I.      Call to Order
II.     Treasurer's Report
        a. Transition of Duties Report
        b. Tax & Corporation Forms Update
        c. Membership Report
III.    Staff Report
IV.     Business  
        a. Mission Discussion
        b. Dial-in Lines
        c. E-mail on Grex  
        d. What Services Should We Offer? 
V.      AOB
VI.     Next Meeting
VII.    Adjourn

73 responses total.

Please let me know if other agenda items are needed or if these
need any modification.
 
We need the location for this meeting, too.

We decided to have the meeting at my place in southern Ypsilanti 
Township. But to let everyone know, there's some construction work being
 done, closing one of the intersections on the way to my place. The 
detour takes us 2-3 miles out of the way, so allow for that. My address 
is:  7584 Dover Drive, Ypsilanti, 48197. I'll email the board and other 
regular attenders the detour route [anyone else interested, let me 
know].

The other side note is that Sunday afternoon I need to take a couple 
people to the airport. I'm planning on going early enough so I'll be 
back in time. But in case I get caught up somewhere on the way home, 
wait for me!

If people think that with construction traffic will be a problem, 
perhaps we can try and get the room at Zing's?

That construction is such complete bullshit too.  I can't believe those
idiots are putting a damn roundabout there. Ugh.

What do you bet they put trees and shrubs in the middle of the roundabout
so you can't see cars coming from the other side? 

That seems pretty likely.  My favorite new light is the one by the
brewery on carpenter road that controls carpenter and a dead end road
(it dead ends both directions).  My tax dollars at work.

and of course, there's no money in the budget to put a light by the
school on carpenter and bemis, where people routinely die during the
morning and afternoon commutes after school. that's just too costly.

Okay, back to the agenda.  Are there any additions or modifications?

We'll try using the Grex speakerphone for this meeting.  How many
folks plan on dialing in?

I probably won't make it to tonight's meeting, so I'll post my
staff report, such as it is, here.  

The crash of a few weeks ago, which might be related to some mail
spamming/flooding that was happening, has already been reported
on and discussed somewhat.  Grex seems to have been running
smoothly since.  One area of concern is that when I attempted to
reboot Grex, it wouldn't boot directly from the hard drive.  I had
to boot from an installation CD, remove the CD, then do a soft
reboot from the console.  Further exploration (by someone more
hardware-savvy than me) may be called for.

Thanks, John.  Hopefully this will get discussed with the rest of
the staff during the staff report.  

I apologise for the late notice - I will not be able to attend this
evening's meeting, as much as I had been looking forward to it.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend this evening either.  Sorry for
that.

This meeting did not take place as only Denise and I attended.  Regrets
were received from STeve and Gelinas prior to the meeting.  We did not
hear from others until after the meeting.  We would have been below a
quorum in any event.

Denise and I did discuss some upcoming items and I'll add those to the
agenda.  And of course, we discussed when a postponed meeting could
take place.  May 30 is Memorial Day weekend, so not good.  

We decided to propose Sunday, June 6 as the make-up day.

Are there any objections to this date?  Will board members be able to
attend?  If not, please propose a better date.  

We need to have a quorum in order to conduct business.  If we won't
have a quorum, it might be best to save everyone the trouble of
driving here for a meeting that can only discuss issues but not
decide anything.

It is important that we meet before the end of the month for two
reasons: the 6 month "let's see how it goes" period is running out in a
few weeks, and we had discussed having a town hall meeting.  It's time
to start planning for both of those events.

Comments? 

By the way - has Grex filed its form 900N? That's a new form for nonprofits
with income less than $25,000/a, and was dues a week or so ago (with the
threat of concelling tax exemption if not filed on time).

I was told it was sent in 2009.  Or at least before it was due.

  
re 14 .. aruba said he dd teh [ostcrd tingie .. and i belelve hime.
  
yeh, it's a nwee 'keepoing treack'/ bit of big brother ... whtever.
  

Can all of the board members let us know either way if the rescheduled 
meeting date of June 6th [6pm] will work for you or not? 

Right now, I don't know.  And my schedule is so chaotic I cannot propose
a better date. :(

When would you know, Gelinas?  Is it always going to be so chaotic you
can't tell?  Or are there certain days or weeks that work better?
Thanks.

In theory, I take Tuesdays off.  So a Monday or Tuesday evening would
probably work best.  On the other hand, I don't own a (working) car, so
I can meet any where not downtown Ann Arbor only on days I work.  The
sixth inst. is a problem only because I don't know what time I will
start working that day: Son-chan is flying in for another visit.

As things stand right now, the thirteenth inst. should be fine.  

OK, great.  The 13th sounds like it might work better for others, too.
If we get a quorum worth of responses in favor of that day we can set
up the meeting.

Mondays wouldn't work for me unless we met sometime after 7 [like 7:30
or  8].  Hopefully, 6/13 will work for everyone. We still need to hear
from  STeve, unicorn, and tsty [and I'm assuming Cross wouldn't be able
to dial  in].

re #22 why is Cross even on the board if he's out of the country for 
the rest of the year?  He should have resigned before deploying so he 
could be replaced.  Declaring his seat vacant should be considered on 
the agenda for the next meeting.

Maybe out of respect for his service to his country and because we
need his expertise on the board when he is able to participate?
Nothing like coming back home after serving your country and finding
that all your previous associations booted you the day after you
left.  To be sure, we need a board member in that seat so maybe
a temporary or short term position would work?

resp:24 I think that is an excellent idea, Kent. 

I don't think there is anything in the bylaws that would allow 
election of a 'temporary' board member.  Just vacate his position and 
fill it normally, but with an unofficial understanding that whomever 
gets elected agrees to resign when he returns if he wants the job back.

wow, we're seriously talking about kicking a guy serving in the military
off the board?  is there a clamor of people waiting to sit on the board
I haven't seen? Is there REALLY that much business that is going to be
so contested that his vote is vital for that couldn't wait a few months?

It is quite normal and not an insult or indictment of anyone if they are 
unable to attend most board meetings and so step down so that the board 
can appoint someone that can attend. When the person returns, they can 
again run for the office in the usual way. No one needs to be "kicked 
off". This is not a matter for getting worked up about. It happens all 
the time in most organizations. I've done it.

Some organizations have bylaw provisions that terminate a board member's 
service if they miss some specified number of board meetings in some 
period of time. It is at least worth considering what would be 
reasonable in this regard for Grex, even if not in the bylaws, in which 
case persons can act upon their expectations of absence.

resp:27 I wouldn't support kicking him off the board permanently but I
don't see that it is insulting to fill his position temporarily while he
is gone. when is he coming back anyways. I would be willing to fill in
for a few months. 

tonster, grex couldn't have a board meeting in May because they 
couldn't make quorum.  Surely you can see that it is responsible for an 
organization to have board members who are available.  What if all the 
board members were serving overseas?  You'd just shut grex down rather 
than 'insult' military members?  Please.  Its not about respecting or 
disrespecting anything, its about what might need to be done to 
continue conducting business.

On a side note, I think grex needs to change the requirements for a
quorum if that is even possible. Either that or reduce the number of
board members. 

If we can't get any more members (and I'm not counting those who were
given "membership" for purposes of voting in the election), and we run
out of our 6 month moratorium on board members being members, there will
only be two of us with paid memberships (as far as I know; treasurer has
not given us a membership report yet).  So, we'll again be hard-pressed
to have an election if we need one (whether to replace board members or
to change the by-laws).

right. I am not currently a member. I am a bit short on cash at the
moment but should be back to my normal cash flow soon. (I'm buying a car
with all cash and forgot about the $600 in sales tax). 

re #32 so what are you implying, that after the six month moratorium 
expires that Grex should again consider shutting down for good?

No, that Board Members need to, to the best of their ability to pay,
renew their memberships.  And that we need to encourage other people to
become members or renew their memberships.  That, of course, also means
we need to do more than keep a system running, such as provide software
and/or services that encourage people to use grex more.  Unfortunately,
we're still dealing with system instability.  One solution to that, buy
a new system, would mean paying out the majority of the money we have
(and with no memberships to pay for operations).  And we still have no
clue what we'd do with a new system other than what little we are doing
now.

Grex needs to prove it can attract new users before it can justify 
buying a whole new system.  It cannot attract new users without a 
fully open user. Staff made a fatal decision when it agreed to let 
Cross put in his patch on newuser so that newusers have to be 
verified.  Newusers that are asked to wait to be verified won't, don't 
and haven't stayed around.  By the time staff waves their wands and 
says, 'thou art not evil, thou art worthy of grex', they are gone.  
But again and again board meetings happen and nobody agrees to take 
that patch out.

perhaps richard can fill in for cross while he's off banging afghan chicks?

Yeah, talk is cheap.  Volunteering takes more effort than most would
like to give.

"re #22 why is Cross even on the board if he's out of the country for 
the rest of the year? "

er...maybe because he's worth a hundreds pinko faggot morons like you?

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