Minutes of the National Capital FreeNet Board Meeting July 15, 1997 - 7:00pm Held at the St. Laurent Branch of the Ottawa Public Library PRESENT: Jeff Bossert, Treasurer, au025 JB Jessica Cohen, aa724 JC Jim Elder, aa456 JE Michael Mason, Secretary, an956 MM Dave Sutherland, President/Chairman, aa001 DS Jean Wilmot, aa145 JW REGRETS: Natalie Munro, aa966 NM Andre Vellino, Vice President, an386 AV ABSENT: Chris Hawley, ah654 CH NCF Staff Present: Christopher Cope, Executive Director, bz787 Yannick Gravel, System Administrator, xx136 Sheila Alder, Administrative Coordinator, xx001 NCF Members Present: E. O'Driscoll, Minute Taker, af995 Jean-Yves Fortin, ai772 Shady Kanfi, ai922 1. INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dave Sutherland took the chair and Michael Mason acted as Secretary of the meeting. Directors being present and notice of the meeting having been duly given, the meeting was declared to be properly constituted for the conduct of business. 2. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Chairman tabled the draft minutes, amended, of the last meeting of the Board held in June 1997 which, upon motion made by Jean Wilmot, seconded by Jeff Bossert and carried with all in favour, were approved. 3. REVIEW OF THE AGENDA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ It was proposed that an item regarding the Ottawa Public Library proposal and a report on the progress with Mitel be added. It was also noted that the resignation of directors should also be discussed. 4. REPORTS ~~~~~~~~~~ a) Treasurer's Report Jeff Bossert, Treasurer, presented a summary of the month's report. Revenue from donations in June totalled $11,057 with approximately $8,500 coming from renewals. There was a one-time overlap of expenses on the Admin. and Professional Fees as a result of the overlap in the Executive Director position. The invoice from Carleton University has arrived. Overall the cash balance is approximately $95,000 with approximately $18,000 in accounts payable which puts the cash position very close to the budgeted predictions. Jeff spoke briefly about a question that arose at the last board meeting with regards to the possible need for a financial forecast. Jeff observed that donations have trailed off, as predicted for the summer months. The next five months should be fairly flat in terms of donations. Although donations are somewhat lower than budgeted, the predicted expenses are also lower. If the current trend continues, expenses will exceed revenues by approximately $1,000 per month, which means that by the end of the year the net result will only be $5,000 lower than predicted, which is close to budget. The cash balance at the beginning of the year was about $50,000 and that is the same amount that is predicted for the end of 1997. Chris Cope informed the board that there is not yet anything concrete to report regarding possible increased returns on the cash in the bank. Jim Elder graphed renewal data and presented it to the Board. The graph showed the distribution of renewals, the drop off in renewals related to time, archiving and how it relates to revenue distribution. It was suggested that a chart like this might be useful for forecasting and budgeting. It was noted that financial reports are often more easily read in spreadsheet form. It was suggested that financial reports might be better done in spreadsheet format but problems might arise in posting them online. Jeff Bossert asked if anyone heard what was happening to the members of PublicNet. There might be some new NCF members recruited as a result of it closing. b) Executive Director's Report Christopher Cope, NCF's Executive Director, presented his monthly report and mentioned some of the hilights: - KPMG Peat Marwick Thorne renewed its connection sponsorship for another year. - The Trillium Foundation has confirmed receiving our grant application. Visits to Key Partners have had varied results: Oracle has agreed to donate the latest version of its database product and has also volunteered to help with its implementation. Netscape has stated that anything that is on their website can be tried out during the 60 day trial period and then will arrange to register the software that NCF would like to continue using. Fulcrum Technologies will possibly donate some Unix boxes in the not-too-distant future. The National Research Council has a search engine that they may donate for NCF's use. The "SPAM" Desk is now up and running. There was a minor glitch with the newsgroup and its moderation but it is in the process of being fixed. Members will be able to send material to the SPAM Desk via e-mail or the newsgroup. The procedure to deal with spam was outlined, with NCF contacting the proper contact people at the various sites. The first incident would result in a 1-week block, the second would result in being blocked for a month, then the third would result in permanent blocking. An appropriate amount of correspondence would be exchanged before any blocking would happen. Some members have asked that their accounts be unarchived. Yannick has streamlined the archiving process. Members whose accounts are unarchived have tended to donate. 5765 accounts had been archived so far in July. In total, approximately 25,000 accounts were archived. The question of how many remaining accounts were active arose, and the answer was between 15,000 and 30,000 with a suggestion that it may be around 17,000. A request was made to Chris that the top-5 priorities for the Executive Director and the System Administrator be brought to the Board on a monthly basis. 5. INFORMATION ITEMS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a) Information Manager Trainers Team Setup Sheet Chris Cope noted that Jessica is heading this project. The plan is to operate with Virtual Ventures to help new information manager trainers to get started. Training in helping the building of FreePages and NCF FreePort menus will be offered. This training will be available to new and existing IMs who wish to upgrade their skills. b) Net Abuse Response Team (Spam Desk) Setup Sheet: Chris discussed the spam desk setup sheet and informed the board that Andrew Nellis will moderate the spam desk newsgroup and direct the actions of the rest of the spam desk volunteers. It is anticipated that this will be a busy job. Richard Bethell is going to stand in for Andrew when he is away. c) Mitel Using their internet backbone, they will host 32 modems for NCF and possibly more. Originally, it was proposed that there be 3 partners, but it has since been decided that NCF could try the concept out and then share with other partners if it works out because 32 modems is not enough for all 3. A timeline for this project is to be brought to the next meeting. d) NCF's Public Profile Some discussion arose about partnerships, public profile and ways to gain publicity for NCF as a result of donations of hardware/software and line sponsorships. It was proposed that a project to advertise NCF's new services in conjunction with the added lines etc to the various segments of the NCF member population. Timing is important as students in the fall return to school and thus it would be a good time to recruit. It was asked if the addition of new access lines would have repercussions on server power. It was noted that there should be no noticeable impact on the NCF servers due to the manner that the 32 lines will be used. Finally, it was determined that it may be long-distance for Orleans residents who try to reach these new lines, however the local calling area would be extended to the west due to the physical location of the new modems. e) Ottawa Public Library Authentication/Access Project There may be some required changes to the registration process and perhaps another type of NCF member may have to be created to make this project work. Technical difficulties remain which need to be addressed before this project can proceed. Yannick, Chris & Dave are to discuss technical issues further. It was suggested that a 'real' id may not need to be created. 6. NEW BUSINESS ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a) Resignation of Directors Jean was tasked with drawing up key characteristics re the appointment of new directors. She passed around a summary: Background: Key objective for NCF right now is to enhance our services. With finances being tight, we will have to achieve these enhancements through creative partnerships with other organisations that provide benefits with low cost. Therefore, someone with skills in developing these partnerships is extremely important. The board already has skill sets in the areas of technology, fianance, volunteer management and planning. Characteristics Sought: - strong marketing/partnership skills - good communication and leadership skills - middle to senior manager with many contacts in industry - comfortable with technology Jean did not put forward specific names, rather there was some discussion on the required qualities. The board was asked to put forward names and/or add to the list of characteristics sought. It was suggested that someone with legal background might be a useful addition to the board. Also, it was suggested that an accountant or someone with accounting background be recruited. Some comparison of NCF with the MEC(?) model and other non-profits etc. The idea that NCF should contemplate reinvesting in order to grow as opposed to continue to grow at a rather slow pace was brought forward. As a result, it is likely that someone with these ideals would be a good person to recruit. Further discussion re what NCF is versus ISPs and how the goal of getting 40% of Ottawa-Carleton's population online occurred, simply to see if and when we would be interested in getting someone to get us closer to that goal. Given that there are 2 positions available and that there are willing volunteers to take up the vacant board positions, we would not be interested in keeping the positions open for long. National Public Relations is an NCF Partner and is the largest marketing firm in Canada - would someone from there be interested? Various board members have contacts within that organization, though no names were brought forward during the discussion. It is desired that a list of potential candidates brought to the next meeting. 7. DATE OF THE NEXT MEETING ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, August 19, 1997 at 7:00pm at the Olde Forge Community Resource Centre, 2730 Carling Avenue (at the corner of Richmond Road). 8. ADJOURNMENT ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There being no further business the meeting adjourned at 9:05pm.