BOARD MEETING OF 3-1-00

Mar 11 05:36 UTC 2000

Sorry that this took so long to get posted, but I've been pretty busy, and
my brain was really fried the night of the meeting, so I had to pick up a
couple little bits that I missed.  But I'm better now. :)

NOTES:

Meeting was called to order at 7:10 by Eric.  All Board members were in
attendance, as well as Charles (arthurp), Steve (scg), Scott (scott), Mark
(aruba), & Mary (mary), with Valerie (valerie) and Arlo (arlo) appearing for
the grand finale.

Chair Report:  Eric reported that he now realized that it was his duty to have
        written adgendas at the meeting, and that at the next meeting he would
        properly perform this duty.

Treasurer Report:  Greg reported that we took in $675.40, and paid out
        $468.30 in January, with 1 new member and 6 returning members.  He has
        found out that Card Services *had* recieved our check and application,
        so we have been sent the stuff to accept cards.  We had not yet heard
        from Charge Solutions about taking cards on-line.  Once we hear from
        them, we need to find out how we go about taking cards on-line...if
        the credit card numbers go through us or go onto a secure website.
        (at the time of the writing, this is mostly settled, but hey, I just
        print what went on at the meeting! :)

Publicity Committee:  The major question was whether Misti was still working
        on publicity.  It seems that she said that she would now have more time
        to work on it, and was then promptly removed from the baff mailing
        list.  Somebody (Eric?) was going to contact her and find out it she
        was still interested.

Technical Comittee:  We've recieved more donations of Memory.  There is going
        to be work on a development machine, so that we can test things without
        having to take down Grex.  We have the parts, we just need the time
        to put it all together.  It will be useful for checking drives and 
        for training.  Charles has volunteered to become a trainee.  All of
        our hardware is working just fine at this point.  Charles is willing
        to donate a Pentium 66 plus the pieces for it to make a machine for
        e-mail or to hold the password system.  There is talk of setting up
        a CGI webpage that could fix and sendout a new password without human
        intervention.  Disk space is tight right now, but hopefully we'll have
        another disk in soon.  The committee will at some point take Grex down
        to format 2 more disks...one for extra space on Grex, one for the 
        developement machine.

Staff Meeting:  The staff reports that Arlo is cute and walks up and down
        hallways and spins rings.

New business:  As of the meeting, Steve Gibbard was the contact person for
        the domain name database, and he didn't want to be anymore.  STeve
        agreed to put in his name and work phone number, but asked for an
        answering machine to put onto it, since this would be the Official
        Phone.  Jan motioned that we authorize up to $1.50 be spent by Steve
        Andre on an answering machine for Grex.  After a bit of laughter, he
        fixed that amount to $50 (the amount that we had origionally decided
        was a fair amount).  John seconded the motion, and all voted yes.  Also
        the question of Inventory came up....namely, do we have a written
        inventory anywhere?  The answer, of course, was no, so the members of
        the Technical Comittee agreed to meet afterwards and write down what
        they could remember was in the Pumpkin.  Mark mentioned that we do 
        need to keep track of this stuff, since we need to have a dollar amount
        at the beginning and ending of each year for some of our paperwork.
        It was pointed out that it would be hard to keep track of an inventory,
        since parts seem to magically appear in the Pumpkin with nobody's
        knowledge.  STeve will post a list, and we need to keep a running 
        inventory, as we may have to pay Personal Property Tax on it.  We also
        need to fill out a Charitable Solicitations License 990, to accept
        the donations of parts that we've always had.  We also have several
        computer parts laying around the Pumpkin that we have no use for, but
        are still good.  STeve has asked if we can donate them to the Open BSD
        project.  Board agreed, as long as it was local....no point in spending
        the money to ship them.

Charle's phone rang....he took the call in the hallway.

Next meeting will be on April 5, 2000, at 7 p.m.

Meeting was adjurned at 8:12.

response 2 of 75:

Mar 12 03:27 UTC 2000

Before the answering machine is purchased, you might want to check with 
Keesan to see if Kiwanis has a working one that might be cheaper than 
going to a store.

response 4 of 75:

Mar 12 05:23 UTC 2000

Such as?

response 6 of 75:

Mar 12 06:05 UTC 2000

I was, BTW, particularly delighted with the staff report.  ;)

response 8 of 75:

Mar 12 16:35 UTC 2000

We have at least 30 working answering machines at Kiwanis.  With a lifetime
guarantee - if it ever goes bad we replace it.  Do you want digital, small
tape, large tape, one tape or two?  Who wants to choose one?

response 10 of 75:

Mar 12 20:51 UTC 2000

The new machines are made much more flimsily than the old ones.  By the way,
what sort of very important calls are you expecting on this machine?

response 12 of 75:

Mar 12 22:59 UTC 2000

And at one call every three or four months, it will probably take a long time
to notice if the machine breaks.  That means having an old one that can be
replaced easily if it breaks isn't really a good option, when compared to
something that will work reliably.

response 14 of 75:

Mar 13 15:47 UTC 2000

Is the $5000 still in the bank?!!!  If so, we are still losing $200/year in
interest, which could be used to purchase 4-5 new modems/year.  Today it took
me four tries to dial in to grex.  Kept getting no carrier.  I finally had
to dial 761-5041.
        I would not mind also getting phone calls on the answering machine at
the building site from prospective grex users.  Since we would be checking
that answering machine regularly we would know that it was working.  I call
Jim there about once a day to tell him to come back for lunch, and I could
leave a message on the machine and make sure the machine was working.  The
phone there is in use possibly half an hour a week.  I don't know what else
Steve was planning to use his phone line for, maybe personal calls?
        Is there some reason grex is not using faster modems?  

response 16 of 75:

Mar 13 17:50 UTC 2000

The_problem_with_casual_use_of_other_phones_and_<100_answering_machines_is__
that_the_Secret_Service_is_not_likely_to_be_calling_to_offer_us_$50_worth_of_
business.__They_will_have_serious_issues_to_discuss._________________________

response 18 of 75:

Mar 13 20:57 UTC 2000

We would be happy to give Steve's phone number to anyone calling for him. 
There doesn't seem to me to be any good reason for throwing away $50 on a new
answering machine when we have plenty of working used ones, and if you are
afraid that a used machine will stop working if nobody calls it for three
months, this is a number that will be getting calls anyway and the answering
machine would be checked regularly.  How often does the Secret Service call?

Bank of Ann Arbor pays 4% interest on savings accounts, $100 minimum, and has
free checking, $700 minimum, in case it is too much work or too inconvenient
to use PAX at slightly higher interest.

We could also give STeve's e-mail address out to anyone who called, in fact
why does grex want the DNS people to have a phone number at all?

I repeat my offer to provide an answering machine which I consider to be high
quality (ATT makes very durable ones that are easy to use) and which I will
test on my business line for a week first.  In fact I can provide a matched
pair of these.

response 20 of 75:

Mar 13 22:25 UTC 2000

Please explain why you think a new answering machine, most of which are built
to sell cheaply, will work better than a better-built used one which I have
tested for a week.  

response 22 of 75:

Mar 13 23:57 UTC 2000

And also, please note the wording of "up to 50".  We aren't against him paying
less.  :)  But since he does know the inner workings of the system inside out
and upside down, and he's willing to take the calls, it only seems fair to
me to make it as easy access as possible for him.

I also believe that with the seriousness of the phone calls that would be
coming in on the line, every precaution is necessary, just to keep the
government happy and out of our hair.

response 24 of 75:

Mar 14 02:43 UTC 2000

Some of the new machines have the advantage of having no moving parts.

Hmm...maybe someone should have the duty of calling the line biweekly, to
make sure it still works?  The new electronic machines are pretty reliable,
but I've seen them quit after getting pegged by lightning.

keesan, my understanding is that Grex's modems aren't the normal, off the
shelf consumer items you usually see.  Generally ISPs use rackmount modems. 
One of the big advantages is that this means all the modems are the same,
and fully interchangable -- imagine having five different brands of modem,
each needing a different initialization string!