Attending: Board members: Mary, Other, Mooncat, Gelinas, Aruba, Flem,
MDW (7:45)
Non-Board Members: Glenda
1. Opening Gavel: 7:00 pm
2. Treasurer s Report: In October we took in $707 and spent $432.
We switched from our Centrex contract on October 22nd. We were charged
the installation fee, which Aruba had been told several times we would
not be. Since then Aruba has faxed them regarding the installation fees
with the full name of one person he spoke to and the first name of
another. The fax was received and assigned to someone to review.
At this point we have 82 members, 77 are paid up.
In November we have taken in $303 and have spent $495.
3. Next Grex: since the last meeting there has been no progress.
The delay has been caused by the installation of the most recent
release of OpenBSD-, which apparently has some bug problems. A
question was raised regarding access to the machine, and if the Next
Grex were in the Pumpkin, and thus more easily accessible, would
progress go faster? No conclusion drawn.
4. Staff Report: Gelinas gave us a heads up that a particular user
was over current space limits, the user has been warned about the
problem but has not yet resolved it. So the account will be locked.
Also, it s about time for a re-boot.
5. Copyright Materials in User Directories: recently board and
staff were made aware of a subpoena from a lawyer from Best Buy
regarding information a user posted on the web regarding prices.
Fortunately these were last year s after Thanksgiving Day sale prices
and not the current year as the lawyer had thought. Aruba contacted the
lawyer and cleared up their misconception, so this particular issue was
resolved easily, however the larger point remains as to what steps
should the Board and Staff take should a situation like this arise
again. Discussion mostly centered on the need for additional legal
input- and where that legal advice could be found. In general a few
basic, broad guidelines to follow would be helpful as it would be
impossible to get a roadmap to follow for every possibility. In terms
of where, Other has volunteered to research this, checking with such
places as the NEW Center, EEF, M. Steinberg and Dave Cahill for
contacts/referrals.
6. Remote Access to Board Meetings: conversation boiled down to
this: Zingerman s has wireless computer access. This access is not open
to the general public but is available for special occasions, such as
Grex meetings. Mary will contacts Zingerman s to see how to go about
getting access. From there a plan will have to be worked out between
the remote board member and the rest of the board in terms of what
computer programs to use to allow voice interaction. Additionally, it
was discussed that there should be a back-up plan in case the board
member who is local who brings in the laptop is unavailable. The
easiest solution discussed was to carry out the board meetings via cell
phone with external speakers connected so that everyone could hear and
be heard. The actual workability of this will hopefully be tested at
the next Board meeting to be sure that it works before it becomes
necessary. Mary will research this portion as well.
7. Registering Grex s Trademark: i.e. the multi-color town hall
and the name Grex. The main questions the board had were simply to do
with cost and what benefits Grex would reap as a result. As no one
really had any clear knowledge on either- Gelinas has agreed to
research this.
7.5 Moving Domain Sites: last year we moved grex.org from
the evil Verisign to Dotster.
Aruba motioned: Move cyberspace.org from Verisgn to Dotster. Gelinas
seconded.
Ayes: 7, Nays: 0, Abstained: 0
8. Schedule Next Board Meeting: first date: Thursday December
18th, second: December 8th, or last ditch December 11th.
9. New Business: None
10. Closing Gavel: 8:30
82 responses total.
Excellent! ZingWAP info has been forwarded to Mary, and inquiries regarding legal info and referrals have been sent.
Wow, fast minutes. Thanks Anne!
GREAT MEETING, KIDS"
It's always amazed me that businesses can copyright prices. I know someone who got chased out of a store because he was trying to write down prices so he could compare them to another store's.
Anne does great minutes. ;-) The next board meeting will be on Thursday, December 18th, at 7:00 p.m. The kid's room is reserved.
#4: How long did that store remain in business? Or how long did the employee that did that remain in employ there? That's just idiotically bad business practice.
I'm curious as to who is going to pick up the cell phone expenses for the incoming call, if there is a remote member. (Of course, if it's one of those plans that doesn't cound incoming minutes, or if the meeting is during the free time - are there any out there? - this point is moot). I understand the remote member would have to pay for the cost of the call, and that is understandable. Also, if there is more than one remote member, how will they all call in? I'm assuming conferencing them in. Again conferences are limited in how many people you can conference at once. Again not something we would be concerned about at this point, but still.
> The kid's room is reserved. I had heard that it was actually quite raucous... ;-)
Cute. Now go clean your room. ;-) Re: #7 Those are all good questions. After we find out more about Zing's connection and what's available in terms of speaker phones connected to cell phones, we should be able to have some answers. Does anyone know if an *incoming* call, from, say Japan, in included as expected usual minutes on most nationwide cell phone plans?
As these are voluntary positions, I can understand if the individual that is the remote member ends up paying for the expences. there has to be a certain level of financial responsibility, and that means that the board member, should they be connecting up by remote, do what is best for the organization. It is possible, also, that the board member could use this as a deduction of sorts, as the donation of funds--paying for the phone call--goes along with the donation of time. Just my opinion, anyway.
That could be a viable solution but not one that needs to be relied on. If remote members are allowed to join the board, they should be able to prticipate in meetings. And relying on a person's charity to do so isn't the way to go. Especially since the person who is willing to donate cell-phone time isn't always going to be on board. Either this can be considered an expense from the organization (Grex), where Grex gets a cell-phone for this purpose, or it would be better if a non-costing solution was found. To answer mary's question, incoming calls from overseas are treated as all other incoming calls. The minutes are charged the same way as any other national calls. I get calls from India all the time, and the incoming minutes are not charged any differently.
Expenses incurred in the provision of volunteer service to a 501(c)3 organization are tax deductible. This would definitely cover cellular charges specific to a board meeting conference/ld call.
I think Grex should be prepared to pay for a call that a board member makes in order to participate in a board meeting. I also think it would be great if someone donated that.
And better yet if someone was already paying for a service plan which made it cost nothing extra to do. ;) But I agree that Grex should be prepared to pay that cost. However, that potentiality may bias the election against remote board members. :(
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Trademarks: From brief research a couple years ago, my recollection is that a U.S. Trademark winds up costing quite a bit - on the order of $4K. But a Michigan Trademark is cheap - on the order of $40. Either one gives you a dug-in prime location in the corresponding legal battlefield - which is NOT immunity from a big/expensive army of enemy lawyers (especially if you can't afford much legal muscle yourself), but *usually* makes you secure 'cause it's cheaper for them to avoid a fight.
Should there be a limit of one remote board member if there will be only one phone line?
Sindi - if ther's more than one, I'm sure we can find a way to deal with it, through a conference call.
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How do conference calls work? If two remote members phone can they hear each other?
Yes, they can, Sindi.
My limited understanding of trademark law is that registration just makes use of the trademark easier to document. Given that Grex has been using its trademarks very publicly for quite a while, simply declaring them to be trademarks (and putting "TM" after the trademarks when written) should be just as good. Neither registration or a "common law trademark" means anything if it's not enforced. The important legal step to maintaining a trademark is to consistently have a lawyer send "cease and desist" letters to anybody who infringes on the trademark, and to back those letters up with lawsuits if they aren't complied with.
could a non-local board member simply arrange to be logged into grex on a private party channel? Then whoever has the laptop can be responsible for keeping the logged in user appraised of the dicussion, and to note the non-local user's vote. Since the party transcripts are logged anyway, it shouldn't matter much so long as someone reads the user's comments tha the/she is typing to the rest of the room...
The by-laws require voice participation.
VOIP!
I assume that if elected to the board, I would carry the LD charges of calling in from Japan since I would be calling into the meeting, not the other way around. Any idea what the local access charges would be for the person supplying the cell phone? In any case, it would be nicer if participation could take place via i-chat or the like using zingerman's wireless access.
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Hopefully a solution can be worked out that isn't prohibitive on both sides. As for the sell phone charges, my guess is that it would depend on the service in use.
oops. Cell phone, damn it!
Remember: If jp2 gets elected, Grex'll end up paying big bucks. Is he worth it?
I think some people misunderstood what I was trying to say. My concern about call charges stemmed from the fact that it was stated that a "cell-phone" may be used to take the incoming call from the non- local board member. All minutes for incoming calls on a cell phone are counted as air-time minutes and may be charged or are included in the "Free" minutes on the phone plan. While I believe that the non- local member should be responsible for any long-distance charges incurred when they call into the meeting, my concern is who would be held responsible for air-time minutes for the incoming calls. Yes, the person whose cell-phone it is could treat it as a donation and get the tax-deduction. But I'd like to see a more permanent solution, one that didn't depend on someone's donation of cell-time, or even depending on the fact that there is a cell-phone present at the meeting. (And while we're on it, if a cell-phone is being used, then it would make more sense for the board to call the non-local member rather than the other way around. This way only the cell-phone charges would be incurred, and the non-local member wouldn't have to pay for it. But this is not what I'm driving at) The whole internet thing using Zingerman's wireless access seems viable, if it works, but again, we need to be certain that there is computer access at the meeting. Or maybe moving the meeting location to someone's house with a land-line. Has this issue been discussed in the board-meeting? Or are we certain that no non-local member would get elected anyways, making this a moot point? ;)
RE 30> Take that to the mud-slinging item.
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The part about Board's meeting place having "wired" capability seemed to have been resolved with Zingerman's wireless access. Could Zingerman provide a land-line that could be used, do you think? I know it's a long shot, and I don't know how it's set up...
Given the small likelihood that their accounting system is set up to deal with such a thing, I'd consider it unlikely.
I'm looking into these issues and hope to have some answers by the next board meeting, mid-December. I'll enter it here too. Advice is very welcome. Some of the possibilities include cell to cell, but speaker capability gets weird here unless you're in a car. Even then, the quality is sucky. Cell to a standard speaker phone looks easy enough although this may mean we'd not be able to meet at Zing's. Still working on it. I don't think use of limitless or mega-minutes would be an issue for anyone on either end. I really don't think Grex needs a dedicated cell phone. But the connection that intrigues me the most would have us using Internet voice via computer - essentially using a computer to call our remote user on his or her telephone. A number of companies offer this service, supplying the software for free, and you purchase connection time in advance. Airtime for calls to Japan run from 5-11 cents a minute, so a board meeting would cost somewhere around $7.00. Doable, for sure. We'd need find a low end laptop with a soundcard. I'd put Sindi on that one. ;-) Then we plug in a $12 microphone, and start talking. I think. Anyhow, I'm not sure how Zing's would feel about our using their bandwidth in this fashion, but I'm about to find out. Then there is the possibility of using conferencing facilities at New Center, WCC, or even Kinko's. But that may be way over the top of what we can afford. It may be worth looking into that too. I've send mail to all the remote candidates asking them how they'd like to connect, should they get elected. Not everyone has responded but it's only been a few days.
Evil MSN has voice messaging technology built into its free Instant Messenger service.
#24..."the by-laws requier voice participation" Then I think the bylaws conflict with state law and need to be amended. If the bylaws require voice participation, you make it impossible for anyone who is deaf to participate (and grex has had deaf users before btw)
and by state law I mean laws prohibiting discrimination...if grex's bylaws require "voice participation", is it not specifically disallowing text participation by those who might want to participate and who are deaf or hard of hearing? Grex should amend the bylaws to allow any participation acceptable by the board as "live" participation, be it by voice, or by text, or by sign language, or .etc
why not change the bylaws from:
d. The BOD shall hold face-to-face meetings on a regular,
if he or she can, via a telephone or other electronic system,
hear and be heard by all the other attendees
TO
d. The BOD shall hold meetings on a regular basis, either face to face if
possible, or via a telephone or other electronic system that the board is
unanimously willing to accept as "live" participation. All other
attendees must be able to hear or have access to the text of comments of
those members who are not physically present.
Wow mary! Thanks for following up. Looks like you've been really busy. I'm sure everyone appreciates it. I don't think a private channel is a good idea. Especially if the person on party is going to get someone's interpretation of what's happenning in a couple of lines. It's easy enough to vote, but my interpretation of the minutes is that there is a lot of discussion, and by having one person on text, you're limiting his contribution to the meeting. (Also what he gets out of the meeting till he reads the inutes, and even then he'll prolly miss much of the discussion. )
What's that telephone system for the deaf? TTD? TDD? Rather common in the US, I've heard. So the 'voice' limitation is no where near as restricting as Richard opines. This issue was discussed and decided may be a year ago. Do you have any thing *new* to offer, Richard?
good points mynx, but doesn't change the fact that by requring voice participation you are effectively discriminating against potential members who are not deaf. Their comments could not be "heard" by the other members unless the other members knew sign language, or that member wrote his/her comments down. And how would writing down the comments down be different than typing them on the screen. I think a deaf user could sue Grex in court for the right to run for the board, in spite of being in violation of the bylaw requiring the other members to be able to hear their comments, and win. The courts would probably require Grex to allow non-oral participat ion
They would only win if there were damages: if it could be shown that their failure of election was directly related to their disability. Since, to the best of my knowledge, none have run, none have standing to sue.
no, they'd win if they were elected to the board and then not seated because they informed the board they were deaf and could not participate orally. OR if they indicated a desire to run and were not allowed on the ballot because they indicated they were unable to participate orally. Grex is a non-profit and to maintain that non-profit status, Grex cannot discriminate, and its bylaws cannot allow discrimination. If the bylaws have as a membership requirement a rule that precludes the participation of any users due to their own physical limitations, that would be against the law. An online chat is a LIVE communication. So long as a member agrees to bring a laptop and communicate online to members not physically present, why is this an issue? Grex's problems aren't so complex that text participation need be precluded
Richard, your claims presuppose taht an elected director would not be seated. What evidence can you offer that such would happen?
The two deaf people I know read lips well and also speak pretty well.
the evidence is the bylaws. the bylaws say they cannot serve on the board if the other members can't "hear" what they are saying
Why worry about this if nobody deaf is currently running for office?
I'm going to picket Grex.
Geez, Richard, you really can blow things out of proportion. The bylaw is not meant to discriminate, and I have absolutely no doubt that if a deaf person was elected to the board, the board would find a way for him or her to participate. (And this issue was discussed at the time the amendment was voted on.) The reason I insisted on the "hear and be heard" phrasing was: 1) Trying to have a meeting in which people participated textually would be very slow and very tedious, and it would be very hard to get anything done. 2) It's been my observation over the years that Grexers who interact in person do so much more civilly and productively than those who only interact online. This has to do with voice tones, body language, and general realization that the person you're dealing with is real, not just pixels on the screen or an automated responder. It was worth giving up the body language to allow remote board members to participate, but not worth giving up the whole package, IMO. Anyone's welcome to propose an amendment to the "hear and be heard" amendment, of course. But keep in mind that it passed by the minimum margin.
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Re resp:37: Even my boss, who is a determined Microsoft-hater, likes MS Internet Messenger's voice chat feature. Re resp:38: I think if you want to pursue this, you should probably create another item for discussing the bylaw change.
I'm with aruba on this one. Richard, you're being extremely nit-picky. Even if you're not happy with the "heard and be heard" clause, we could change it to "through lip-reading or by sign language". I think this would satisfy everyone. If the deaf person happens to be a remote user, he can have an interpreter who can sign him and talk into the phone. I view this like the problem with long distance charges. If a remote member wants to be on board, they need to come up with the phone charges. I don't think holding the board meeting through text is a viable option
Presumably if there's somebody who actually needs to meet via text due to some sort of disability, the board will be reasonable and will make accomodations.
That doesn't mean the by-laws aren't discriminatory.
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Zing's is fine with us using their public wireless network. Unfortunately, we won't be able to hook up to a POTS line from any room at Zing's. The simplest way of connecting a remote board member would be for Grex to purchase a $30 speaker telephone and have the remote user call us using his mega or unlimited minutes. But this would mean we'd need to move our meetings to one of our homes, most likely. I could live with that but I'd like to hear what others think. If we find a cheap used laptop, or if one was donated to Grex, then we could stay at Zing's and use their network. Zing's can make no promise as to network uptime. They are offering this as a courtesy. I expect there would be times when we'd find it's not working - and we'd need to be understanding.
We own several speaker telephones that grex could use, and Kiwanis has more. Why waste $30 on a new one?
Keep in mind that any speaker phone in the $30 range will be half duplex. That means any time anyone in the room is talking (or there's any other noise) the speaker will be muted and the person at the other end won't be able to be heard. I've found this type of speakerphone worse than useless in anything but a totally quiet environment.
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I've heard the same thing David has about half-duplex phones. Why does it cost more for a full-duplex one?
They're much more complex electronically, and there are a lot of complicated acoustic issues to solve. You have to figure out how to keep the mic and speaker from feeding back to each other if there's some sidetone on the line, and how to prevent echoing and other unpleasant effects.
I see, that makes sense. Thanks. How much are we talking for a full-duplex phone?
Playcom seems to specialize in conferencing telephones. They run from about $265 to, way up there. Here's the least expensive one I found: http://www.buy.com/retail/electronics/product.asp? loc=514&sku=10084336
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Well, that's a lot of money. Tod: see previous responses.
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It could be two people, and if someone in the room is talking, the people on the far end can't be heard to ask for the floor.
You may need to start the practice of actually asking the person on the phone if he has anything to say. I know it seems a little clunky...
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The Polycom phones are the really serious conference room phones, which are quite nice, but cost quite a lot. I think the two line, full duplex, ATT speakerphone I have on my desk was somewhere under $100 three years ago, so I assume there are still lower end phones that would work. I've seen a speakerphone attachment that plugs into a cell phone, which seems to work ok. That might be a reasonable option. Also, there are some nice VOIP "soft phones" that will run on a PC and should be able to link up with the PSTN through some gateway service, which should perform nicely when paired with good speakers and a good microphone (in other words, not the built in microphone on the notebook it's running on). It seems to me you've got three scenarios to consider here; one in which you have just one remote board member, another in which you have two remote board members, and a third in which you have three or more. In the one remote member scenario, all you need is a point to point connection of some sort, which is a standard phone call and therefore easy. Two remote board members can probably be handled through "three way calling," although that should be handled in a phone switch rather than inside somebody's phone so the two remote people can hear eachother clearly. The scenario in which there are many remote board members probably requires a real conference bridge of some sort. There are lots of companies that sell this service, although it may not be all that cheap. There are also a lot of corporate phone switches that include a system called Meeting Place, which does this quite well. If somebody reading this works for a company with a Meeting Place system, and would be willing to donate some off hours use of it, that would be quite useful.
Interesting about the cell phone speakerphone you've seen. The only one I've been able to locate that isn't designed to be useful outside a car without jumping through hoops is specific for Motorola phones. I think our first step should be an inexpensive or free regular speakerphone. See how that goes and then fine tune the connection.
CCM Clip N Go (http://www.1800mobiles.com/clipngo.html) works with a variety of Motorola and Nokia telephones. It apparently includes both a cigarette-lighter adaptor and a travel (AC?) adaptor. It's listed at $25.99.
That Clip N Go thing doesnt' look quite like the one I saw, but claims to be full duplex, which has the potential to make it quite usable.
I hit a snag when trying to transfer cyberspace.org from Network Solutions to Dotster. Apparently Dotster now requires that one obtain an "AUTH-CODE" for .org domains. (Most things I found on the net say this is only require for .biz and .info domains, so this must be a new development or a quirk about Dotster.) The AUTH-CODE has to come from our current registrar, the evil Network Solutions/Verisign. Getting it apparently requires sending a fax to their number in Virginia, requesting that they send the code via email. I'll send the fax out - I'm sure they're in a really big hurry to answer requests like this, though. So who knows if we'll get the info back in time to switch to Dotster before January 14th (when our domain is up). If it gets too close, I think we should just renew with Verisign. (Which is what they want, of course, but the whole business is not worth risking our domain name over.)
Did you have a direct telephone conversation with a representative of Dotster to confirm the details of this requirement and explore alternatives? If so, then I would recommend making this as much as is possible a transaction conducted with Verisign by telephone, and inform them on each occasion that your conversations will be recorded, and in all other ways you should document fully the steps in this process in order that we can show Verisign that we will win the lawsuit that will be filed if they screw this up. I have an answering machine which can be used to record conversations, and you can use it if you like, or I can make the telephone calls if you're more comfortable with that.
If you'd like to handle this, Eric, you're more than welcome to.
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The Verisign system is quite automated, and you're probably better off using it than trying to go around it by talking to humans. Talking to humans does make sense if the automated system doesn't deliver in a reasonable amount of time (and since it's automated, reasonable would be hours at worst, not days).
annoying
TROGG IS DAVID BLAINE
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