Minutes of the National Capital FreeNet Board Meeting of 19 December, 1995 held in the Honeywell Room, RMOC Headquarters The following Board members were in attendance: Julie Chahal, 2nd Vice President, ab161 Brett Delmage, aa693 Rosaleen Dickson, ac174 Yvonne Dionne, ao594 Chris Hawley, ah654 Rebecca Last, as006 Andrew Patrick, 1st Vice President, aa118 Dave Sutherland, President, aa001 Richard Taylor, Secretary, aa333 Board members absent: David Blackwood, aa332 Scott Catterill, aa355 Jessica Cohen, aa724 David Loan, aa112 Stephen Toy, aa102 Staff: Lisa Donnelly, Executive Director, am412 Ian! Allen, Technical Director, aa610 Gordon Pearson, Director of Development, au167 Sheila Currie-Alder, bw306 Roy Hooper, System Administrator, ad016 Members/Volunteers: Natalie Bartlett, ag380, Alana Boltwood, ad097, Jeff Bossert, au025, Matthew Darwin, xx673, Noreen Dertinger, aa937, Jean-Yves Fortin, ai772, Rachel Elizabeth Gibson, au567, Miranda Gray, ak717, Mike Jankulak, xx821, David Jones, aa457, Michael Mason, xx956, Russell McOrmond, xx302, Doug Milne, am319, Brian Monkman, af088, Natalie Munro, aa966, Andre Oullette, xx766, Mimi Richard, br184, John Stewart, xx104, Andre Vellino, an386. 1. INTRODUCTIONS Welcome Roy Hooper (ad016), new System Administrator. 2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES OF 21 NOVEMBER, 1995 Addition to minutes: In item 7, note that budget allows FreeNet to remain free in 1996. MOTION to approve the minutes: Moved B. Delmage, seconded J. Chahal, approved. 3. AGENDA Items 5 and 8 are for information only. Item 7 no new presentation on the 1996 budget, but some new information. 4. VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR Introduce and thank volunteers of the month: April Matthew Darwin May Al Seaman June Miranda Gray July Andre Ouellette August Andre Velino September Brian Monkman October Michael Mason November John Stewart December Jeff Bossert Volunteer of the year = Miranda Gray, ak717 5. POLICIES Please discuss on-line. 6a. NEW INFORMATION CONCERNING 1996 BUDGET (J. Bossert) Last month's draft budget didn't include Challenge Fund (+$50,000). Indications from Bell Canada mean that phone line costs won't increase as much as expected (+$40,000). Purchase of new modems will not need to be as large because of donation from US Robotics (+$12,000). 6b. STRATEGY DOCUMENT (J. Chahal) Background of planning process. MOTION: I move that we adopt the strategy document as the basis for operational and financial planning for 1996. Moved, J, Chahal, seconded, Chris Hawley. Discussion: A. Patrick distributed a list of 5 areas to be discussed: 1. fundamental assumptions about the success and relevance of the NCF 2. content strategy based on assumption that full migration to the WWW is necessary for important and valuable content 3. access strategy understates the problems of getting access (problem is not just financial) 4. should NCF concentrate on "basic" services or a service for novice and sophisticated users? 5. focus on migration to WWW may not be appropriate, and full implications have not been explored: a. users will have access to GUI WWW browsers via dial-up links to the NCF? b. people will be able to use their dial-up GUI browsers to link to any site on the Internet? There was discussion of fundamental assumptions and relevance, public outreach and visibility. We need a task force to expand details of WWW access. J. Chahal noted that approval of strategy does not automatically approve full GUI access - it asks staff and volunteers to investigate. B. Delmage noted that NCF is still the place to reach the community, but we must provide better service, and we have to be more active in creating a presence on global networks. J-Y. Fortin stated that francophone representation on NCF is much lower than actual fraction of the population of this region. FreePort still doesn't work properly for francophones - Netscape does, and works for other languages too. Please mention francophones as one of the underrepresented groups. Need wider spread public terminals. AMENDMENT: I move that the strategy document be amended to include francophones explicitly as one of the groups that are not being well served now (Public Participation Strategy point 1). Moved, R. Taylor, accepted, J. Chahal) Y. Dionne discussed measures of success (operational indicators). How do we count people who are using NCF info via other routes? A. Patrick suggested we should measure how many people use networks in general, and should not be unhappy that people are moving off NCF. We should also try to measure public awareness of NCF. R. McOrmond said regarding A. Patrick's comment that people move off the FreeNet - this should be interpreted as moving off NCF MODEMS ONLY - we still want all kinds of people on the NCF system. C. Hawley noted that operational indicators are based on current system. We need to think about how to survey more of the general population. Re giving people dial-up GUI - there have been reactions against this idea as being unfair competition. But we have a different mission. D. Sutherland said that 40% of people on-line at any time are not using our modems. Newsgroups are important and attracts membership (not guests). Re ISPs, we help them make money by having interesting content but poor access. If we get better, ISPs will get more customers. Note that lines were the burning issue a year ago, but there seems to be less interest this year. Re storefront access, how about putting it in Hull or Vanier. (Note from S. Currie-Alder - the office still hears a LOT about overloaded lines.) J. Bossert noted that budget can probably handle both outreach and WWW. But organizationally, we will need to spend more on staff for outreach centre. M. Gray noted that not enough has been budgetted for training volunteers to train others. There is not enough strategy emphasis on training. A. Patrick expressed concern about no new modems. J. Bossert replied that there will be more higher speed modems, increased computer power, ethernet switch. The Finance Committee is concerned about long term costs of lines (5 year rate). A. Patrick wondered about NCF's role in the community when the emphasis is on transition to WWW. Worry about less focus on other aspects, such as access, training, what's there once on, relationship with community. Re content, look at showcounts on menu items - people come for mail, newsgroups, external access. If we change our system, we will distract ourselves with many problems, and put barriers in the way of low-end users. C. Hawley replied yes, email and newsgroup are important NCF services. Helps link people of this region. D. Sutherland noted that Carleton's CHAT and Chebucto suite are examples of text-based WWW servers. We must continue to serve text-only people (eg blind users). J-Y. Fortin works with schools. Students need to communicate via networks. Secondary school students can help with training. They want to use WWW format. HTML is an open standard that is widely used, FreePort is closed and not widely used. Training and expertise in HTML authoring is more useful and portable. R. Taylor noted that people also use NCF to learn how to set up modems and communication software - we need to teach people the most wide-spread tools and methods. J. Chahal: We seem to be in basic agreement with the strategy. Point of contention is how much WWW access to provide. MOTION I move that we defer the motion on strategy document. This should follow our three pass process. Moved, A. Patrick, seconded, R. Dickson. Discussion: For deferral: (AP) This is a major, important document. It is no longer just a Planning Committee document, but is being considered by the full board. Most of budget doesn't depend on this. There are some controversial decisions. There is no rush, why do it quickly? Against deferral: (JC) Strategy of some sort must be used in preparing budget. In fact the draft budget was based on an earlier draft of this strategy document. We're kidding ourselves if we defer. (YD, RL and CH) This is STRATEGY not implementation. Implementation is a separate issue. Strategy does not prioritize either. There are many actions that need to be taken based on this strategy. Therefore we should approve strategy first. We can modify implementation details later. (BD) This was given to Board Planning Committee as a means of putting a lot of work into a well-though-out strategy. (JB and DS) it's wise to start a new year with a budget. This is second reading of budget. Strategy should come before budget. MOTION to defer was DEFEATED. MOTION to approve strategy document (as amended) CARRIED. MOTION to reconsider strategy in January. Moved, A. Patrick, seconded, R. Dickson DEFEATED. 7. BUDGET Note that cash position is actually $45,000 better than that shown last month. MOTION I move that we adopt the budget as stated. Moved, R. Taylor, seconded, B. Delmage. Discussion: J. Bossert noted that there are some changes needed to the budget: in the existing financial position, and due to the accepted strategy document. D. Sutherland suggested that we approve a base budget and split off a discretionary portion. Need to define. There was much discussion of discretionary vs. base items. SECONDARY MOTION I move that the draft budget be revised to separate base items from "strategic" items. The following items would be removed from the base budget: Expenses: Public events - remove $1000 leaving $0 Capital Acquisitions: Computers - remove $25,000 leaving $0 Hard Disks - remove $5,000 leaving $5,000 WWW Server Software - remove $2,000 leaving $0 Member Database - remove 7,500 leaving $5,000 WWW GUI Design - remove $2,500 leaving $0 Modems - remove $4,800 leaving $0 Moved, A. Patrick, seconded, R. Last. CARRIED. There was a brief discussion on how to budget the "strategic" or discretionary items. Since the actual expenditures will depend heavily on the details of how the strategy is implemented, it may be more reasonable to take the expected resources above the base budget, and allocate them to a few main areas. D. Sutherland suggested the following guideline: 1) Increase number of phone lines by 25% 2) Transition to WWW - use best available figures 3) Member database $7,500 4) Outreach - remainder. Y. Dionne suggested that we should create new committees to look at the three discretionary items. B. Delmage discussed the separation of volunter coordinator vs outreach staff, and suggested the budget add possible revenues to the Outreach project. L. Donnelly noted that we can get ideas from other FreeNets. Motion to pass amended base budget CARRIED unanimously. NOTE: the Finance Committee is requested to prepare the revised financial position and discrectionary budget for the January meeting, as per the suggestions above. 8. REPORTS Reports are on-line. There were a few comments: M. Gray noted that we don't HAVE an AGM committee! We need to get organized for the 1996 AGM. L. Donnelly reminded everyone of the NCF birthday party Feb 1 1996. L. Donnelly will e-mail the Board re members of complaints committee. B. Delmage asked when the funding drive would begin. G. Pearson replied Real Soon Now. 9. NEXT MEETING The next meeting will be held on the FOURTH Tuesday of January: Tuesday, 23 January, 1996, in the Honeywell Room, RMOC. 10. ADJOURN Moved, A. Patrick, seconded, C. Hawley.