Here is our agenda for April 11.

I.   Call to Order 6 p.m.
II.  Next Meeting/Meeting Frequency
III. Treasurer's Report
IV.  Staff Report
V.   Grex Future       
     a. Review current Mission (what we are/were)
     b. Discuss Mission revisions, if any (what we want to be)
     c. What services do we offer? (what "system" will we offer our members?)
     d. Reviving Membership
VI.  AOB
VII. Adjourn 8 p.m.

Zingerman's Next Door, 6 p.m., Sunday, April 11.

32 responses total.

Since we've met more frequently this year than in years past, I'm making
this one a 2 hour meeting.  I hope this will help those who need to get
to work very early the next morning.

I did not receive any replies from the Board regarding their ability to
attend this meeting (though I know at least one member who is interested
in when the meeting is taking place and what the agenda will be). 

If we will not have a quorum, now would be the time to find out rather
than when those of us who come from outside Ann Arbor drive to the
meeting. Three or more members not attending puts us below a quorum and
unable to conduct business.

The March Board Meeting included a lot of discussion of items about
which the Staff were to make recommendations.  I hope we can go over
those recommendations fairly quickly and make whatever decisions need to
be made so we can get to the main part of the agenda.

It's also time for a real Treasurer's report.  1/4 of the year has gone
by and we have little recent information about our financial status.  We
don't know if our bills are getting paid or if any money has come in.
It is not clear to me if our Treasurer has been able to complete the
transfer of duties from the previous Treasurer.  I hope we can clear
this up at this meeting because we need to move on to other important
Treasurer duties (like memberships and overdue State corporate update
forms).

The main items on this agenda are all issues that have been discussed in
the last couple years. Please review prior meeting minutes, give some
significant thought to these items, and let's try to do more than just
discuss this time.

We have the little meeting room upstairs at Zingerman's Next Door from
5:30-8:30 p.m. which should allow us some time to set up and get food,
and if we want to run over, we can.
 
Again we have a requirement of $90 equivalent in food and beverage, so
please order something.  

$90 in food seems like a lot; is this the same $5/person they've asked
for  in the past several meetings? Though they haven't been checking
real  close, from what I could tell.

They are a business though so everyone who attends should plan on buying
something. 

What the guy told me was a $90 fee for the room either in cash or in
food & drink equivalent.  This, I think, is the same arrangement we've
had with them the last few times we've met there.  I'm not sure how we
arrived at $5/person but that would probably take more people than the
room would hold unless some bought a lot more.  I did point out that we
were a non-profit organization.  I don't know if that helps the rate or
not.

John and I will be there and by the time we split a sandwich and get a coffee
or two we've spent $20.  If we absolutely must spend more I'll do my duty and
have a brownie.  Hard as that might be.

Thanks Mary.  I'm planning on getting a sandwich and a drink.  Last time
that was about $16.  A few more orders and we'll be close to $90.

BTW, if we plan to go with Skype again this time, I have a microphone we
can use this time.  It's one that plugs into a 1/8" stereo jack (so not
USB) and can sit in the middle of the table.  Also Tony said we could
use his toll-free conference line again if we need it.

I was originally planning on just getting a drink or a brownie; looks
like  I'll get a sandwich instead...

At least, they are about 2 meals, at least for me.  

Denise, I wouldn't sweat it.  Get what you're comfortable with - I suspect 
we'll be close to $90 without much effort.

Yeah, it doesn't take that many people to rack up $90 at Zingermans.
However, if you guys do find that it is a problem, I hear there are free
meeting rooms available through Ann Arbor.com. 

Free may not come with with an internet connection (or a phone line if
no internet).  If we had a laptop with 3G internet we'd be set whereever
we met (assuming the connection was good enough for VOIP so we could
call a conference line number).

And access on the weekend or evenings is a problem for some sites.  

For example, the public library has a free meeting room, but the hours
it is available are not what we are used to for meeting times (they
close about the time we usually start the meeting).  And you can only
use it 4 times per year, so if you want to meet more often for any
reason, then we'd need to go someplace else.  

We decided that open room tables in restaurants probably aren't the best
due to the ambient noise.  Although we are meeting in a restaurant right
now, we do have a small room to ourselves (with wifi) and can shut the
door.

Still, I'll keep looking and if we can find a reasonable place for free
that will allow us to have a reliable conference call, we'll certainly
give it a shot.

Yeah, the Ypsilanti library has a similar four times a year restriction
and also closes earlier on Sundays. 

Another restriction on some free spaces was you had to be a member of
the organization or club in order to use the space.  Other facilities
that looked promising were not free, although they were more likely to
have internet and phone service, such as hotels.

It might make sense to pay a small fee if we could get a phone line or
decent wifi service (which is to say, service where we are not competing
with all the other patrons of the restaurant for bandwidth).

How many people need to access the Wifi? My company has a mobile hub for
when we decide to work from a different bar than the one where our
office network reaches but it is limited to four users. 

At least with paying for the room at Zingerman's, we get to eat, too 
[unlike many other places that charge for space].

True.  But the wifi there doesn't always work like we want for VOIP.
Not much we can do about that.

  
zignies is not the only spot ... for this moneth perhaps, but:
  
http://www.google.com/search?q=ann+arbor+meeting+space&rls=com.microsoft:en
-US
&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1
  

Re resp:12 - "If we had a laptop with 3G internet we'd be set whereever
we met (assuming the connection was good enough for VOIP so we could
call a conference line number)."

I've found it's as easy as pie to tether my MacBook to my Motorola
Droid and get a 3G connection on the MacBook.  Would that help?

As you know, we just need to dial a conference number (if Tony lets us
use it) with something like Skype so we can allow people to dial-in (no
phone line in the room that we can use).  So anything that lets us do
that reliably should work.  The wifi connection at Zing's gave us issues
at the last meeting and the meeting before that.  So if we can avoid
that, we might be better off.  It's worth a try and we could always fall
back to wifi if we had issues with 3G.

Sprint Blackberry is fairly easy to tether, also

Tonster has generously allowed us to use his toll-free conference line again
for this meeting.  It's the same numbers as we used for the previous meeting:
 
    1-877-647-3411
    passcode: 567 783 2892
 

For as long as I've got it, we can use my conference bridge.  I've been
a little absent lately as I've been tied up with work, and am currently
traveling in San Francisco, but I've given Kent the code to use for the
bridge.  If I can attend this time I will, otherwise I'll catch you all
on the next one!

Have a nice time in San Francisco.  If you see my son tell him to call 
home one of these days.  You know, home - where his comic book collection 
still resides. ;-)

You can tell my son the same thing of you see him.....

Well, I did drive by Google the other day...

I planned on entering the meeting minutes early this afternoon but 
accidently deleted them from my word processor and will have to rewrite
it  from my notes. Darn!  I have a few other things to do this
afternoon; will  get back to this as soon as I can.

Gack.  I hate when that happens.  Thanks for all your work on this, 
Denise.

Yeah, that is really frustrating.  Good luck.

No kidding. I hate it when that happens too. 

Save frequently....

Yep, that needs to be done more frequently than I did this afternoon...

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