Minutes for the December 15 1999 Board of Directors Meeting

Dec 17 04:44 UTC 1999

                         Cyberspace Communications
               December 15, 1999 - Board of Director's Non-Meeting
                                   Minutes

Presiding:  John Remmers (remmers)
Recording:  Jan Wolter (janc)
Other Board Members Present:
    Mark Conger (aruba)
    Steve Andre (steve)

Members of the Public:
    Eric Bassey (other)
    Gregory Fleming (flem)
    Steve Gibbard (scg)
    Meg Heberlein (eeyore)
    Jennifer Kriegal (jiffer)
    Anne Perry (mooncat)
    Mary Remmers (mary)
    Carolyn Woodroofe (lynne)

Board Members Absent:
    Scott Helmke (scott)
    Dan Gryniewicz (dang)
    Misti Tucker (mta)

AGENDA ITEM 1:  Gavel Banging

  - A quorum of 1999 board members was not present.

  - A quorum of 2000 board members was present, not that we knew, because
    the election wasn't over yet, and not that it mattered, because their
    terms hadn't started yet, but it does bode well for the future.

  - John Remmers began an "informational meeting" at 7:40pm.

AGENDA ITEM 2:  Chairman's Report

  - John Remmers noted that the election is still in progress.

AGENDA ITEM 3:  Treasurer's Report

  - The secretary had a hard time hearing the treasurer's report from the
    other side of the room, and then forgot to get the printout from Mark
    Conger after the meeting.  But, actually, the bylaws don't require the
    secretary to report minutes of non-board meetings at all, so the
    secretary still claims to be performing above and beyond the call of
    duty.

  - Mark Conger presumably presented the treasurer's report for November.
    The full report is available on-line in coop item 141.

      * Probably he said that we were in the red for November, which is
        traditionally a bad month:

           Total Income:     $456.52
           Total Expenses:   $627.75
           New Members:            6

      * We ended the month with 95 members, 88 of which are fully paid up.

      * Our bank balance ended at $5,281.83.
  
  - Mark almost certainly presented a preliminary report for December, but
    the secretary missed it completely.

  - Mark received an ad for ADSL in the mail from Ameritech, and wanted to
    know if staff was interested.  Staff was was distinctly uninterested.

  - Mark received an reply to our credit card application.  They first claimed
    they had not received any part of it.  When Mark said that he himself had
    placed it into the hands of an authentic Postal Service Employee, they
    admitted to having received half of it, but still want us to resubmit the
    other half, and sent us a new application form.  The new application form
    has a higher initial fee on it.  Nobody was sure if the other conditions
    of the deal had changed.  Mark believed the board had authorized up to
    $200 for the set-up fee, and it is still under that (he remembered
    correctly).  General inclination was to continue going forward with this.

AGENDA ITEM 4:  Publicity Committee Report

  - None.

AGENDA ITEM 5:  Technical Committee Report

  - Steve Andre says the hardware is OK.

  - Mike McNally has volunteered to come in and install more disk on Grex.
    Arrangements are being made.

  - Madji, who had previously donated a lot of Sun 4/690 parts to us, has
    now donated a Sun 4/690 rack, which has been shoe-horned into the pumpkin
    by several energetic staff members.  Staff is pleased to have it.

  - Grex staff member Michelangelo Giansiracusa has expressed interest in
    developing a web interface to party.  The public was struck dumb at the
    concept.

AGENDA ITEM 6:  Swan Songs

  - Three of the four departing staff members departed early and were not
    present to sing their swan songs.

  - Mark Conger said he has been pleased to be able to serve Grex, and
    hopes that we will be able to find an honest and reliable treasurer to
    take over his office.  He reminds people that the office doesn't have
    to be for four years, and that it isn't really all that hard.

  - All thanked Mark for his exemplary service to Grex.

AGENDA ITEM 7:  New Business

  - The future planning meeting happened.  All who were there felt it was
    good, and worth repeating, but no specific conclusions were reached, and
    not many of the things discussed got posted on Grex.

  - John Remmers will be sending E-mail to new board members on scheduling
    the January board meeting.

  - Sara Arthurs is making good progress in setting up the conference for
    the next Grex auction, which will be opening within the week.

AGENDA ITEM 8:  Gavel Cessation

  - John Remmers ended the meeting at 8:07pm, making this meeting one minute
    longer than last month's.

response 2 of 35:

Dec 17 05:15 UTC 1999

Eric (other) wasn't there, but I was.  =)  Please tell me I don't resemble
that dorky theater techie person...

<runs and hides>

response 4 of 35:

Dec 17 06:33 UTC 1999

Interesting...was the public present "struck dumb" by web party?

response 6 of 35:

Dec 17 12:16 UTC 1999

I think it took us a while to comprehend that sort of thing...

response 8 of 35:

Dec 17 14:03 UTC 1999

Yeah, I think the general consensus (once we stopped trying to picture 
how that would work) was, "Oh!  Cool..."

John brought up the point that when you telnet or dial in, you have 
access to tels, party, the conferences, talk, mail, etc.  With party 
being on the web, you'd be that much closer to having everything right 
there in one window.  (With the exception of mail).  

I think it's a neat idea, and I admire your undertaking of the project.  
I can't wait to see how (and if) it works.

response 10 of 35:

Dec 17 15:28 UTC 1999

(I wasn't saying it wouldn't work...  I realized how ambiguous that was 
after I posted it, and I apologize).  =)  I have the utmost faith in 
your programming abilities, Mic.  I meant how it would work out, how 
successful it would be, etc.

response 12 of 35:

Dec 17 16:37 UTC 1999

There's a ceiling on party users?  How low is it, exactly?

response 14 of 35:

Dec 17 20:53 UTC 1999

I am willing to help the new treasurer to transfer most of grex's funds from
the bank to where it can earn nearly 5% interest (as discussed in great detail
elsewhere).  GLB pays 0% on checking accounts with no fee.  

response 16 of 35:

Dec 17 22:31 UTC 1999

        yeah, the CC sounds flakey..


        "web hits" are cheap, or so-I-am-told. I'm more concerned what it
        does to party, bbs and grex. Are they "users" or equated to
        "backtalk users"? Does it mean more income, less or the same?

        Dropping them in the one-and-only #web_channel and denying the
        "unwashed masses" both/or telegrams or channels might, just MIGHT
        get some income.

response 18 of 35:

Dec 18 00:56 UTC 1999

I agree.  From what I've seen, chat-that-you-can-wander-into tends to be much
less worthwhile than chat-that-you-need-to-log-into, and sounds like less of
a good thing for grex to be subsidizing.

response 20 of 35:

Dec 18 02:25 UTC 1999

I doubt the ceiling on party users is ever reached, and it could easily lifted
if necessary.  That's not a problem, whatsoever.

Sense of community? (=  You call party main presently a "community"?  C'mon,
lets be serious...  Web-party won't change anything, in any case, as you will
have to be authenticated as a Grexer before you can use it.

And, whilst I agree Grex shouldn't be changing for change sake, the textual
interface to party (like bbs) will remain.  This is only going to add to our
coolness.

response 22 of 35:

Dec 18 03:13 UTC 1999

That was meant for Sarah (:

response 24 of 35:

Dec 18 16:03 UTC 1999

I'm gonna disagree with #20.  Party presently does support a few groups with
a sense of community.  Generally, as far as I can tell, these are centered
around people who already know each other in real life, but this isn't always
the case.  Most of the grexers I've gotten to know, I've met in party, not
in the conferences.  
Already, the amount of background noise in party gets to be a bit much at
times.  I'd be pretty annoyed if an interface change that was intended for
"added coolness" made it any worse.

I'm not opposed to web-based party; in fact, I think it could be a really good
thing, and yeah, could add to the coolness of grex, and I think it's great
that you're working on this project.  I just wish you'd take what's good
about the current party into account before changing it, so that the
change can be an improvement.