Minutes of a Meeting of the Board of Directors held on September 19, 2000, at 7:00 p.m. at the RMOC - Billings Room 111 Lisgar St. PRESENT: Graeme Beckett President aw958 GB Sandy Campbell dt820 SC Jessica Cohen Secretary aa724 JC Miranda Gray 2nd Vice-President ak717 MG Seline Herz-Fischler 1st Vice-President as370 SH Mark Mielke al278 MM David Millman Treasurer aa342 DM Staff Present: Christopher Cope Executive Director bz787 Sheila C. Alder Administrative Coordinator bw306 Andre Dalle System Administrator al178 Guests: Marissa Bovey bh590 Mike Kenzie Scott McBride en064 Richard Webb dw413 Minute - Taker: Joan Robertson cw055 1. INTRODUCTIONS The meeting was called to order at 7:10 p.m. with Seline Herz-Fischler as Chair, and Jessica Cohen as Secretary. 2. Approval of Minutes of the previous meeting MOVED by Miranda Gray, SECONDED by David Millman that the minutes of the previous meeting be approved. MOTION CARRIED, unanimously, except Graeme and Mark, who were absent from this part of the meeting. 3. Review of the Agenda Item 4b) Majordomo mail policy was deferred. Item 6d) Resignations was added. Item 6e) Date of December Board meeting was added. 4. OLD BUSINESS 4a) CRC Procedure Update (David Millman) David reported that the CRC has no form letters or official procedures, and preferred not to use them. After some discussion on what was hoped for in including this agenda item, it was established that what the Board was more specifically looking for, rather than a formal list of procedures was a CRC manual explaining how various types of complaints were generally dealt with, and how members were notified of different parts of the CRC process (e.g. the opportunity to appeal). An internal checklist of what points the CRC made sure to include for different types of situations. ACTION: David agreed to put this together. 4c) Additional Corporate Sponsorship Levels and Implementation (Graeme Beckett) Graeme met with Richard Webb, Richard Bethell, and Chris Cope to discuss idea of integrating hi-tech directory with current CapitalFind. Technically feasible, but NCF does not have the volunteers to solicit donations from all the organizations. Richard Webb outlined a little about how his hi-tech directory is structured, and how he suggests the donation structure work. About 40% of the traffic is job hunters. His website (http://www.ncf.ca/~dw413) is popular, as it is concise, and well-indexed. Current companies who are gold,silver or bronze donors to NCF have their company logos displayed in the directory. Richard W. is going to work on developing a business plan for the idea for the October or November meeting. ACTION: Richard W. will work on putting together a draft business plan (working with Graeme, Chris, and Richard B.) for integrating the idea with CapitalFind. The plan will be submitted to the Board through Graeme for either the October or November Board meeting. 5. REPORTS 5a) Treasurer's Report (David Millman) David distributed copies of and presented the Treasurer's Reports for July and August. Revenue from both months were lower than budgeted from new registrations, but higher than budgeted from renewals, resulting in slightly higher than budgeted revenue from donations. ($7600 actual versus $5800 budgeted for August). Expenses were also close to budget, being slightly lower. ($18200 total expenses versus $20700 budgeted total expenses for August). Overall our cash position is currently strong, with a surplus of $85000 of assets versus liabilities. Financial items to note are that the budget process starts at the October Board meeting with the first draft of the next year's budget being presented then. ACTION: Miranda asked how long NCF could last at the current rates of spending, with our current cash balance. David did not have an exact answer, but will find out for the next Board meeting. (This type of information is part of the budgeting process). 5b) Executive Director's Report (Chris Cope) Chris distributed copies of and went over updates to the ED report. Updates: The difficulties with the office computer have been fixed, and Sheila is now back working out of the NCF office. Total cost for repairs and parts was $300. Donations from new registrations were lower than budgeted. Number of new registrations was similar, but budget predicted 85% donation rate, while the actual donation rate for new registrations was around 40%. Something to take into account for next year's budget. Many people seem to want to try NCF out first, before donating. Jim Elder has volunteered to rewrite the modem testing software. The RS1000 access servers provided interesting problems, many needed to be sent back for warranty repairs. These are now all in place. Currently 24 lines are running on these servers (on 520-9013). This will be increased to 72 lines on September 27th. The lines will be moved from the (520-1135) pool. Graeme reported that it was not certain whether the new servers could negotiate connections with people using Win3.1 and Trumpet Winsock, and he is looking for testers with this configuration to test this. Seline asked about the current urban cap status. Chris replied that UC currently involves 5-6 different networks working together. NCF is in in for potentially acting as a service provider. As other organizations involved roll out their planned services, they will need stuff like webmail. Chris was elected as Chairman of the Urban Cap steering committee. There is some information about urban cap available on the web at (http://occ.ncf.ca) The information there is formatted more for participant use than as a public webpage. Modem availability: The high failure wait on 9013 lines (41%) was largely due to busy signals. This part will be helped with the planned switch of more lines to that hunt group on Sept 27. Error messages for other modem failures reflect the error output from Jim's testing software. Miranda asked about Board member involvement with the various projects. There was some discussion for each project on who could be more involved to support Chris and Jeff with these, most notably attending meetings for these projects to increase Board representation. Smart Capital and Urban Cap: Graeme will be the main Board member involved with this, with Miranda and Seline offering to act as backups. Miranda stated that she can attend daytime meetings if she has a week notice, and Seline can attend them if they are after 4:00 pm. HRDC Thin Client: Mark Mielke agreed to act as the Board rep for this. 6. NEW BUSINESS 6a) Motion on Board communications (Sandy Campbell) Sandy presented the following motion: MOVED that: For the purpose of making the Board more productive and of improving communication with the membership, the Board adopt the following procedures: a) Discussions on board@ncf.ca no longer be 'confidential.' but open to anyone interested and that all members be informed of this by email. b) That any item to be discussed at a Board meeting, and the supporting documentation and rationale, be on the meeting agenda at least one week before the meeting, including matters introduced at the monthly meetings, which would be tabled until the next meeting. c) That draft minutes of Board meetings be posted within one week of the meeting. d) That copies of the upcoming Board meeting agenda be finalized one week before the meeting and be emailed to all members to alert any who may be interested in attending; and that minutes of Board meetings, to be drafted within one week of the meeting, be emailed to all members. e) That a format for emailing agendas and minutes to all members be developed which would serve as an 'introduction' and a reminder that this is a report by the Board of Directors to the owners of NCF. Jessica requested that this motion be broken up and moved separately. Sandy (as mover of all 5 motions) agreed to this. i) (board mailing list) This motion was dropped as there was no seconder. Jessica observed that we could have a public moderated newsgroup for non-confidential discussions, as the current Board is made up of people who use newsgroups (unlike in the past, when this was tried). Jessica will try to bring a newsgroup about newsgroup discussions to the next Board meeting. ii) (agenda item deadline) Jessica observed that this was how things were supposed to work, although many items submitted to her for inclusion in the agenda were submitted later than this. There was some discussion on wording, and recognizing that sometimes emergency items do come up. Sandy (and Mark as Seconder) agreed to remove the last clause, from "including" to "next meeting". MOVED by Sandy Campbell, SECONDED by Mark Mielke that any item to be discussed at a Board meeting, and the supporting documentation and rational be on the meeting agenda at least one week before the meeting. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: SC JC MM AGAINST: DM ABSTAINED: GB MG SH iii) (draft minutes) Jessica clarified that the current procedure was the draft minutes were sent to the Board a week after the meeting, and posted as draft in the menu a week after that. Motion would change that minutes would be posted in menu as draft at same time. MOVED by Sandy Campbell, SECONDED by Mark Mielke that the draft minutes of Board meetings be posted within one week of the meeting. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: GB SC JC SH MM DM ABSTAINED: MG iv) (mass mailing of minutes and agenda) That copies of the upcoming Board meeting agenda be finalized one week before the meeting and be emailed to all members to alert any who may be interested in attending; and that minutes of Board meetings, to be drafted within one week of the meeting, be emailed to all members. Miranda suggested breaking this down into three motions (one for each clause). This motion was dropped (all 3 parts) as there were no seconders. v) (mass mailing format for minutes) This motion was withdrawn as it depending on the previous motion. 6b) Motion on dial-up connectivity (Sandy Campbell) This motion was dropped as there was no seconder. 6c) Motion on Board publications (Sandy Campbell) Sandy read out loud the motion. Jessica asked if the task force was going to consult with the current team that Fiona has put together to resurrect Freenews, with Frances Moffatt as Editor. Sandy stated that no, his motion was not about him and Mark planning on editing Freenews, suggested that Freenews could be asked to wait. When several Board members expressed concern that they felt this was potentially blindsiding volunteer efforts, Sandy suggested that if they (the new Freenews team) wanted to , they could go ahead anyways. There was some discussion on what specifically the Sandy was aiming for with this motion, as there was some confusion among Board members whether Sandy was suggesting coming up with a specific format, putting together a team to start a new publication, or suggest what NCF needs for a publication. Sandy clarified that he was not offering to edit a newsletter, but rather was going to come back with suggestions to what kind of newsletter NCF should have, to make a positive contribution to NCF. There was some discussion on why the new Freenews people were not being asked to be involved, and whether this was actually something that needed a motion. MOVED by Sandy Campbell, SECONDED by Mark Mielke that the Board establish a task force consisting of Sandy Campbell and Mark Mielke to examine the possibility of developing an online publication of interest to the NCF membership and the community. MOTION CARRIED. IN FAVOUR: SC MM DM AGAINST: JC MG ABSTAINED: GB SH 6d) Board resignations (Graeme Beckett) Jim Wright has resigned. He is now working outside the city, and would have missed his third meeting tonight. Tambrae Knapp has resigned for unexpected personal reasons. Graeme will post an announcement thanking both Jim and Tambrae for their involvement. 6e) Date of the December Board Meeting (Jessica Cohen) Jessica explained that due to her final exam schedule, she would not be able to attend a meeting on December 19th (the date it would normally be) nor on December 12th (if it was moved to the Tuesday a week earlier). She stated that either someone else would have to volunteer to act as Secretary for that meeting (assuming quorum could still be met), or the date would need to be shifted. Mark announced that he would be in Australia for the month of December, and would not be at the December meeting. A poll was taken of the other Board members and the ED about availability, and it was decided to hold the December meeting on Monday, December 18th, with Jessica as Secretary as usual. 7. Announcements There were no announcements for this meeting. 8. Date of Next Meeting October 17, 2000 RMOC - Billings Room 111 Lisgar St. 9. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 9:00 pm to an in-camera session for a CRC discussion and an HR discussion.