NCF Executive Committee Meeting 1995-09-08 4:00pm Room 504 Robertson Hall Present: Jeff Bossert, Treasurer Julie Chahal, Second Vice Chair Lisa Donnelly, Executive Director Richard Taylor, Secretary Absent: Andrew Patrick, First Vice Chair (Dave Sutherland dropped in briefly before departing for another meeting.) Minutes: 1. Changing the moderator of ncf.board-discussion-moderated Julie Chahal asked that someone else take over as moderator of this newsgroup. Richard Taylor volunteered to do so. Julie will send a message to Ian Allen to request the change, and will send Richard a copy of a standard message in reply to people asking to post inappropriate messages. 2. Complaints procedure Lisa Donnelly distributed a rough draft of a complaints procedure for comment prior to posting in the ncf.board- discussion-moderated newsgroup. The complaints procedure and another draft Acceptable Use Policy from Miranda Gray will be brought to the full Board at the September meeting. Suggestions: - need to complete detailed criteria for warning and suspension - we should recruit another volunteer for a three-person Complaints Committee from the membership - if Complaints Committee cannot reach a unanimous decision, then there should be further investigation by the Executive or full Board - Complaints Committee should maintain a database of complaints handled, categorized by User Agreement clause 3. Hardware purchases Lisa Donnelly presented an update of recent hardware purchases and donations. Hardware Canada has agreed to donate a new SPARC station to accompany our $30,000 order of other equipment. This should arrive by the end of the month. The new computer will be used as our news server. Ian Allan will post the installation plan. We will be gradually moving to the Solaris operating system. For our next step, Lisa recommends expanding with a small number of additional phone lines. However recent announcements from Bell Canada seem to indicate that Bell will be providing Internet access at low cost. This may mean that NCF can move away from providing access and focus on being a focus for community information and interaction. Lisa will investigate contacts at Bell Canada and try to invite someone to speak to the Board. 4. Administrative office update Recently, NCF has been offered a larger office space at Carleton University (Dunton Tower), with more phone and ethernet connections. Lisa asked the Executive whether we should purchase some more office equipment to support a larger number of staff and volunteers working in this office. The Executive agreed that Lisa has the authority to use the budget intended for moving the office. 5. Additional business Guest access: the Executive confirmed the earlier Board discussion regarding what NCF features guests should be allowed to access. Guests should be allowed to have full read access to both NCF and USENET newsgroups. The Executive Director has the authority to restrict guest access to USENET newsgroups if there is evidence of members abusing this privilege to circumvent time limits. Lisa Donnelly's contract is coming up for renewal soon. Lisa will e-mail a copy of this contract to the Board. Jeff Bossert will review the contract and prepare it for signature by Dave Sutherland. No changes are needed at this time. It was agreed that the location of Executive meetings could be changed as long as access to the location and parking were convenient to all. Discussions with Ian Allen are leaning toward the option of NCF hiring a full-time junior system administrator with Ian going to a part-time contract. Upon analysis of budget options more information will be provided. 6. NCF budget principles and guidelines Julie Chahal suggested that there should be a single budget item for all staff expenses, and that this should include funds for staff development and conference attendance. There is a need for a paid volunteer coordinator; Jeff Bossert will see if the 1996 budget will allow this. There needs to be better accountability to the Board for staff compensation. Lisa Donnelly will prepare a briefing on staff compensation for an in-camera meeting of the Board at the October meeting. There was a short discussion of the possible need for a budget item for Board expenses. This should be discussed with the full Board. 7. Fall priorities for Executive members Jeff Bossert will be focusing on the 1996 budget, staff contract renewals, and the Board Manual. Julie Chahal will be very busy with non-NCF work. She will try to continue organizing the Planning Committee. Richard Taylor will continue to clean up the Policy area, the historical minutes and will assist in getting the updated Board Manual on-line. 8. The meeting adjourned on time at 6:00pm.