Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Capital FreeNet held on April 18, 2000 at 7:00 pm at the RMOC - Billings Room 111 Lisgar St. PRESENT: Graeme Beckett aw958 GB Sandy Campbell dt820 SC Jessica Cohen Secretary aa724 JC Miranda Gray ak717 MG Seline Herz-Fischler as370 SH Pippa Lawson au771 PL Michael Mason President an956 MMa Mark Mielke al278 MMi David Millman aa342 DM Jim Wright ah311 JW REGRETS: Jeff Bossert Treasurer au025 JB STAFF PRESENT: Christopher Cope Executive Director bz787 Sheila C. Alder Administrative Coordinator bw306 Andre Dalle System Administrator al178 GUESTS: Marissa Bovey bh590 Patrick Campbell az579 Michael DiCola ae965 Scott McBride en064 John Stewart aa104 Galen Thurber ac232 Jean Wilmot aa145 Minute Taker: Jessica Cohen 1. INTRODUCTION The meeting was called to order at 7:05 p.m. with Michael Mason as Chair and Jessica Cohen as Secretary. 2. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES As at the time of this agenda item, only two of the Board members who had attended the previous meeting were present (Sandy Campbell and Jessica Cohen), this item was deferred to the following meeting. 3. REVIEW OF THE AGENDA An in-camera session was added before item 4a) to deal with a CRC appeal by a member. IN CAMERA SESSION At this point the Board went in-camera to discuss a CRC action involving a specific member. MOVED by Sandy Campbell, SECONDED by Pippa Lawson that Board accept the findings of the CRC with respect to the member in question, and that the Board restore full PPP access to the member's account, with the understanding that if the incident in question occurs again, PPP access would be permanently revoked. MOTION CARRIED: IN FAVOUR: GB SC JC MG SH PL MMa MMi JW ABSTAINED: DM 4. OLD BUSINESS 4a) Board Retreat (Jessica Cohen) Jessica reminded people that the Board Retreat was coming up on Sunday May 7th, and outlined the draft agenda for the Retreat. The Retreat will be held at Temple Israel Synagogue, on May 7th, from 11:00 am to approx 7:30 pm. The draft outlined: setting up , introductory exercises" from 11 - 12:30 , lunch from 12:30 - 1:15 (pizza, provided by NCF) , 3 volunteer presentation periods on membership, technical , and information provider's from 1:30 - 4:20 , Board only discussions on how to work as a Board, as well as overall discussion of goals after hearing the inputs from 4:30 - 6:30, and a potluck dinner from 6:30 - 7:30. Board alumni were invited to participate for the entire day. The budget for this event was $50 rental to Temple Israel, and the cost of paper supplies (flip pad, markers, pens) and some general food supplies (coffee, soft drinks, pizza). 4b) Review of Information Provider Services (Jessica Cohen) Jessica suggested that this item be deferred to the May meeting, after we had held our Board retreat , and this was agreed to. 5. REPORTS 5a) Treasurer's Report (Jean Wilmot) Jean Wilmot spoke to this item in Jeff's absence. Alison has resigned as the accountant, due to not having enough time with her new job and school. She has submitted January and February statements to Jeff who will convert them to a readable format and send them to the Board. Meanwhile Jean and Jeff are looking into how much it would cost to hire a firm to do the accounting. 5b) Post - AGM Report (Jessica Cohen) Jessica reported that there had been 256 voters this year. The motions all passed, and the 6 candidates who were elected to the Board were: Graeme Beckett, Michael Mason, Mark Mielke, Seline Herz-Fischler, David Millman (2 year term), Sandy Campbell (1 year term). Jessica stated that she would be writing a more detailed report, including recommended changes to the software and/or user interface, and that she would be enlisting Mark's help to make these changes to the software. The written report will be copied to the Board when it is written. 5c) Executive Director's Report (Chris Cope) Chris distributed copies of and touched on updates from the Executive Director's report. - The new terminal server is up and running at Mitel - Equipment at Carleton is being updated, we will be at 70% 28.8 modems in the Carleton modem pool Miranda asked about the flyers, when and where are they being delivered. Chris replied that the flyer blitz is planned for the 3rd weekend in May, and will be concentrating in the K1Y and K1R postal code areas (near Parkdale, up to Bronson). The plan is to try to get 20000 flyers out in this flyer run. The flyers will be printed in a different colour from the other ones, to help gauge the success rate of the flyer run in attracting new members. - the online Visa is currently disabled, until a secure line can be run to the printer. The current connection (a serial cable running from the Administration building to Dunton tower) is not working properly. 6. NEW BUSINESS 6a) CRC Committee membership Jessica announced that she had spoken to Natalie on the phone today, and that Natalie had suggested that David Millman be added to the CRC team as the Board liaison. As Dave had already offered to volunteer in this capacity, this was agreed to. ACTION: Sheila will add him to the complaints alias. Jim mentioned that some of the information online about the CRC seemed to be quite out of date, and Miranda replied that she nagged Natalie regularly about updating it. It was acknowledged that it would be nice of the info could be updated soon. CRC will try to do this soon. 6b) Motion submitted by Jim Wright (Jim Wright) The following motion was moved by Jim Wright: "That a list of any money paid to Directors (past and present), staff (past and present), companies (either owned by or an employee of) and close relatives of directors (past and present) and/or staff (past and present) beyond salaries, since National Capital FreeNet's inception, be made available to board members by May 12, 2000." There was some discussion on this motion, concerns raised where that as read it sounded to some Board members like it was accusatory, the fact that this would require extra reports from the accountant including categories that NCF does not usually use, and the observation that our financial information was already thoroughly audited, and was there really a need to repeat the audit, and even if we wanted to do this kind of report, did it need to go back to the start of NCF? The above motion was called to a vote: MOVED by Jim Wright, SECONDED by Miranda Gray, as outlined above. MOTION DEFEATED. IN FAVOUR: MMi JW OPPOSED: GB SC JC MG PL ABSTAINED: SH MMa DM Miranda then moved the following motion: "Moved that at the May in-camera session of the Board, the HR discussion include a written document from our Treasurer disclosing payments to the Board or their extended family , during their tenure, in the past two years" MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Jim Wright. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: JC MG SH PL MMi JW AGAINST: GB SC ABSTAINED: MMa DM Pippa asked about the fundraiser position item for the Harvest Ride that had been causing a stir in the board newsgroup. Jean replied that the newsgroup statements had misinterpreted the costs, since the costs for the Harvest Ride were all rolled up in the statements. Miranda stated that the paid fundraiser had been carried over from the previous year; at the 1st joint harvest ride a fundraiser had been hired, and it was decided by the organizers that this should be done in the 2nd year as well. 7. ANNOUNCEMENTS The outgoing Board members were thanked for their contributions to the Board. The incoming Board members were welcomed to the Board. The candidates were thanked for running in the 2000 AGM. Chris announced that the Volunteer Centre of Ottawa Carleton was looking for a Director of Community Relations, if we knew anyone who would be interested . Chris also announced that he was in the process of updating the Board manual, and copies would be distributed when it was ready. Jessica reminded everyone that the Board Retreat was coming up soon (May 7th). Mark was thanked for bringing pizza and pop to the meeting. 8. DATE OF NEXT MEETING May 16, 2000 at 7:00 pm RMOC - Billings Room 111 Lisgar St. 9. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned to an in camera session with the Human Resources Committee.