Inside Skepticon – Meetings and Policies and 990s, Oh My!

… and that is how a new bylaw is made!

Oh, hello, I didn’t hear you come in. I was just teaching my kid all about the fascinating world of non-profit corporate governance. They’re asleep with joy!

Hey, this stuff is actually very important! If we don’t do the things that the state and federal government expect of a small non-profit secretly run by dinosaurs, they could take away our 501(c)(3) status, or suspend our corporation, or even make us extinct!

At Skepticon, this is the job of the Corporate role. They make sure that all the bureaucratic ‘i’s are dotted, the ‘t’s are crossed, and the spongiform zorblats have winky emoji in their upper left quadrants. The actual work will mostly be done by the corporate officers (President, Treasurer, and Vice President in Charge of Making Sno-Cones™), but the director in the Corporate role is the one responsible for checking that it gets done right, and on time.

The expectation is that the President of Skepticon will be the one to take on this role. So in other words, we make Lauren do the boring bits. What else is new?

Besides government paperwork, what needs to be done to have a functioning corporation? We’re not completely sure, ourselves, but this is what we do:

• Hold regular and annual board meetings where a quorum must be sober at all times
• Write down all the things that the board votes on doing
• Make sure that someone actually does the things that the board votes to do
• Check that we still have money. Do we still have money? Oh good.
• Keep track of which sofa cushions all that money is hiding under
• Post all the info on where the money came from and went to on the website
• Make our vendors do right by us, and check that we do right by them
• Buy event liability insurance, because stuff happens around dinosaurs
• Produce the aforementioned Sno-Cones™

And that’s really about it. See, not so bad after all. And your reward for reading all the way to the bottom of this post? We’re giving you all free tickets to Skepticon 10! Just use code ZORBLATEMOJI17 when registering. See you all there!

P.S. Your donations are what make Skepticon 10, and all those glorious Sno-Cones™ possible! And if you really want to lighten our stress levels, please donate to our legal defense fund!