Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Capital FreeNet held on July 20, 1999 at 7:00 pm at the Olde Forge Community Centre 2730 Carling Ave PRESENT: Jeff Bossert Treasurer au025 JB Jessica Cohen Secretary aa724 JC Miranda Gray ak717 MG Pippa Lawson au771 PL Michael Mason 1st Vice - President an956 MM Dave Sutherland President aa001 DS Jean Wilmot aa145 JWi REGRETS: Sandy Campbell dt820 SC Natalie Munro 2nd Vice - President aa966 NM Andrew Nellis bs904 AN Jim Wright ah311 JWr STAFF PRESENT: Christopher Cope Executive Director bz787 Sheila C. Adler Administrative Coordinator bw306 Andre Dalle System Administrator al178 GUESTS: Carl Dow cn650 Minute-Taker: Joan Robertson cw055 1. INTRODUCTIONS The meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm, with Dave Sutherland as the Chair and Jessica Cohen as the Secretary. 2. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Jeff Bossert that the minutes of the previous meeting be approved. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: JB JC MG DS ABSTAIN: PL JWi ABSENT: MM 3. REVIEW OF THE AGENDA 6d) Dealing with allegations was added. 6e) In-camera minute procedure was added. 4. OLD BUSINESS 4.a) Review of Committees (Miranda Gray) An inventory of NCF committees and teams prepared by Christopher Cope was tabled. This item will be discussed in more detail at the August meeting. Jessica mentioned that the inventory did not list either the executive committee (currently dormant) or the HR committee (recently formed). Miranda asked that finance committee be discussed , as well as the volunteer coordination team. She also asked that the "teams of 1" , for example, the IRC moderator, the announce moderator, the news admin, the postmaster be listed. The term "assigned positions" was suggested for the purpose of adding these volunteers to the inventory. 4b) Proposed letter draft to HRDC for webmail funding (Jeff Bossert) The revised draft of this letter was circulated to members of the tech team as well as the Board, feedback was positive. The proposal was well liked, some concern was raised about the intention to have staff write the business plan , as to whether this would draw too much staff time away from existing projects, and whether we were trying to take on more projects than we can effectively handle. Jeff observed that webmail was something we were already working on trying to develop, and if the HRDC approved our business plan and provided matching funding to develop this, it would free up NCF resources, without our having to put significant amounts of operating expenses into webmail development. Miranda expressed concern referring to the timeline for the business plan (8 weeks of project manager time) was too long to operate without an ED, and should we be hiring someone to work on this. While the money paid for developing this business plan would be funded by the HRDC, it would still be taking time away from NCF. There was some discussion on how much of the executive director's time and the system administrator's time can be diverted to this project, Chris felt that he had 20% over 16 weeks available. It was decided that a motion specifying the need to limit impact on current staffing would be struck for this proposal. MOVED by Dave Sutherland, SECONDED by Pippa Lawson that the letter to HRDC applying for funding of webmail development be approved, subject to staff assessing level of effort needed to complete project, and additional resources to be hired or contracted so that existing staff not need more than 1 day per week to complete. MOTION CARRIED IN FAVOUR: JB JC MG PL DS JWi ABSENT: MM The letter includes a draft budget, Jean asked that the amount of money budgeted for years 1,2,3 , particularly years 2,3 be increased for support. 5. REPORTS 5a) Treasurer's Report (Jeff Bossert) Jeff distributed copies of the Treasurer's Report. Donations are down this month, revenue from renewals is at $8600, instead of $17800. Expenses were $7500 over revenue this month. Deferred contribution/depreciation accounting conventions, are done quarterly. The balance sheet is $21000 over budget, due to VolNet and urban Cap projects, made up for membership decrease, without revenue cash balance would be $13000 under budget. Dave asked when do we need to worry about our cash balance, if current trend continues would be running low next year. Could be deferred till year after that if other projects taken on. Most new initiatives take 1 year from idea to implementation. 5b) Executive Director's Report (Chris Cope) Chris asked if anyone had any questions about the report. Flyers: Dave commented that he has not yet been able to get flyers to computer stores, Chris mentioned that Andrew and Sandy have not yet been able to do this either. Jean offered to take some flyers and an installation disk to the Clone Society. Modems: We are currently waiting for Mitel to change their systems, they are moving our modems to PRI or digital lines from analog, which should resolve many of our reliability problems. Andre has been working hard on this. VolNet: We have received the first payment for the assessment phase. 150 agencies are signed up, still aiming at target of 250 agencies. May be signing on 40+ agencies in the Pontiac region, we would be providing serverside services, they would connect w/ an ISP from Pontiac. CapitalFind: James Ostler has be working on this, so far he has finished 66 pages. IP's: Miranda expressed concerns that we are failing to meet last year's targets, we need to look at services to Information Providers soon. Chris observed that while we are losing IP's who had menus only, we are continuing to sign on IP's who develop webpages. However Miranda pointed out, and it was generally agreed that we will need to ensure our offered services stays in line with what information providers are looking for. We are potentially signing up 250 new information providers through VolNet, we want them to stay with us for year two, when they will be paying us themselves , rather than being funded through VolNet. 6. NEW BUSINESS 6.a) 2000 AGM We need to start planning for the next AGM. Michael Mason will not be chairing it next year, as he will either be running as a candidate, or retiring from NCF. Miranda Gray was volunteered by Jessica and Pippa to be the AGM Chair, and has agreed to take on this role. One of the reasons to start planning for the AGM to early is to make the voting accessible from the web for next year. Mark Meilke is currently working on this. 6b) Membership Initiatives There was some discussion on potential membership initiatives. The initiatives already taking place , of offering computer stores software to pre-install , and informational flyers was discussed briefly. One observation was that it was important to target computer stores who deal with new users. There was some discussion on new initiatives. As we currently offer extensive training and support geared to seniors, Miranda suggested that we might consider buying some adspace in one of Ottawa's seniors magazines. Miranda has done some preliminary research on this, the advertising rates are quite reasonable, and circulation figures for the various magazines are available. In this vein, Michael Mason announced that NCF will have an ad and listing in the upcoming Directory of Community Services published by the Olde Forge Community Resource Centre. The ad space has been donated, we have given the Olde Forge Community Resource Centre a line sponsorship. On the subject of seniors advertising, it was agreed that we will make money available to advertise in 1 seniors paper , to be selected by Miranda. The ad will have to differ from the ad currently used in Monitor, as the audience is different. The ad should reference the senior's training being offered in local senior's centres. We will try to have an ad ready as soon as possible, ideally having copy ready in August for inclusion in the September magazine. We might also try to have an article about the training included to coincide with the first month of the ad. Jeff suggested that we look into having bus ads , as there are often many empty advertisement spots on OC Transpo busses. Michael Mason will look into this. Another idea suggested was passive advertising, such as bumper stickers, and backpack badges. Chris suggested NCF mousepads. Sheila suggested that we could go door to door with flyers, Miranda suggested that we could have volunteer pizza parties where volunteers would be fed pizza and would do a neighbourhood with flyers. Other suggestions were having business card sized ads on the back of church bulletins, with our logo and URL - this will be particularly useful with those churches who are already signed on as information providers, and setting up an NCF information and registration table at the fall registrations with the local community centres. 6c) Process for New Project Proposals (Pippa Lawson) Pippa asked that we agree to run all proposals by our technical people before they come to the Board. There was some discussion. The technical team members are all busy people and we don't want to bog them down, when proposals sent to specific members for opinions, they generally will respond with feedback. Ideally proposals being presented are tabled at 1 board meeting, and then decided on at the next. In this case, there is plenty of time to get feedback from our technical volunteers on any given project. 6d) Dealing with allegations There was some discussion about allegations being raised in the board.speakers-corner newsgroup. In terms of the allegations themselves, they are unfounded , and it was agreed that Dave would post an 'official' response quoting the appropriate NCF by-laws. There was some more general discussion on responding to argumentative posts in the Board newsgroup. Chris stated that it was better if Board members not jump into argumentative discussions, as it tends to fan the flames of the discussion. Several Board members felt more comfortable with board members all taking a hands off approach to the newsgroup, and having the ED deal with most issues. However several other Board members felt that the whole discussion had gotten out of hand precisely because nothing official or otherwise had been posted. It was felt strongly by several Board members that we should not feel stifled from participating in the board.speakers-corner. It was acknowledged by all , that flame wars and personal attack posts should be absolutely avoided, even if some posters resort to arguing at this level. Likewise there, was some discussion on how openly we discuss things. Some Board members felt that we are far too open; we are far more open than we are legally required to be as a non-profit corporation. Other Board members felt that we were not open enough, in terms of sense of participation by members. Overall, there are differing levels of comfort among the various Board members among participation in the board.speakers-corner newsgroup. In terms of financial disclosure, Jeff observed that we are already quite open, we publicly post monthly financial statements, and an annual report, and the audited financial statements. 6e) In - Camera Minutes Miranda researched what Roberts Rules of Order had to say about in-camera minutes. She suggested that we need to take them, and check them for accuracy, and suggested approving them by email. This method was agreed to by general consensus. 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS - the Technical Committee will be meeting tomorrow night - Chris will be on vacation from July 31 till the 10th of August - The pool party for volunteer appreciation will probably be held on August 12, at Chris's house - Sheila will be out of country for the 1st two weeks of August, and will be working part-time for the rest of August 8. DATE OF NEXT MEETING August 17, 1999 , 7:00 pm RMOC - HONEYWELL ROOM 111 Lisgar St. 9. ADJOURNMENT As there was no further business to discuss, MOVED by Pippa Lawson, SECONDED by Jeff Bossert that we adjourn at 10:00 pm, MOTION CARRIED, unanimously.