several contests, but did not win. We have decided to table that effort in favor of perhaps writing a new script more suitable to this next decade's market.
 -  We have long, long lists of things we want to do with this domain that require a lot of work-hours and technical knowledge with sustained capacity to see a project through to fruition. We are attempting to recruit volunteers who can do this work.
 -  In /fandom/startrek/ we are having 2 major, famous 'zines scanned and OCR'd by Ronnie Bob Whitaker for website posting -- Sharon Emily's SHOWCASE (4 volumes, 1 finished and already posted at http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/showcase/), and Claire Gabriel Gadzikowski's QUARTET. Karen MacLeod will be posting them after she finishes editing 7 novel manuscripts. Claire will be editing QUARTET which was her fanzine, to save Karen those editing chores.
 -  In /writers/anth/ we've added /writers/anth/vampire/ for the anthology of Good Vampire stories edited by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Chris Jacobs which is in negotiation with Wildside Press.
 -  In /writers/audio/ we have added 1 vampire story by Jacqueline Lichtenberg that has already been recorded and broadcast on XM Satellite Radio, and is still available online by MP3 download. Two more stories in that series are planned with more to come.
 -  In /sgfandom/ we have a growing amount of material that needs new indexing. Beverly Ehrlbacher has kept new episodes of the cooperative Sime~Gen fiction section she started being posted about every other month, and we expect that to grow, along with several other departments.
 -  There has been activity in almost all our departments though Patric has been away at various jobs all year and expects to be gone longer. He's going to have much work piled up when he gets back as ambition to redesign things using his new database strategy is awakening.
 -  We have had fiction posted in the /sgfandom/ section and most of all what has happened with the new /reviews/ design that Patric invented is phenomenal. Laurraine has brought the /reviews/ domain from the bottom of our hits statistics to the very top -- regularly now out-pacing the premier section, /writers/nessie/ in its hits performance. Though the new design brings down our individual page hits statistic, we are getting many new visitors from all over the world.
 -  We have the main ambition of getting something installed on our server that will allow us to track the statistics more closely and tell how traffic flows through the domain (anonymously of course --we aren't going to collect stats on individuals).
 -  Jean will retire this year, and is now turning her attention more and more to developing new plans for Sime~Gen Inc. Meanwhile she and I are working on some joint projects and a couple of coordinated individual projects that should impact the writing school activities within a year or two.

Return to Chat page

<JL'> Next report?
<JL'> Kaires?

SimeCenter Report

Kaíres Tévesu, SimeCenter Manager

I looked back over my [simecenter-l] messages, and the notices in 'Perspectives', to create a report. I realized a lot happened this last year.

 -  In January, we posted a 'commercial' for SimeCenter, including a minor version on the domain's top page. (I've tried to keep SimeCenter worthy of being advertised in that honorable position.)
 -  In January, too, we started posting stories and artwork to support the Tsunami recovery effort. Gaia was apparently quite wroth this year, and in September we started gathering donations to help hurricane victims from the Gulf Coast.
 -  That effort resulted in another innovation at SimeCenter. Jean wrote a lovely letter to SWFA, explaining SimeCenter's purpose, and asking for stories to post. I plagiarized the letter somewhat, and sent it to all the authors and artists who had contributed to SimeCenter in the past. I also solicited shamelessly on the BroadUniverse list...emboldened by having met some of the "Broads" at WorldCon.
 -  The result was overwhelming! From struggling each month to find one story to post, I was suddenly inundated with offerings, and my "problem" was to sort out which stories to use each month...and rebuild several of the pages so we could have multiple stories, artwork AND recipients each month.
 -  I always place links to the personal web pages of the contributing authors and artists on the story and artwork pages, so people can learn more about their works. It happened, though, that three of the authors who contributed this year didn't have their own web pages: Ardath Mayhar, Jayge Carr, and Stuart Palmer...so I created pages for them. That was fun, and gave me the chance to get to know them better (well, the first two anyway).
 -  I didn't manage to get the 'December' edition up in the right year. I hope to post it today.
 -  One neat thing: I now have a summary page about all the recipients we are using in the current phase, which is recovery from the hurricanes in the Gulf Coast region. The page is: &lt;http://www.simegen.com/simecenter/links/recipients.html&gt;. Comments appreciated.
 -  Gaia is still wroth, as witness the earthquake in Pakistan, the wildfires in Texas, and now the flooding in Northern California. SimeCenter has its work cut out for the forseeable future.

Return to Chat page

<Karen> Report from Reviews, next

Sime~Gen Inc Reviews Department Report

Laurraine Tutihasi, Reviews Manager

Reviews has just barely managed this year despite all our efforts. The main problem is that we have been losing active reviewers. Ann conducted an informal survey, and it's not that we're doing anything wrong. Many of our reviewers have personal problems that use up all their time and they have none left for reviews. We have been unsuccessful at recruiting new, active reviewers. Ann DellaCamera has helped greatly to keep up going. Aside from her stated task of filtering incoming e-mails, she has also been posting reviews from our old site. We need more help running reviews, too.

<JL'> See additional discussion in #sgtalk (the informal chatroom)

Our one star reviewer has been Harriet Klausner, who reviews more than the rest of the reviewers combined.

Return to Chat page


<JL'> Thank You, Laurraine.
<Karen> Any other reports? Be sure to e-mail them to me for complete inclusion in the website log.
<Patric> Brief webmaster's report for 2005:
 -  OS and storage upgrades back in March.
 -  New page design and web interfaces for the global pages.
<JL'> If there are no further department reports -- LET'S PARTY!!!
<JL'> shove the chairs back, roll up the rugs, blast the shiltpron music, and bring on the CHOCOLATE!
<Karen> Sounds good to me..... let's party, and I'll close our logs, here.
<gurpsgm> Moves that meeting be closed.
<JL'> SECONDED Meeting ADJOURNED -- aye?
<jean> aye
<Laurraine> aye
<Seanara> aye
<gurpsgm> aye
<N'omiRose> aye
<Mike> aye
<Karen> aye
<JL'> The aye's have it -- by a bare majority -- MEETING ADJOURNED. ooops, just in time, here comes the PORSTAN!
<gurpsgm> See everybody remaining in #sgtalk

Session Close: Sun Jan 01 14:48:48 2006
Session Moderated by
Karen MacLeod
Logs edited by
Karen MacLeod
Page posted by 
Kaíres Tévesu



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