12/15/23
Welcome, Introductions, and Announcements (5 minutes)
Old Business (45 minutes)
- February Day on the Hill and Membership Meeting (2/1/24)
- Update on logistics (Ross)
- Japan Trip:
- Update from workgroup (Mike)
- Update from Stephanie/Sec. Hobbs (if in attendance)
- Update on company applications/screening (Nicole)
- Update on cultural sensitivity training (Ross/Chris)
- Step Grants and EVP update
- Next Steps
New Business (15 minutes)
- <none>
Commitments Review (5 minutes)
- Old Commitments Check:
- New Commitments Review:
Set Next Date (5 minutes)
- Calendar says December 29
November 17th, 2023 @ 10am
Events and Trade Mission Committee
Notetaking: Beau Johnson
Attendees: David Hoppe, Ross Cowman, Nicole Jesich, Chris Pramas, Beau Johnson, Sec. Steve Hobbs, Mike Selinker
Chair: David Hoppe
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*** are Commitments
~~~ are deeper notes about commitment ("wont do" items, etc)
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Welcome, Introductions, and Announcements (5 minutes)
- Announce, Ross: Andy Katowski(sp?) representing Deernacorn at Game Market
- Announce, Ross: "I forgot"
- He remembered
- Large Enterprise Committee (larger enterprize companies, 100+ employees, etc) had first meeting
Old Business (45 minutes)
- Feb day on the hill
- Ross: feb 1st is the meeting
- Working to get a list of repressentiives and bills to talk about
- gather in morning, breakfast orientation meeting, then space for meetings, then during the day reconviene (voting will take place before this), hopefully legislatiove game night in the evening or socializing
- also coordinating lodging and transport for those that need it
- Steve: Feb 6 is a planned game day at the legislative building
- Ross: we could change the day, but holly said 1st was the best day
- Ross: open to moving to the 6th
- No one sees a problem with moving it to Feb 6th (tuesday).
- Choosing a day to coordinate with the exec office, but that can be planned at a later time
- Spring Japan Trip
- Mike: recent game market ended recently, and they have a video of the event.
- https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kI6oYtkwW4E4VmrSV09Ly82StX3iYE8s
- discussions with japanese embassy over how we sell games
- May go through an agency there
- may just get a japanese work visa
- Mike: "jail" was discussed over this
*** Ross: reach out to Andy K about sales and retailing solution in Japan
- Mike: Went through the steps for a step grant application.
- Some questions i did not answer, but some were interesting of note
*** Mike: getting questions from wa step application to put into wiki
- One question on the form might need each individual to fill out forms themselves in addition for the step grant. More answers on this part of the step grant soon hopefully.
- Lodging is not something they pay for in step grant
- transportation is though. Some quirky things to think about on form.
- Japanimae Games
- They had a booth, but no staffer at their booth
- learn about origins game fair in tokyo
- US company brings Japanese games to the US.
- one in Mass, UBI in WA, and that person here lives in portland.
- Eric Price has offered to find demoers and translators (the same people he offers to the four companies going under gama banner) and will show what the cost is soon.
- He would like to be in our booth, rather the gama booth
- They ok?
- Chris/Ross: they here in WA?
- Multiple Employees in WA state.
- Ross: Officially they must either live in WA state or have company headquartered in WA state
- Goals: demonstrable value to wa state
- Chris: very sensitive who is allowed in the booth, looking for success and the person should be from and bringing business to WA
- 3 people/teams confirmed, and 3 more on the way
- Ross they can apply, and we'll review em
- Mike: if not, that's ok too
- Hobbs: run into any roadblocks? Visa, step grant? Contact the office and steph.
- they have direct lines to japan groups to get things going
- There was resistance from commerce, but now they will help pay for the booth (they want to partner with the office now)
- Providing a translator, coordinate with all to make sure we don't have 10 translators but only paid for 5...
- Ross: We'll need... logistics translators to get us around meetings, and that will be needed. Subject mater expert at the booths to talk about games and help demo.
- Others going: member of the pierce county economic develpment, trade center people may go, (pending steph) cultural side, Hyogo (sp?) prefecture factory and places visited.
- General consul meeting, sent some people to wa state - several countres have caught wind of what we're doing and they are very interested in where we are going to and offering places (poland, germany, etc)
- Big win: budgets, you get a baseline budget. We didn't think the international money (150k$ for international trade) and we got it. Whenever we finalize the day on the hill, we will advocate for full funding. Better than zero, in any case!
- communication is key!
- Looking for a style guide
- Work with steph on...
*** Steph (Beau co-ordinates this with Steph): Get a style guide for booth (logos, etc)
- Processing the list of people to go, and lining up the right people to bring home a win
- Ross: Suggesting to bring flatout games to go with on trip
- Smaller sized companies in the focus, focus on women/POC/more as well
- Nicole J: draft an email to external people for grant
~~~ Ross: 5 mins, once a month: news reporter will get info the membership should know.
New Business (15 minutes)
- Essen
- Ross planning out dates, combine resources to ship things over, lot of things involved with going to essen. Utilize wiki, dates in newsletter, etc
- Just bringing this up for a future meeting.
Commitments Review (5 minutes)
Prior Dec 1:
*** commitment: ross and Mike for contracting translator and getting a data sheet
- Progress has been made, but topics today may have updated this commitment
*** Ross: (commitment for next year) Talked about working/scheduling with embassy people cultural competency program with japanese consulate here in seattle
- Ross: Handle that in Feb
Set Next Date (5 minutes)
- Dec 29th?
- nope, by some
- January 5th?
- Go every two weeks from there, since the schedule is getting longer for commitment planning
*** Agenda: Roles and responsibilities for tokyo trip next meeting!