National Capital FreeNet Board of Directors Meeting June 17, 1998 - 7:00pm RMOC Headquarters - 111 Lisgar Street, Ottawa Minutes Present: David Sutherland, President aa001 DS Jean Wilmot aa145 JW Jessica Cohen aa724 JC Natalie Munro aa966 NM Chris Hawley ah654 CH Miranda Gray ak717 MG Michael Mason, Secretary an956 MM Jeff Bossert, Treasurer au025 JB Regrets: Andre Vellino, Vice President an386 Andrew Nellis bs904 Absent: Jim Elder aa456 NCF Staff Present: Chris Cope, Executive Director bz787 Sheila Alder, Administrative Coordinator bw306 Yannick Gravel, System Administrator dt136 Members Present: Andre Ouellette bf766 1. Introductions 2. Approval of the minutes of the previous meeting of the board MOTION to approve minutes as posted Moved by Michael Mason, seconded by Miranda Gray. CARRIED (JB absent - arrived at 7:30; JW abstained, all others in favour.) 3. Review of the agenda for this meeting - add item to approve revised Carleton agreement - add item, Andre Ouellette's report 4. Old Business None. 5. Reports b) Executive Director's Monthly Report (Chris Cope) See attached documents for the full report. Chris is watching new member numbers carefully. They are dropping again. Donation money is about half of what (was) predicted. While there are fewer new accounts, the donation levels are higher from new accounts than predicted, so the prediction is as expected for total dollars from registration. The membership drive has been disappointing in terms of numbers. Chris spoke about the results of his first brief group of "Exit survey" responses. The numbers are too small for a trend but respondents showed "general apathy". People don't realize where we are at technically. Some don't use Internet anymore. Chris said that it appears that the key to NCF's future health lies in finding untapped markets (e.g. new seniors' proposal). RMOC turned down grant application as NCF was seen as competing with small business. However NCF was seen as meeting all the other targets of the grant process. (We need to keep aware of this perception as competition, for future proposals.) Still in the plans is doing a proposal for Industry Canada in late summer. We must continue to have one real priority: new members; since new members provide money. We also need to plan for system upgrades to keep members interested in being here. Technical Updates: Yannick got a replacement 1 gig drive from Hardware Canada (under warranty) which will be installed tomorrow. The failure of this disk caused a delay in the implementation of webchat and ftp services. Yannick will resume work on these projects when the drive is ready. Web chat will be open to the world, to try to attract new members. A prominent message will state that this service will be restricted to "members only", later. FTP directly to a member's public html directory is coming. We need to obtain a broader license first. This service will also be available to Information Providers so they can publish directly to the web. The mailing list service is still on hold. Chris Hawley did some work on it and it tested successfully. It is awaiting time in Yannick's schedule. Membership development: Some board members have not yet participated in the membership drive at the Myers location and there is an ongoing need for support of this project. Three sessions will be held in conjunction with the Ottawa Chinese Community Services Centre this coming weekend, June 18 thru 20 Auto-install CD-ROM's are now available at most local libraries. We have the opportunity to host web mail with new Netscape server. This would allow us to run "Hotmail" type service. It could be available for the late summer (authenticated for NCF accounts). NCF and Carleton University have reached an agreement on internet access charges. We have agreed to pay $1,000 per month for internet access. (We were paying $25K per year.) Carleton University is currently assessing their own bandwidth needs so this may need to be re-examined in the near future as their situation stablizes. A month-to-month deal probably good for NCF in long run. Chris will sign the agreement after it is ratified by NCF board. MOTION: to ratify agreement with Carleton to provide T1 access at $1,000 per month, on a month-to-month basis, subject to periodic review by Carleton Moved by Natalie Munro, seconded by Jessica Cohen. CARRIED (all in favour) General discussion: Miranda made a comment regarding web mail. She was concerned about so many technical projects on the go at once. Discussion was held about changing cut-off date for member drive contest. We could extend July 5th date for online registrations, and keep completion and draw announcement date the same (Aug 10, Aug board meeting). Jeff would like to be able to include some more sponsors (would talk to present sponsors first). We might be able to get more press coverage. Jeff said regarding the membership drive that it was nice to see people at Myers. It seems to be fairly accessible. He suggested having booths at shopping centres as a future outreach activity. Miranda commented on promotion of special events. She recommended 6 weeks' lead time based on her experience with the Myers events. (People are still showing up at Myers with old Monitor magazine from 6 weeks ago.) A discussion was held about microwave connection to Cyberus (for provision of bandwidth from Cyberus). Dave and Chris discussed the possible use of modems/tower on the top of Dunton Tower. (The modems belong to university and the tower would be donated). Just one pair of transceivers would be required. Chris and Dave to discuss further outside the meeting. a) Treasurer's Report (Jeff Bossert) Jeff distributed report and revised financial forecast. (See attached documents.) Here are the highlights he drew attention to: -- donations down, particularly with renewals; -- total revenue for month $19,343; -- reduction in telecommunications cost (Carleton) is good news. He also presented a revised financial forecast. Here are the highlights: -- forecast: adjusted based on first 5 months of year; -- includes reduced costs for telecommunciations by reducing phone lines as well as Carleton payments per new agreement; -- based on forecast, will be small negative cash balance in December; -- recommends reducing phone lines as soon as possible; [NB: We may have good news in regards more donated lines from Newbridge soon. Jeff is also working on proposals to Nortel, Corel, Cite Collegial and the University of Ottawa for similar extended access projects.] -- attractive to have off-site lines, as doesn't impact on our system equipment [NB: If we upgraded our modem pool to the same speed, we would need to upgrade our terminal servers as well to achieve an equivalent service level at Carleton University.] Discussion was held on the impact of cancelling lines. Talk centered on the way to phrase the discussion to lessen negative perception. Rather than cancelling or decreasing, the emphasis is on the "switch" to Mitel for higher speed and lower cost. Jeff has spoken with Citrix. This donation seems to be held up as Citrix looks for a local company to provide support. Keating Technologies was approached regarding upgrading modems (this may include access servers also). He also spoke to Plaintree Systems about an 18 port ethernet switch. Yannick needs to confirm system configuration and help Jeff in finalizing this discussion. 6. New Business a) Proposal to decrease dial-up lines (Chris Cope) MOTION: Given the availability of modems at Mitel, the reduced demand on the Carleton modem pool, and our need to control costs, the board moves to reduce number of modem phone lines at Carleton by 48. Moved by Michael Mason, seconded Jeff Bossert. CARRIED (opposed NM, all others in favour). Chris Hawley pointed out this is consistent with the plan to transfer lines out of Carleton to community sites when the extended access program was first planned. b) Membership development and seniors (Chris Cope) Chris described a new project to target seniors' groups where they meet/congregate and help set up Internet Clubs. We need to identify volunteers who will stay with specific project locations while they are developing. He has meetings set up with Abbotsford House on Bank St (Fri Jun 19) and Dayton Centre near Carlingwood Mall (Wed Jun 24). Another possible site is the Good Companions Centre (Lebreton Flats). These centres may eventually be public access sites. Some volunteers already interested but NCF needs to train at least one key volunteer in each centre to assume responsibility. Jeff mentioned that the future Industry Canada proposal could include a number of sites in an umbrella group to get funding (and indirectly increase our revenue by hosting these sites). He is currently working on proposal format, the method of gathering info, and a proposed budget for sites, etc. He suggested members think about other "communities" they might have access to (i.e. Arts community) for similar such outreach opportunities. c) Vacant board position (Dave Sutherland) Andre Vellino has resigned due to personal reasons. Andre Ouellette and Jean's friend are both interested. Jean's friend could be asked to be board secretary (does not have to be on board to serve as Secretary). MOTION: To appoint Andre Ouellette to take Andre Vellino's position on the board until the next annual meeting Moved by Michael Mason, seconded by Natalie Munro. CARRIED (all in favour) Discussion was held regarding the Vice President's position vacated by Andre Vellino. MOTION: To appoint Michael Mason to the position of Vice President. Moved by Miranda Gray, seconded by Jessica Cohen. CARRIED (all in favour) A new secretary still needs to be found. (Jean will ask her friend if they would be interested in this role.) e) Jean - revenue generation Jean raised some concerns about revenue generation. She feels we need to contact members to increase donations and tell them about new services. She raised the question of email to current membership as discussed in a previous board meeting. Chris is currently sending out a Message of the Month (MOM). He will use the information from the renewal menu to draft a brief message on the benefits of membership versus the costs. d) Andre Ouellette report Andre reported on various upcoming NCF events. The annual NCF picnic will be Saturday July 18 (raindate July 25) at Britannia Park. He has challenged the Citizen for Safe Cycling (partners in the fall bike ride event) to a baseball game. We will have music provided by a variety of NCF members. Other people involved include: Miranda (games), Natalie (posters), Jessica (boutique), Sheila and Natalie (donations of prizes and equipment). Chris and Michael will be meeting with M&M Meats regarding the use of a BBQ cart. Planning continues for the Harvest Ride with CFSC in the early fall. The CFSC part of the planning committee is meeting tomorrow. Chris Hawley is looking after washrooms at Newbridge (the site for the event). There will be a volunteer BBQ/pool party at Chris Cope's home on the evening of Thursday, Aug 13. A map and details will follow. 7. Date of next meeting July 21, 1998 - The Olde Forge Community Resource Centre 8. Adjournment -- 9:05 pm