Our next Grex Board Meeting will be Sunday, March 7 at 6 p.m. EST in the
Kids Room (upstairs) at Zingerman's Next Door in Ann Arbor, MI and by
dial-in conferencing.  Here is the current agenda.

 1. Call to Order - 6 p.m. EST
 2. Schedule Next Meeting
 3. Treasurer's Report
 4. Staff Report
 5. Old Business
    * Grex Status & Future
    * E-mail whitelisting/postfix
    * Personal web addresses
    * Communication when Grex is down
 6. New Business
    * Staff appointments
    * Staff conference access
    * Google rank & Updating Grex's web pages
    * Increased disk space?
 7. Any Other Business
 8. Adjourn - No later than 9 p.m. EST

All are welcome.  Conference calling details will follow as an item
response.

42 responses total.

As a note to staff: I suggest we try to have some kind of a meeting prior to
this next board meeting.  How about that same weekend?

It should be noted that there is no such thing as "Old Business" in Roberts
Rules of Order. A lot of people think that because there is "New Business",
there must be "Old Business". However the items that might fall under "old
business" are taken care of in Reports and Special Orders. The latter are
items that are always scheduled (such as budgets) and business postponed from
a prior meeting. 

I also suggest adding "Introduction of Guests", a President's Report, Minutes
of previous meeting (to amend and adopt), Is there a particular meeting when
a budget is adopted? And is there also a meeting at which the report of an
audit commitee on the annual Financial Statement is considered?

I hate Robert's Rules of Order.

This agenda follows previous Grex agendas in format.  As far as I know,
we can develop our own terminology.  It's helpful to point out what we
need to finish from the previous meeting(s) as we don't want it build
up.

Also, as far as I know, we are not strictly following Robert's Rules of
Order, so don't expect chapter and verse in the agenda.

Budget is part of the Treasurer's report.  If necessary we can have
a separate budget meeting, but I don't think it has been an issue up
to now. I agree it is something we need to keep a close eye on.  

I don't believe we have the budget for an independent audit of financial
records.  Or at least we don't have the budget for that and keep the
system running after that.

The approval of minutes is a good one (allows for corrections, if any).
I'll add that.  

In general, I think our agenda is ambitious enough without a lot
administrative items, but I'll see what we can do in terms of
Introductions.  

They way we've been handling "approval of the minutes" is by simply making 
any corrections in the minutes item itself.  The archives always include 
the first 30 days of discussion. It's a pretty casual system but it's 
worked well.

A long, long time ago we had some pretty robust conversations about Grex 
using Robert's Rules.  The end result, much to Rane's horror, is we do our 
own thing, keeping the meetings as casual as possible.  I guess we could 
always revisit that question but I'm not sure why.

It's only worked for 20 years now, we clearly need to immediately change
the way we do everything.

Okay, so it sounds like we'll just mention the minutes in passing at
the meeting (in case anyone wants to do any updates on-line).  Thanks
for the history, Mary.

Re resp #4:  Kent, the agenda doesn't follow traditional Grex format.  The
item numbering is too obscure.

It's true that I love Roberts Rules. They can greatly expedite the 
business of a meeting. It's like brushing teeth - it's some work, but 
the benefits are great. But I lost that battle with Grex - I'm just 
suggesting some things that might help organizing the agenda - forget I 
used those provacative words "Roberts Rules"....

Incidentally, an *internal* audit committee is legally acceptable in 
most cases. Only businesses seeking big grants need external audits. An 
internal audit committee consists of three persons, not including the 
treasurer, that review the books annually and submit a report, which is 
adopted by the board (treasurer reports should not be "adopted" by the 
board as the board cannot verify their accuracy - that's what the 
commitee is charged with doing). This all, by the way, comes from 
(shhhh...) Roberts Rules. Forget I said that.....

Know we love you, Rane.  

Okay, then, I'll use Roman numerals in the agenda next time :) 
 
Do we have people qualified to do an internal audit?  It just seems like
more bureaucracy to me, but of course, it could be considered a safeguard
against any wrongdoing.  It seems like it would be a bit difficult to
get this going and keep it going when we have trouble finding people
for other tasks.  I gather you are volunteering to be on this committed,
Rane.  Do you have a background in accounting?

s/committed/committee (or maybe you need to be committed to be on this
committee...)

re #10: hehe

Unless there's a bunch of money being sent and received that hasn't been
discussed, it seems like conducting an audit is an unnecessary hassle. 
If this were the late 80's when grex had a lot of money coming and going
it'd be different, but it seems like grex has got like 2 or 3 bills and
a dozen or so members...

Then an internal audit would be a snap. The IAC just checks the 
checkbook and against the bank statements. If the treasurer is the one 
also receiving all payments and depositing them, it is even simpler. I'm 
familiar with a small nonprofit that has an "office" (our house) which 
receives dues and sends transaction information to the treasurer. Small 
errors are sometimes found. On advantage of an IAC is that someone will 
notice if the treasurer disappears...

We'll give it some thought.  Right now, we have a bigger need to make
sure money is coming in at all than we do to make sure there isn't a
small error in the treasurer's reports.

Quite true. I'm expecting to be asked to pay dues soon.....

Add to the agenda--

Formal board vote on Tonster's offer to join staff and host Grex

"Staff appointments" covers offers to join staff.  As far as hosting
Grex we might discuss that under the Staff report or add it to the
end of the agenda (Any other business).  At this point, we have more
than enough agenda items to keep us busy.

You forgot to mention, website updates and cheat-sheet! Right now, it's 
unclear how ppl are supposed to access mysql, email or the system.. 
etc.. Think in terms of a kid, a mere babe in the woods, trying to 
access Grex.. (he knows the Unix spelling and that's it)

(after he logs in to resh)
1. 'Welcome to Grex.  This is resh.  Type 'help' if you are lost.'
He won't know what 'resh' is. He isn't lost. I'd maybe change that to 
something very explicit and simple.

"You are currently using a restricted Unix shell; this shell has a lot 
of features turned off. Please type 'help' for more information."

2. I totally approve off the new help thingy :) Bet that's cross' 
doing :)

But we need to point to opt-ins there (email, mysql, etc) - after all 
said kid will know about email and maybe his book will have 'mail' in 
it. Remember, he's expecting a standard Unix box at this point.

3. So could we have a simple text file (which is absolutely 
authoritative) on the current status of features being offered. Every 
time staff adds/removes a feature, this file gets updated. Made web-
accessible.

One step at a time, veek. There are only so many hours we can
meet. But I'll try to keep it all in mind for the near future.

Having an internal audit sounds like a great idea, if there are three
people interested enough to take a look at the books.  The assessment
above is fairly accurate: Grex has paid for internet service and phone
over the last year, and taken in a few dollars here and there.  It
should be a fairly simple audit.

I will try to post a summary of Grex's finances before I officially turn
over the books to TS (in a week and a half).

It's a good idea for preventing errors.  It's mainly that we need
people to do it and a procedure to follow, two things that Grex
tends to be short on.

Mark has done a fantastic job as treasurer and he'll be a hard act to 
follow.  Thanks, Mark, for being treasurer all these years.

Absolutely!  

Lynne, I'm going to be downtown today and also at the board meeting, on 
Sunday, so how about I free that gavel and get it to Kent?  May I pick it 
up early afternoon?

Yes! do you have my cell number? I go swimming between around 1:30-3
though. 

I have your cell number if it's the one ending in 73. If you're going to 
be out of the office just leave it with a co-worker, if that's okay.  But 
I'll try to be there before 1:30.

Ok Mary. I'll leave it if someone is here. That is my cell #

Thanks, Mary and Lynne! 

The gavel has been rescued!

You are welcome.  

I'm planning to stream audio of tomorrow's meeting for those who want to 
be there but can't.  All you'll need is the url of the feed - which I 
won't have until I start the feed.  So check this item at 6:00 pm and I'll 
supply the link.  You don't need an account on QIK to see/hear the 
videos/audios but if you do sign into a free account you'll also be able 
to read and ask chat comments and questions.

The program I'm using is at http://qik.com .

See you at the board meeting!

Oh, fair warning.  Depending on how late the meeting runs I may have to 
leave, taking my stuff along.  There is this Academy Awards party I go to 
every year...  

"Restoring lost data" should be worked into the agenda somewhere.
For instance, a big chunk of the Grex website went missing when
the SCSI drive died.

Steve made a backup around that time.  I hope he was able to grab
it all.  Can we do this discussion in the Staff report?  It might
require investigation to see what we have on backups.

We'll also have a teleconference line available courtesy of tonster:

   1-877-647-3411
   passcode: 567 783 2892

Zing's again has allowed us to use the room if we purchase enough food
and drink ($90), so the $5 minimum is in effect (it actually might be
more than that depending on the number of people in the room, but if we
order several sandwiches we should be okay).

We'll be in the Kid's Room upstairs at Zingerman's Next Door in Ann
Arbor, MI.

The meeting starts at 6 pm. EST and adjourns on or before 9 p.m. EST.

I hope we'll have enough bandwith for all the Internet connections,
but we'll find out!
 
The teleconf line also has the ability to record the meeting (voice).

I don't think the backups Steve did made included the missing data.  However,
the USB drive that used to be attached to Grex has that data on it, almost
certainly.  If we can get that back on Grex, the data can be restored.

Oh, and we can resume nightly backups.

I've asked for the drive to be returned a couple of times, but so far, no
response.

If folks feel the teleconferencing line will work to bring in folks who 
can't attend then I'd be happy to go that route.  Less work for me! ;-)  
Let's give Tony's line a try.

Sounds like something we can discuss at the Board meeting tomorrow.  It
would be good to get backups going again.  

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss