Minutes of the May 29, 1996 Board Meeting

Jun 3 00:55 UTC 1996

Minutes of the meeting of the Cyberspace Communications Board of Directors
Wednesday May 29, 1996 in the Cafeteria of ITI on Hubbard Road.

1. The meeting was called to order at 7:31 PM

Directors present: 
Scott Helmke (scott), President
Mark Conger (aruba), Treasurer
Steve Weiss (srw), Secretary
Rob Henderson (robh)
Misti Anslin (mta)
Valerie Mates (popcorn)
Steve Gibbard (scg)

Others present:
John Remmers (remmers), STeve Andre' (steve). Jan Wolter (janc)

2. Treasurer's report.

Mark Conger produced the treasurer's report for the month of April, which
is posted in the coop conference as item 64. We failed to cover our monthly
expenses again. It was not a good month. Mark also indicated that May was
probably not going to be a particularly good month either.

3. 501(C)(3) Committee Report

Mark Conger reported that there was nothing to report.

4. Computer Rehabilitation Committee Report

Rane was not here. Nothing has happened that Scott knows about. 
Dan Gryniewicz (dang) has been added to the mailing list.

5. Publicity Committee Report

Misti reported that there was nothing to report. She explained that she
is still in need of a computer. Then she'll be putting up fliers.

6. Technical Committee Report

  * The system is running well

  * It needs rebooting once a week to avoid encountering problems stemming 
    from cumulative activity. 
  
  * Modems are a problem.

    o We can no longer locate old-style GVC modems new, although we can
      find used ones.
  
    o The new ones are good but don't support "dumb mode"
  
    o STeve indicated that it was his opinion that we should "bite the bullet"
      and use them.
    
    o Alternatives include used GVCs, switching to another brand
      (STeve believes Motorola modems use the Rockwell chip set.
 
  * We have a new CPU card. 

    o It is now running Grex, and the battery works much better on this one.
  
    o The plan is to use the other one on our second machine, for Usenet.
  
  * Groovy (terminal server) problems  

    o We are planning to put groovy on "boxpwr" so it can be power-cycled
      remotely.
      
    o We still need to contact IOLan.
    
    o Greg Cronau (gregc) still has the manuals.
    
  * STeve reported that the dungeon floor is collapsing. It needs some
    hydraulic cement.
    
  * Valerie said that the idle zapper program (untamo) should be installed
    within the next week. This should help a little with the "out of ports"
    problem.
    
  * Jan Wolter reported that the "Web New-user" (WNU) program will be turned
    on real soon now.
    
  * We need to buy an additional phone fanout box.
  
  * During the last month on one occasion, the mail queue filled with mail 
    that was not getting delivered.
    
10. Newsletter Report

    Misti reported that there is nothing to report. Misti has no computer.
  
11. Auction Committee Report 

    Valerie Mates and Rob Henderson reported that the auction is proceeding
    nicely. $583 is the total of the offers so far on auction items.
    The rights to wield the Grexbat will be offered for auction, but this
    has not been factored into the total yet.
    
    Valerie pleaded for additional participation in the auction. 
    
12. Communications Decency Act

    A decision is expected soon in the court case. There was nothing to 
    discuss at this time.
    
13. tel/write, etc. "yes" and "no" files

    There was a great deal of discussion of the social implications of both 
    "yes" and "no" files. There was no conclusion reached.
    
14. New Business.

(At this point your Secretary had to leave the meeting. Valerie volunteered to
take the notes for the remainder of the minutes, and she should post her
portion in this item.)

Respectfully submitted, Steve Weiss, Secretary

response 2 of 12:

Jun 3 01:58 UTC 1996

This item has been linked from Co-op 71 to Intro 48.
Type "join coop" at the Ok: prompt for discussion of
Grex policy issues.

response 4 of 12:

Jun 6 06:36 UTC 1996

Here are the minutes from the rest of the meeting (New Business)...

 * There will be a city meeting on Tuesday 6/25 to discuss the building code
problems in Grex's room (fire door needed and ceiling too low).  One of the
landlords paid money for us to appeal the building code decision at this
meeting.  He needs photos of Grex's room and articles about Grex for the
hearing.

 * Should Grex move?  Maybe we should place an ad in the paper describing our
needs.  People don't advertise spaces of the type that we need.

 * STeve Andre reported that Gregc found a good deal on ethernet and memory
cards.  Marcus's memory card may be able to be installed in the Sun 4, which
would make Grex a 160 megabyte machine.  Steve will test this.

        Scott moved, and Valerie seconded, that the board authorize $100 for
        an extra 32 megabyte memory card to use either to increase Sun
        capacity or as a backup.  Passed: 6,0,0.

 * Rob asked for opinions on the Intro conference.  Valerie volunteered to
write a wrapper program to put around bbs to ask users whether they prefer
their default conference to be Agora or Intro.  We will re-evaluate the
success of the Intro conference in 3 months.

 * STeve Andre will keep talking to Internet service providers, looking for
a deal that Grex can afford.

 * Steve Gibbard suggested holding board meetings in the Michigan Union in
the summer, instead of at ITI.  Random people seemed to be a lot more likely
to show up at meetings in the Union than at ITI.  The sense of the board was
that meeting at the Union would be OK.

 * Mark reminded the board that we've been planning to find someone to be a
Membership Chair.  Valerie volunteered to enter or revive a co-op item to find
a membership chair.  Mark will contact the bank to ask how we can receive
payments from users in India, and also to find out if we can accept credit
cards.

 * Valerie asked what the board thought about joining the People's Food
Co-op's discount program.  The sense of the board was that this should be an
agenda item for the next meeting, not a New Business item.

15. Final Gavel Pounding

The meeting was adjourned at 9:35pm.

response 6 of 12:

Jun 6 15:51 UTC 1996

note for the boarg: aacs's winsig is no longer active enough to
meet at zingies anymore. that was one conflict from a while ago. the
conflict no longer exists, fwiw.

response 8 of 12:

Jun 6 21:45 UTC 1996

Right. Sometimes we'd luck out and have the upstairs room at
Zingerman's to ourselves, but if there were other groups of people
dining there, the noise level made it difficult for me and others
to hear the board meeting. The Union basement, being larger and not
crowded during the summer months, doesn't have this problem.

The upstairs room at Zingerman's can be reserved, but the cost is
prohibitively high for Grex.

response 10 of 12:

Jun 7 17:28 UTC 1996

I once had a friend who lived in rural Texas, who asked what
the rent on my room (in a house with four rooms) was.
I responded, "$275 a month".  She told me that the rent
on her two-bedroom house was about $300 a month, and that
the prices of other things were comparably lower.  Should we
give discounts to members from rural Texas, just because
things cost less there, and people have less money to spend?

Should we charge higher rates for members from New York City
and San Fransisco, because things cost a lot more there?

response 12 of 12:

Jun 7 22:47 UTC 1996

Re 9:  If International users want to contribute $30 per year, that would be
great.  Grex would accept the money.  But I don't see why it should be
considered a year's membership.