| Grex > Coop12 > #134: 3 October 2002 Grex Board Meeting Agenda |
| 3 October 2002 Grex Board Meeting Agenda | 
Sep 24 21:51 UTC 2002 |
-------------------------------------------------------------
GREX BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
DATE AND TIME: Thursday, 3 October 2002, 7:30pm EDT
PLACE: Upstairs at Zingerman's Next Door
422 Detroit Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan USA
-------------------------------------------------------------
AGENDA:
01) ~10 sec - Gavel Banging - other
02) ~01 min - Chairman's Report - other
03) ~10 min - Treasurer's Report - aruba
04) ~03 min - Publicity Committee - bhelliom
05) ~10 min - Technical Committee - staff
06) ~10 min - Schedule next meeting - all
07) ~05 min - New Business - all
08) ~01 sec - Gavel Cessation - other
-------------------------------------------------------------
Please use this item to enter proposed changes or additions to this agenda.
| response 1 of 86: |
Oct 3 03:59 UTC 2002 |
I'd like to discuss dropping another phone line.
| response 2 of 86: |
Oct 3 14:47 UTC 2002 |
Here are some dial-in usage stats for the last three months
July 2002 Aug 2002 Sept 2002
0: 333.2 hr 44.8% 340.3 hr 45.7% 356.7 hr 49.5%
1: 206.2 hr 27.7% 234.4 hr 31.5% 239.5 hr 33.3%
2: 124.3 hr 16.7% 112.0 hr 15.1% 94.8 hr 13.2%
3: 53.5 hr 7.2% 47.5 hr 6.4% 24.2 hr 0.4%
4: 20.2 hr 2.7% 6.9 hr 0.9% 4.3 hr 0.6%
5: 5.6 hr 0.8% 2.3 hr 0.3% 0.3 hr 0.0%
6: 0.5 hr 0.1% 0.3 hr 0.0% 0.0 hr 0.0%
7: 0.0 hr 0.0% 0.2 hr 0.0% 0.0 hr 0.0%
My program counts up how many for how many hours there were N phone lines in
use during the month. So in July, which is 744 hours long, there were 333.2
hours during which no phone lines where in use. This represents 44.8% of
the time. There were 206.2 hours when there was exactly one phone line in
use, 124.3 hours in which there were exactly 2 lines in use, etc.
It used to be that we could sometimes get sums greater than the number of
dialins that we had, because we had a staff line. Dunno if that still exists
or gets used.
It looks to me like we'd be fine with 5 public dialins. At that level we
would had a total of one hour of busy tones over the last 3 months.
I don't actualy know how many dialin we have.
| response 3 of 86: |
Oct 3 15:10 UTC 2002 |
I agree that we should cut back to 5 public dialins.
| response 4 of 86: |
Oct 3 15:14 UTC 2002 |
Is 5 the limit to maintain our Centrex contract?
| response 5 of 86: |
Oct 3 15:52 UTC 2002 |
Right now we have 7 public lines and one staff line, so we're paying Ameritech for 8 lines. Our centrex contract requires that we have at least 7 lines. I should say I'm pretty sure that's what it requires, because we don't have a copy of it, and though I have tried at least 3 or 4 times to get Ameritech to send us one, they always say it will take 2 weeks and then they never send it. (I sometimes wonder if *they* have a copy, or if it even exists.) So as far as I understand it, the most we can cut without breaking our contract is one line.
| response 6 of 86: |
Oct 3 16:15 UTC 2002 |
How many times have we requested our contract? Have we made it clear that failure to supply it within the specified two week period will result in a grievance being filed with the Michigan Public Service Commission? And how did we arrange and sign a contract without receiving a copy of it to begin with? With Ameritech, it sometimes helps to be very nice and friendly to the person on the phone while being as threatening as possible to the organization...
| response 7 of 86: |
Oct 3 16:26 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
| response 8 of 86: |
Oct 3 16:27 UTC 2002 |
-------------------------------------------------------------
AGENDA:
01) ~10 sec - Gavel Banging - other
02) ~01 min - Chairman's Report - other
03) ~10 min - Treasurer's Report - aruba
04) ~05 min - Store Inventory Disposition - all
05) ~15 min - Cutting Phone Lines - all
06) ~03 min - Publicity Committee - bhelliom
07) ~10 min - Technical Committee - staff
08) ~10 min - Schedule next meeting - all
09) ~05 min - New Business - all
10) ~01 sec - Gavel Cessation - other
-------------------------------------------------------------
| response 9 of 86: |
Oct 3 16:28 UTC 2002 |
The contracts department of Ameritech is apparently a separate division of the company, and you can't call them directly. (At least, whenever I've tried to call the number they give me for the contracts department, I get an answering machine, leave a message, and then they never call me back.) I haven't tried as hard as I possibly could to get the contract, but I have requested it 3 or 4 times, and followed up when it didn't arrive. It's very frustrating. No one you can talk to on the phone has the power to send it out, only the contracts department. And apparently they always take two weeks to do anything, and in our case they never do anything. I don't know who signed the contract, if we did indeed sign it, but my guess is that it was STeve or maybe Valerie. I've never seen a copy. If you'd like to volunteer to try to bleed it out of Ameritech, Eric, you have my blessing. I don't have time right now.
| response 10 of 86: |
Oct 3 22:47 UTC 2002 |
I may do that. I'm feeling the need to get righteously angry these days...
| response 11 of 86: |
Oct 3 23:29 UTC 2002 |
Have an attorney write the letter requesting it, and send it to Ameritech's legal office. Or call them. They'll have access to contracts, and legal offices generally return calls pretty fast.
| response 12 of 86: |
Oct 4 03:17 UTC 2002 |
Are you volunteering?
| response 13 of 86: |
Oct 4 04:08 UTC 2002 |
No. I'm not a practicing attorney. Dave Cahill is, though. Since he's on your board, he's probably the best choice. He'll have letterhead and everything.
| response 14 of 86: |
Oct 4 04:10 UTC 2002 |
Which board?
| response 15 of 86: |
Oct 4 12:30 UTC 2002 |
Actually, short of an attorney's letterhead, a registered letter requesting it may work. I'd cc: the state utilities (or whatever the appropriate regulatory board).
| response 16 of 86: |
Oct 4 12:43 UTC 2002 |
Re #14: The Grex board. Or isn't he any more? I haven't been keeping track.
| response 17 of 86: |
Oct 4 12:47 UTC 2002 |
I don't think Dave has ever been on the Grex board. He's been on the arbornet board quite a lot, though.
| response 18 of 86: |
Oct 4 13:38 UTC 2002 |
I spoke with Trina Lewis at Ameritech just now. She couldn't find the person who handled our last contract request (in July), so I put in another request. I told her I would call back in two weeks when it doesn't arrive. She confirmed that we need to have 7 lines to fulfill our contract, and that the contracts department doesn't take calls from customers.
| response 19 of 86: |
Oct 4 14:19 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
| response 20 of 86: |
Oct 4 14:24 UTC 2002 |
I would have sworn that he had been on the Grex board and the M-Net board at the same time.
| response 21 of 86: |
Oct 4 15:48 UTC 2002 |
This response has been erased.
| response 22 of 86: |
Oct 4 17:05 UTC 2002 |
Dave ran for the Grex board a few years ago (that's probably when he asked on M-Net if it was appropriate) but wasn't elected.
| response 23 of 86: |
Oct 4 17:08 UTC 2002 |
Ah, okay. I stand corrected.
| response 24 of 86: |
Oct 5 03:06 UTC 2002 |
How many years does the Centrex contract run for? If I'm remembering correctly, it's now been six years since we moved Grex into the Pumpkin, and I think that's when we got the Centrex service. (wow, it certainly doesn't feel like six years. I feel old...)