Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors of the National Capital FreeNet held on May 16, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. 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 Mark Mielke al278 MM David Millman aa342 DM REGRETS: Jim Wright ah311 JW STAFF: Christopher Cope Executive Director bz787 Sheila C. Alder Administrative Coordinator bw306 Andre Dalle System Administrator al178 GUESTS: Marissa Bovey bh590 Patrick Campbell az579 Howard Eisenberger ag221 Mike Kenzie ba600 Scott McBride en064 Michael Philip Sinclair dz696 MINUTE TAKER: Joan Robertson cw055 1. INTRODUCTIONS The meeting was called to order at 7:05 p.m. with Jessica Cohen as Chair and Secretary. 2. APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES March Minutes: (this vote was actually held at the end of the meeting, in the hopes that another of the Board members who had been present at the March meeting would have arrived). MOVED by Miranda Gray and SECONDED by Jessica Cohen that the minutes of the March meeting be approved. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: SC JC MG MM ABSTAINED: GB SH DM April Minutes: In item 6b) , the word "position" was added after the word fundraiser in the discussion on the Harvest Ride. MOVED by Miranda Gray and SECONDED by Seline Herz-Fischler that the minutes of April 18, 2000 be approved. MOTION CARRIED IN FAVOUR: JC MG SH DM ABSTAINED: ? SC ABSENT: GB MM 3. REVIEW OF AGENDA The Treasurer's report was removed from the agenda. The former accountant, Rudy Wytenburg, has taken over accounting duties for now, checks will be processed at the end of the month as usual, and financial statements will be prepared and presented at the June meeting by whomever is appointed interim Treasurer tonight. 4. OLD BUSINESS On behalf of the Board, Seline congratulated the organizers , Jessica Cohen and Miranda Gray, of the Board Retreat held on May 7, 2000. 4a) Review of Information Provider Services (Jessica Cohen) Chris submitted a report, NCF Services for Information Providers, on February 20, 2000. It outlines the services NCF currently offers, and the services under development. Miranda asked Chris which services are being developed aggressively. Listserve: The software for this (majordomo) is in place, and Sheila has been trained to setup mailing lists, and an experimental web interface for list maintenance is in place. What is still needed is some operational policies (e.g. with respect to # of lists, # of people on lists, disk space usage, etc). MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Seline Herz-Fischler that we form a committee to set policy for the majordomo usage, to be brought back to the next meeting , for planned rollout of the service in the summer. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously. ACTION: Miranda, Sheila, and Mike Kenzie volunteered to work on this. Webboards: Experimental software for this is in place, though not so far advanced in it's development. We will also have to consider whether we want to offer them in a general way. Domain Hosting: Chris suggested that we should delay looking at this in detail until the bandwidth issues have settled. It is possible, although labour intensive, and we could consider offering it at a fee, to cover the costs. Technically is possible, we are currently hosting the Volnet domain. Cgi-scripts: While we don't want to provide completely open access to the cgi-bin directory for people to write their own cgi's , there are various tools that could be made available to NCF IP providers as a set of cgi tools that they can use. (e.g. webbased forums, counters, mailin forms). Many IP's are already using these tools found on the web, or have an idea of what type of tools they are looking for, if we ask them. Some information providers have already provided this information to Jessica , in reference to the discussion at the Board Retreat. ACTION: Chris will prepare a mailout to Information Providers, with the replies to be sent to Jessica, who will compile a list of suggested tools (including the locations of the ones that are already available to the general public on the web). Web Design: Lyn Shouldice is working on a document about the web design course, based on the courseware from the Volnet course on web design. Miranda suggested that a follow-up discussion on Information Provider services come back in 3 months. ACTIONS: as outlined above. The follow-up discussion will be placed on the agenda at the August Board meeting. 5. REPORTS 5a) Treasurer's Report was deferred to the June Board meeting. 5b) Executive Director's Report (Chris Cope) Updates: Five Key Indicators: Jessica asked for a clarification of the figures for March and April figures. ACTION: Chris will email out the corrected figures for the ED report. 3com modems: most of the modem cards have arrived. There was a wrinkle that turned up in the test with the menu response. One solution will be to set up separate modem pools for text or ppp users, but Colin McFayden thinks he can get the new modems to show the menu properly, which is the preferable solution (to limit the # of phone numbers that members have to know). Mitel: The possibility of connecting is now good, and the handshake problems are being resolved. Flyers: The flyer blitz has been moved to June 3rd. Smart Communities: Jeff Bossert has offered to take lead on NCF portion of things, or work with Board member who wishes to take lead on this, to develop detailed plan based on project requirements. Urban Cap: Ottawa Urban Cap continues, with OCRI taking lead role, looking at project to setup consortium of urban cap sites. NCF has been invited sit on the Steering Committee. Thin Client: Jessica reported that Jeff Bossert will continue to act as the lead for this project. Webmail: This project is on hold pending development funding from HRDC. Miranda stated that offering this service was mission critical. She suggested that Chris include information on this in the presentation he makes at the June Board meeting (referring to Chris asking that agenda time be available for a staff presentation at the June or July meeting). Chris said that webmail would be included in the presentation, although the presentation will be more likely at the July meeting, and will involve input from all three staff members. ACTION: Chris will make this presentation at the June or July Board meeting. Y2K issues: Currently at a standstill, main things left to be fixed are the office administration tools used by Sheila. Sheila has a workaround to use for these, however workaround means these office tasks can only be done by her, and not by any of the office volunteers. As Sheila will be going on her vacation on June 19th, it was recommended that these tools be fixed before then. Community Portal: Richard Bethell is working on this, along with Chris. Look and feel discussions will be looked at w/Richard and other members of web site team. Webserver: Miranda asked about the Apache webserver, Chris confirmed the decision to switch to the Apache webserver. 6. NEW BUSINESS 6a) Board Vacancies (Jessica Cohen) There are three Board vacancies caused by the resignations of Pippa Lawson (au771); Jeff Bossert (au025), who also resigned as Treasurer; and Michael Mason (an956), who also resigned as President, The resignations were for personal reasons. MOVED by Seline Herz-Fischler, SECONDED by Miranda Gray that Pippa Lawson, Jeff Bossert, and Michael Mason be thanked for their hard work and contributions to NCF. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously. Graeme mentioned having done some preliminary work on finding candidates for appointment until the next AGM (2001), and Jessica suggested that Graeme take the lead on searching for candidates , and interested parties can pass their names to Graeme. Mike Kenzie and Patrick Campbell (members who were present) both gave their names as people interested in serving if needed. ACTION: Graeme will post an announcement on the Board resignations, the appointment of interim officers (discussed in the next agenda item) and the appointment of candidates. Graeme will compile a list of interested candidates to be presented to and discussed by the Board in camera at the June Board meeting. 6b) Election of Officers (Jessica Cohen) Jessica noted that the current signing authorities are Chris Cope (Executive Director), Michael Mason, Jeff Bossert, and Dave Sutherland. It was recommended by Sheila that unless we are electing permanent officers tonight, that we not change the signing officers if we will be electing new officers again in two months. MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Seline Herz-Fischler that we continue to keep the current signing officers until the June Board meeting. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously. MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Jessica Cohen that we elect an Acting President until a more permanent election of officers. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: GB SC JC MG SH DM ABSTAINED: MM Our current officers are: 1st Vice President: Natalie Munro (who is finished her term on the Board) Secretary: Jessica Cohen, leaving vacancies for President, Treasurer, and 2nd Vice President. Acting President: MOVED by Mark Mielke, SECONDED by Dave Millman, that Graeme Beckett be appointed Acting President. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously. Treasurer: Sheila observed that many organizations have a Secretary-Treasurer position. Jessica agreed to do this for the short term. MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by Dave Millman that Jessica Cohen be appointed Acting Treasurer. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously. 2nd Vice-President: MOVED by Jessica Cohen, SECONDED by Dave Millman that Seline Herz-Fischler be appointed 2nd Vice - President. MOTION CARRIED, unaminously. ACTION: The election of officers will be revisited at the July Board meeting for the election of more permanent officers. 7. Announcements: Chris will be on vacation for 1 week starting Wednesday , May 24th, returning on Thursday, June 1st. His contract comes up for renewal on May 31, 2000. Sheila will be on vacation from June 20 - June 26, and from June 30 - July 3rd. 8. NEXT MEETING Tuesday, June 20, 2000 at 7:00 p.m. Billings Room, RMOC, 111 Lisgar Street 9. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 8:30 pm to an in-camera discussion with the Human Resources Committee. Online Motion: The following on-line motion was made on May 18th, 2000. MOTION: That we add Michael Mason to the HR committee, so that the committee will consist of Jean Wilmot, Seline Herz-Fischler, Miranda Gray, and Michael Mason. MOVED by: Jessica Cohen SECONDED by: David Millman MOTION CARRIED. In Favour: GB SC JC SH MM DM Absent: MG JW