Minutes from 6/13/10 Board Meeting Present: kentn, unicorn, gelinas, tsty, mary, remmers, denise Meeting called to order at 6:40 pm Treasurer s Report: -The change in signatures [adding tsty] has taken place -Everything s paid/up to date [phone bill, provide.net, etc] -The tax form for 2009 has been taken care of -Tsty will be providing a full treasurer s report [with balance, expenses, membership status, etc]; after that, we can work on a membership drive Staff Report: -Need to look into getting a valid certificate to validate grex as a secure site; Cross has taken care of this in the past; can we get the account name and number so we can update it? -The web newuser needs fixing; remmers will be looking into this -There have been a couple brief outages [several weeks ago, and a few weeks before that]. On both occasions, remmers went to provide.net. Both times the machine would not boot from the hard drive; had to be rebooted using the cd drive. Someone with technical background needs to look into this [STeve?] -USB doing daily backups; remmers has also been doing backups, staff has been notified how to access the backups he s doing. -What users access grex through the web and who from command lines? Mission Statement: Even with the changes over the years, the mission statement still appears to be adequate for what we re doing. There is an item in co-op for disscusion. Phone Lines, as per item discussion in co-op, we should be able to get rid of at least one, if not both, lines. Gelinas moved that we remove 1 line, tsty seconded; motion passed. Tsty will be calling the phone company to cancel the second line [734-484-0513]. The MOTD should be updated with which line is still available for now [734-484-0512] The email/spam discussion continues. Spam is now 90% of incoming mail; there s nothing we can do to filter it before it gets to the disc. We are currently using gmail for board and staff communications. We don t have resources to run email; email on grex is unreliable/not safe but some people still like to play around with what we have. Can we set up mail so only staff can be contacted? The what services do we want to offer discussion also continues. Things we may want include conferencing, perhaps blogging [how?], shell access, script access, scp... What web services? Image storing/services? Would we police this? Allow links instead? What can we do to open up the system and still maintain decent conversations? Provide private conferences to gain control over trouble makers? Make it readable/writeable... What can we do through backtalk? Do we want lynx to go away? Why NOT keep it? Having a grex Town Meeting has been discussed several times to publicly talk about what we want to do/provide. But scheduling something local would limit participation. So an item in coop will be entered as the public place to discuss these issues and it could be linked to each agora. Next meeting is scheduled for 8/1/10 from 6:30-8:30 pm at Denise s house. 9:13 Motion to adjourn was made and seconded and passed69 responses total.
fast and good ... ur hired! tnx.
Excellent, Denise. Thank you!
Note that I put a Grex Town Hall item here in coop (#278). I've sent e-mail to Katie and Walter to see if we can get it linked first and then set up to roll with each new agora. In the meantime, it's available here in coop.
When can we expect a financial report? Also, when will the 2009 state corporation update be sent in (one page) so that we do not lose our status as a non-profit? After that, we'll need to send in the 2010 update, too.
The State form is due in September or October; Mark probably sent it in this past Fall.
Not from what I've heard from him directly. If he has sent in the 2009 form since then, that's great. If not, we need to do that soon.
Correction: I see the MI Annual Report for 2009 (that was due in Oct 2009) has been received by the state on Jan. 20, 2010 and filed on Feb 26, 2010. Mark is, however, our resident agent still (unless we've filed a change of agent form), so will continue to get the notices from the state about this annual update. This is not an issue as long as he is willing to serve in that role (it does not need to be a Board member as far as I know). Here is the rather long URL to the image of the filed form: http://www.dleg.state.mi.us/bcs_corp/image.asp?FILE_TYPE=MAO&FILE_NAME=D201 003\2010067\GSI00045283.TIF This was one of the issues that was outstanding when we began the transfer from previous treasurer to new treasurer. I'm glad it's no longer a problem.
The resident agent can be anyone (but should be a reliable person).
As I said, not an issue...
Well, having a reliable person can be an issue...
True. I've brought this up before with the Treasurer. It's not been on the top of his list, understandably since we have a few more months before the next one is due. However, if we need to make a change of agent, it would be good to know now rather than later. I don't have a good sense of whether aruba is willing to continue to do this task or not.
resp:0: if someone can get me the godaddy login/password, I can handle the ssl certificate renewal. As well, as I've offered before, I'd be happy to setup Grex on my mail server and offer it as I do with m-net's email. The previous interest seemed low, so perhaps there is no interest in doing this.
I'll be seeing Mark on Saturday and will ask him about this.
Re 12: sounds good to me. Will other staff help Tony out on this so we can get this fixed? I don't recall the details of our in-meeting investigation into who the current SSL cert is registered with. I assume it would be good to just renew the current one rather than have expired certs all over creation.
resp:14: It's a godaddy certificate, I've already verified that (and noted in resp:12). If we have the username/password for the godaddy account, renewing is simple. Pay the fee, and get the new certificate, then install it. It also appears to be a multi-domain certificate, so we should modify it to also work for grex.cyberspace.org so that backtalk is also encrypted since it also runs over ssl.
This is one of those items that the Board said they could handle in e-mail for the purposes of authorizing a payment. Do you have a cost for this renewal? Also, we noted some issues with some aliased domains so having it work with multiple domains sounds good (staff were going to look into the setup).
all I can say is..if tony is willing to do all this stuff he has talked about then give him root and reigns
resp:16: I believe it's about $90 for the 5 domain ssl certificate. The current certificate expires on the 29th. resp:17: I've already got root, but thanks for the support. :)
Okay, that sounds reasonable for 5 domains. The Board was hoping it would be less than $100. Now it sounds like the username/password may be the tie-up. Is there anyone one staff, who knows, who can tell you? You might need to e-mail Dan.
I'll email staff (of which dan is a member) and see if I can kick up any dirt.
Great, thanks!
The Board voted in e-mail to authorize up to $100 for the purpose of purchasing renewed SSL certificates. The vote was 6 in favor, 1 not voting. Approval was granted on June 24, 2010. Has there been any word from Dan on the login credentials?
not yet. :( I'm unsure what email address would have even been used to create it.
OK, well, hopefully we'll hear from Dan and he can enlighten us. Thanks.
Does it cost more money to start from scratch as opposed to renewing a license?
No. The cost will not be different.
But probably if we already have an account they'll see that we're trying to get certs for the same domains and question what we're doing. Would it make sense to call them, explain the situation, and ask what evidence they need to see to let us do the renewal?
Someone in position of authority for the corporation could probably give them a call and explain that we have no idea what our login is and see what is necessary to retrieve it. I'd expect the President or VP should be able to get the process started. If we had the login, we might be able to then get the password reset.
I can try to do that Tony. Can you email me the particulars I need to know, such as the domains we want to renew. A phone number would be good, too.
There are no domains that need renewal, to my knowledge. All of the email contacts on the domain appear to be treasurer@cyberspace.org, so perhaps that's our login. The following is what I see as the domains on the certificate though: www.grex.org grex.org www.cyberspace.org cyberspace.org
Thanks Tony. (Sorry, I meant domains for which we want certs). I'll try to give them a call. We'll see what they say. The worst that could happen is they won't talk to me ;)
OK, I gave them a call and it took a while for them to find our account, but they did. Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat as staff in terms of getting even what the account name is (it's not treasurer@). I got into the web page there and had it send an e-mail to the registered e-mail about resetting the password. But I don't know what that e-mail address is other than it is something at gmail.com. It could be Dan's or it could be grex-staff (wouldn't that be nice) or it could be something else entirely. They are looking for the 4-digit PIN before they'll even discuss resetting a password. What they did say was that after these certs expire, you can set up a new account and get new certs. So that seems to be the way out if we can't find the PIN and the account name.
Well, I haven't seen the grex-staff email, so I'm guessing that it was probably cross' personal email or something. We'll go the route of setting up a new account if it expires. At that point, if I'm the one renewing (and I haven't seen anyone object to that), then I'll need some cooperation from whoever owns treasurer@ now, since it'll send email requesting authorization to the contact listed in the domain name registration. It won't be too painful though.
Good deal. With any luck Dan will pop in briefly and let staff know the details. Otherwise, with a new account, I wonder if we can have the e-mail be grex-staff@gmail.com so that if this happens again more than one person will in theory get the e-mail? TS is the treasurer now. Since the Board approved of the expenditure, there shouldn't be a problem with TS helping out in terms of payment and/or authorization.
Sounds good. I'd support making the account grex-staff@gmail.com.
Making the account in grex-staff's name is a good idea...
(It's not that hard to add yourself to the treasurer address, Tony. ;)
resp:37: there is that, but I'm generally opposed to just attaching myself to various mailing lists just because I can. :)
Grex has never before paid for a certificate, and the treasurer was never involved in this process. If any money changed hands, Dan must have paid for it himself.
True, I think that is case, so we may owe Dan some money. It does cost to get the certificates, so someone had to pay for our web server to have a valid certificate.
BTW, Mark, do we owe you for filing the Michigan corporate update? Or did you take that out of the funds while you were still treasurer? If the former, let us know and we'll see about reimbursing you. If the latter, thanks.
Kent - I still have the checkbook and am still paying Grex's bills; until TS lets me know that the account signers have been updated, that's the only alternative, I think. So I paid the corporate filing fee from Grex's account. TS left the bank last month with forms and letters for gelinas, slynne, and janc to sign, and the latter two have to be notarized. All have to be sent in before the bank will allow him to write checks for Grex. What is the status on those?
I haven't heard from him but I am sure we can meet up for signings and notarizing etc.
I say we make taylor cough up that guitar before handing him the checkbook
he emailed you the scavenger hunt details on mts
hmmmm ... try again treasurer resurfaces ... do need to get with slynne rsn (call me at your convenience 734,817,1982) to arrange ftf. no statements whatsoever from tcf in po box. no bills whatsoever from telephone co in po box. stmt from bank of ann arbor --- savings acct apr=0.15% --- $1,942.34 deposited $30 ck into tcf (couldn;t get acct balalnce of course) phones, phn co will -only- deal with email for changing service. what;s up with that, but ok .. it;s in process - cut -0513 line... provide is $100/mo, paid @ 3 mos intervals. next bill due middle of this month (july). zero clue as to phn bill (see above) should have given gelinas the tcf papers @board meet .. (color me dumb?) but didn;t. oops, sorry. i;ll start carrying gelinas' stuff in car - we have met a couple times inthe city ... also, could arrange ftf w/gelinas - call me pse. need to locate janc to hand off tcf papers .. any clue wehre he is? a couple emails (a while ago) went unanswered ... although they were on a different topic. aruba is going to have to write checks, still, until the dust settles. thank you in advance. (how much is phn bill? -- where does bill go? -- wehre does tcf stmt go?)
TS, I'll give you call later this week.
kewl .. carrying stuff w/me at all tmes
why does janc need to sign? as far as I know, he has left grex and hasn't used it in quite some time. he probably would not want to sign.
becasue the balnk says hse does.
what's a balnk? your imaginary friend?
The bank is not grex, so janc can leave grex, but that does not necessarily cancel any bank account-related access.
him and popcorn have been waiting for 7 or 8 years for you lamers to figure it out.
daer lur: it was fingerd ourt loooong ago, by us. it jsut took you 7-8 yrs to figure it out. we knew all along, of course.
OH RLY? you slugworm clusterfucks
What if Jan is unavailable/missing/lost at sea/deceased/abducted by aliens or whatever? There has to be a mechanism by which the bank can be informed that it is simply no longer possible to obtain his signature and that things must proceed without it.
Just add a new signature to the account.
Regarding the Grex SSL certificate: Mark is right. It's something that I paid for out of pocket (because I got tired of seeing warnings from web- browsers about expired, self-signed certs). I used my personal GoDaddy account to do it which, somewhat ironically, I can't really access from Afghanistan. I think the best course of action would be for someone who's got some real access to go ahead and buy a new one. If I get an email from GoDaddy, I can try and explain the situation to them.
Thanks, Dan. We should pay you for your expenses on Grex's behalf IMO (if the Board agrees). The Board already approved money for Tony to set up a new godaddy account and generate new certs, so hopefully we're okay that way. Thanks for doing this for use previously.
Hey, no problem.... No need to be reimbursed, either. It benefited me as much a anyone else.
reimburse .. not even a qauestoin.
PayPal balance: $286.95 USD
of which $280.00 has now been trnsferred to the checking acct ...
Thanks, TS! Have you noted who paid for memberships so that they can be notified?
that will come next time i go to papal ... their softwarz for tha twere out of commission at the itme.
got the rundown... ur good.
got an idea .. baracuda newtworks did an aacs shoe tinight. interseting, actally,. it was mostl a sales pitch (which we trashed, apporpoptriately) but there is a tech buy who will do a show in a cojuple moths. much more to our code-scriblesrs;s liking. anyways, grx -cpould- ofer web ased emal with a baracudda front end for spam control ... selected by the loginid ... not blankest mandatory. teh ... @cyberspace.orfg addrs has sastonishing resonance. we are original ... we are pioneers. ik odn;t knw what gui/html/wab emaikl process wold/could run here but as teh net advances, wome ow grex meeds o fo d a wau to stayu/imporove currncy with standard toech (of the moent). tyoing sucks ... read through it. tnx.
You have several choices: