SUMMARY * Thank you to outgoing directors, welcome to new and ongoing directors * Board orientation * Report from the Complaints Resolution Committee Resolutions: * Accepted recommendations from the AGM for Rules and Regulations ----------------- Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors of the NATIONAL CAPITAL FREENET held on Tuesday, March 18, 1997 at 7:00pm at the Headquarters of the Regional Municipality of Ottawa-Carleton, Ottawa, Ontario. Present: Jeff Bossert, Treasurer, au025 JB Jessica Cohen, aa724 JC Yvonne Dionne, ao594 YD Jim Elder, Secretary, aa456 JE Chris Hawley, ah654 CH Natalie Munro, aa966 NM Michael Mason, an956 MM Andre Vellino, an386 AV Jean Wilmot, aa145 JW Absent: Dave Sutherland, President/Chairman, aa001 DS Nadia Diakun-Thibault, ab341 NDT NCF staff present: Lisa Donnelly, NCF Executive Director, xx412, Shiela Alder, NCF Administrative Coordinator, xx001 Yannick Gravel, NCF System Administrator NCF members present: Jean-Yves Fortin Minute-taker: Denise Skrypkar Jeff Bossert took the chair and Jim Elder 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. On behalf of the Board and members, Jeff thanked directors Julie Chahal, Rosaleen Dickson, Richard Taylor, and Rebecca Last, whose terms ended, for their contributions and accomplishments during their terms. Julie will continue as an officer (Vice President) until the Board elects new officers in May, as per last year's bylaw change. Welcome to new directors Michael Mason, Andre Vellino and Jean Wilmot, and to ongoing directors. MINUTES OF THE PREVIOUS MEETING The Chairman tabled the draft minutes, amended, of the last meeting of the Board held in February 1997 which, upon motion made by Jean Wilmot, seconded by Natalie Munro, and carried with all in favour, were approved. REVIEW OF THE AGENDA Tabling of the report from the Bylaw committee was removed (Nadia was absent); a report from the Complaints Resolution Committee was added. TREASURER'S REPORT Jeff Bossert, Treasurer, distributed copies of the audited financial statements for 1996 and unaudited statements for Jan and Feb 1997. Effective January, the classification of revenues has been changed to more closely match NCF's shift from reliance on funding raising to donations from renewing and registering members. Donations during Jan/Feb were quite close to budget, with expenses below budget (mostly due to staffing below budget). No line sponsorships were received in either month, substantially below budget. This shortfall was attributed to lack of staff time and reliance on already busy volunteers. Some discussion on how line sponsorship revenue could be improved. Compliments to Rudy Wytenburg, accountant to NCF, for the new format of the statements. EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR'S REPORT Lisa Donnelly, Executive Director, introduced Yannick Gravel, NCF's new system administrator. Yannick gave the board a brief summary of his experience and interests. The board welcomed Yannick warmly. Lisa presented highlights from her monthly report. The account renewal process is proceeding well and with response rates continuing as expected. The renewal rate is steadily increasing and many are donating with renewal. This week, Lisa expects a further phase of the renewal process to be put in place for handling unrenewed accounts (rather than just archiving accounts that are long past renewal, they will be limited to 10 minute sessions for a while before being archived, just in case the account is still wanted and the person is simply procrastinating). Sheila Alder, office coordinator, reports that renewals are processed within a day or two and that her 'army' of volunteers could handle double the current renewal rate. NCF welcomes a donation by Cyberus Online of ten modems. These will be used to upgrade the Internet Sampler pool (displaced modems will replace unreliable 9600 modems in other modem banks). Preparations are beginning for an online auction. Michael Mason will coordinate the activity. There was some concern that previous auctions have required much support from staff and that this year there is little time available; Lisa feels she can provide up to 8 hrs per month for this. Michael reassured the board that this would be sufficient and expects to be able to handle the auction with little requirement for staff support. The auction was seen as having team-building value within the membership and community profile as much as (perhaps more than) a revenue source. Lisa presented a report from the AGM task force. The board welcomed the input and thanks the task force for the operation of the AGM. OLD BUSINESS 1. Update from the Executive Director hiring committee Jean Wilmot is coordinating the search for a new executive director. The committee will consist of Jean Wilmot, Jeff Bossert, Dave Sutherland, Lisa Donnelly, and Jim Elder. The tentative schedule is to begin advertising by the beginning of April, start interviews in May, and hire for June, allowing overlap with the existing ED, who leaves June 27. Jean will keep the board informed of developments. NEW BUSINESS 1. Board Manuals and Calendar Lisa Donnelly conducted a brief orientation for new board members by reviewing the contents of the board manual. Lisa will provide updated board manuals at the next meeting. Lisa reviewed the board calendar, including major NCF events. A list of possible NCF projects based on the 1997 strategy was distributed to the Board. With three staff it is challenging for NCF to accomplish the many community services it would like. The Board members were asked which projects may be of interest to them for future volunteer work. [There was a short recess. Jeff Bossert excused himself and Jim Elder chaired the remainder of the meeting] 2. Review of operational procedure regarding 'crossposting' Natalie Munro brought to the Board's attention a refined operational policy that will be used by staff and members to judge what is excessive crossposting (posting of essentially identical content to many newsgroups, especially off-topic content). Natalie will incorporate some suggestions and give the material to staff for posting in the policy area. 3. Receiving recommendations from the AGM for Rules and Regulations There were several "motions from the floor" at the recent AGM that were recommendations to the Board for Rules and Regulations. The membership suggests the following: Motion: The National Capital Freenet shall not require renewal of its membership on a mass or random basis. The membership voted to NOT recommend this motion to the Board. Motion: I, Miranda Gray (ak717@freenet.carleton.ca) move that the National Capital FreeNet change its practices regarding ncf.* newsgroups to lessen the walls between NCF members and other participants in the local online community by 1) encouraging the creation of more ott.* newsgroups, 2) encouraging its Information Providers to consider alternatives to private ncf.* newsgroups and 3) discouraging the use of ncf.sig.* newsgroups when a comparable ott.* newsgroups exists or is created. The membership voted to NOT recommend this motion to the Board. Motion: Be it resolved that the NCF allow access to hierarchies of regional interest (e.g. ott.*, qc.*, can.*) through its NNTP server in the same way news.* and ncf.* are currently available. The membership voted to NOT recommend this motion to the Board. Motion: NCF is a large group of people (over 60,000) joining together to share expenses and do something good for themselves and their community. I move an expression of gratitude to everyone making NCF possible, including: * volunteers (including members of the board of directors), * staff, * community and corporate partners, * everyone providing community content * all the many thousands of members who donate to support NCF The membership voted to RECOMMEND this motion to the Board. Moved by Andre Vellino, seconded by Michael Mason, that the Board accept the above-mentioned recommendations from the membership. DS JB JC NDT YD JE CH MM NM AV JW Votes: - - y - y y - y y y y The Board thanks everyone who makes NCF possible, especially the members and community partners. 4. Report from the Complaints Resolution Committee Natalie Munro updated the Board on matters of the Complaints Resolution Committee (CRC). Natalie reports that complaints regarding the IRC SIG have dramatically declined since the IRC SIG members decided to operate their newsgroup as a moderated newsgroup. The tone of the newsgroup and service is reported as being much improved. The Board was pleased to hear this (there had been some concern in the past and suggestions that the service be closed) and congratulates those involved in successfully resolving the problems. Natalie reports that the moderator of the IRC SIG newsgroup operates under an alias. There are other instances of this at NCF (eg., moderation of the annoucement and board discussion groups), but in this instance the moderator is anonymous to avoid personal attacks. Any complaints from members about moderation of that group will be attributable to the moderator since the moderator is known to NCF. Natalie reports that about 5% of postings are being returned by the IRC SIG moderator to the poster as being inappropriate. There was some discussion of how moderators operate. The CRC has special interest in the operation of the IRC SIG because of the number of complaints in the past that arise from participants in the IRC SIG that the CRC must handle. The CRC feels that the IRC SIG moderator can do a better job if provided with information about problems that the CRC is dealing with. The CRC proposed a labour-saving mechanism of adding the IRC SIG moderator to the CRC alias, but general consensus was that the CRC mailing alias should include only CRC members appointed by the board, and that if the CRC felt that information ought to be provided to anyone, that be done explicitly and separately on an as-required basis. There was general consensus that the CRC should maintain a distance from the operation of the IRC SIG, just as it does from other SIGs, so as not to have the possibility of appearing to take responsibility for the SIG. Similarly, the CRC may draw on technical expertise as required but ought not routinely distribute information to non-CRC members. There was general consensus that the CRC is doing a good job and much pleasure that members find the IRC SIG improved. NEXT MEETING The next meeting will be Tuesday, April 15, 1997 at 7pm at a location to be announced. ADJOURNMENT There being no further business the meeting then ended.