Minutes of Grex Board of Directors meeting, 13 June 2001.

Jun 17 06:31 UTC 2001

Minutes of Grex Board of Directors meeting, 13 June 2001.


Attendees:  mooncat*, bhelliom, , eeyore*, other*, flem*, 
      jiffer, aruba*, scott, steve* 
      (* indicates board member)

            
 1. Opening Gavel - 7:42 pm

 2. Chair's Report
      eeyore: "There's nothing to report, for me."

 3. Treasurer's Report  
      May: 565.00 in.  861.00 out.  ($375 insurance premium) See report
      for details.  No new members.  97 members. Ameritech still has
      not credited us for our last line cancellation.

      Card Service International is still processing our account
      cancellation.

      See treasurer's report for auction summary.

 4. Publicity Committee
      jiffer: "I sold a Grex Mug and Mousepad, but to myself." 
      [Treasurer has received funds.]
         
 5. Tech Committee
      Steve:  "I'd like to announce that I'm a murderer."  Steve
      accidentally dropped and killed two disk drives which he had
      already formatted and thoroughly tested.
      
      We have installed a new disk set, and we need to go offline for 
      activation and testing.  This is a significant step toward a
      complete disk update.
      
      We have survived the Chinese cracker invasion which occurred 
      in the wake of the spy plane incident.
      
      The Pumpkin has been massively cleaned out (and up) in the 
      inventory process for the personal property tax assessment.

 6. Personal Property Tax Update
      We have been billed for personal property tax, which we have to
      pay on everything we own.  At present, that appears to amount to
      about $150 per year, but this is subject to review and approval
      by the city.  This has been a major timesink for staff, but we
      now have a comprehensive inventory of Grex property.
      
      In the wake of this tax, we need to update or develop a policy on 
      accepting donations of equipment.  The tax is assessed at the end
      of each calendar year.

 7. Internet Connection Update
      Covad looks like it may go under, in which case we will need to 
      find a replacement ISP.  It is not certain, and multiple options
      exist, but there is just more research required to determine the 
      best option.  Eric (other) will investigate.

 8. New Business
      18 July is Grex's 10th anniversary.  We will be celebrating on 
      22 Sunday.
         
 9. Schedule next Meeting
      Wednesday 25 July 2001.  7:30 pm.  

 10. Closing Gavel - 8:55 pm

response 2 of 21:

Jun 17 17:21 UTC 2001

And how do you suggest CoreComm deal with it?

response 4 of 21:

Jun 17 21:51 UTC 2001

Re 2: Well that's Corecomm's problem.  I don't know exactly what Covad 
did/does, but most of it was building DSL ciructs between users and ISP's.
The copper belongs to Michigan Bell, so if Corecomm can make them happy,
the circuts should stay.  It is of course a bit more complicated than
that, but again, not my problem.  The question is not how does Corecomm
deal with it, but can Corecomm deal with it?

response 6 of 21:

Jun 18 04:41 UTC 2001

There are a bunch of pieces of a DSL circuit.  The connection to the ISP is
an ATM PVC.  It goes over an Ameritech owned copper pair which is leased to
Covad from the customer premesis to a cage or rack leased by Covad in the
local Ameritech CO.  From there it goes over Covad's ATM network to an ATM
switch that the ISP is connected to, and then over some sort of big ATM
circuit to the ISP.  If Covad's ATM network goes away, the copper is no longer
connected to anything useful.

response 8 of 21:

Jun 19 01:40 UTC 2001

Paul, I think you need to review item:coop,14 and maybe also search out
some news stories on the failure of the DSL provider Northpoint, which
left its customers stranded when it shut down.

response 10 of 21:

Jun 19 13:16 UTC 2001

If a company goes bankrupt because their network is losing money, it 
doesn't seem likely that the company's creditors would want to keep it 
in one piece so they could lose still more.

response 12 of 21:

Jul 14 05:24 UTC 2001

For lack of a better coop item for short announcements, I've added a page to
Grex's web site that lists policies set by member referenda or board motions.
The idea is to have that kind of still-significant history out in a place
where it can be easily read instead of having to dig through years of board
minutes.  The page is at:

  http://www.grex.org/local/grex/policy.html

Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.

Thanks to Mary Remmers for having maintained the archives from which I
excavated this stuff.

response 14 of 21:

Jul 14 12:28 UTC 2001

I just took a look at the web version of the archives.  This is very 
cool indeed.  

response 16 of 21:

Jul 16 16:34 UTC 2001

Is the .html file something I could update at the same time I
archive to /usr..../minutes?  

response 18 of 21:

Jul 17 01:50 UTC 2001

It may not be permitted correctly, but John could certainly fix that for you.