Grex Board of Directors Meeting: Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Sep 24 02:12 UTC 2003

Attending: 
Board Members: Aruba, Other, Gelinas, Mary, Mooncat, MDW (7:50 pm)
Non-Board Member attendee- Lhbunkie

1.      Opening Gavel: 7:10 pm

2. Treasurer s Report: Paid the insurance premium- $525. (3 years ago 
$300, 2 years ago 375, 1 year ago $475) Brief discussion about our 
insurance company; the problem is finding an insurance carrier who will 
cover us- they don t seem to know how to categorize us.

In August: Spent: $1, 018.83 (in large part due to the insurance bill)
Took in: 369.47

So far in September: Spent: 420.53
Took in: 214.24

The balance of our accounts is dipping below $4,000 for the first time 
in a long time. 

Members- 80 members, 77 currently paid up.

A special thank you to Janc for filling in as Treasurer while Mark was 
out of town in August.

3.      Auction Update: Joe donated an extra $10.24 to the auction. 
Previously Gelinas purchased a vinyl to CD conversion, it went so well 
he requested an 8-track to CD- Charcat went ahead and did so asking 
only that Gelinas make another donation to Grex. So thank you to both 
of you.

Also at this point there are a few auction items that have been paid 
for and not delivered- mostly a problem with buyers and sellers finding 
a time to meet up.

The question now is- do we want to have another auction. This one 
didn t seem to draw a whole lot of attention- maybe rethink the idea.

4.      Staff Report- Staff met last night at Jan and Valerie s- 
attending, Janc, Valerie, Steve Weiss, John Remmers, Joe Gelinas and 
Marcus Watts.

Talked about Next Grex- no one has really done anything lately. After 
documentation of current status someone (probably Jan) will migrate to 
a newer version of the OS.

Also discussed Co-Lo and the consensus is that we would need   a rack.

5.      Next Grex- Why hasn t there been more progress? Kip was going 
to work with MDW so Cross-could write some programming for mail. Cross 
has made progress with a password hash on Next Grex, and it is working.

Some of the old problems remain- staff members are still swamped and 
life happens.

One of the main items is to document current mail and to figure out 
what we need mail to accomplish- to get this done we need some of MDW s 
time.

Need to keep some sort of momentum going- to jettison projects that can 
get done while waiting for time availability on other aspects. 

The staff meeting didn t discuss next steps at their meeting last night.

Currently there is a three-week backlog in staff mail, SRW will be 
unavailable again this week, other staffers will have to step up and 
act on some of the mail.

6.      Dial in Lines: Currently we have 7 lines, including one staff 
only line (that is not included in the trunk hunt). There was a 
question from the board on whether or not that staff line ever actually 
got used for the purpose it was designed for? Gelinas was under the 
impression that it probably wasn t. 

Gelinas and Other spoke in favor of dropping to 4 public lines, and 
perhaps dropping the staff line. That would mean we would only have 4 
lines in total. Also in favor of dropping Centrex.

(MDW arrived at this point) MDW thought that staffers actually did use 
the staff only line and that it would not be a good idea to drop it, 
especially without further discussion with Staff on the matter.

Gelinas moved: we drop Centrex. Aruba (or Other, your humble secretary 
didn t see who spoke and couldn t tell by voice) Seconded.
        In Favor: 6, Against: 0, Abstained: 0

Mary moved: we drop to 4 public dial in lines. Other seconded.
        In Favor: 6, Against: 0, Abstained: 0

Gelinas moved: we drop the staff line. Mary seconded.
MDW- spoke up against voting at this time, stating that we need more 
discussion. Vote commenced.
        In Favor: 5 (Aruba, Mary, Other, Mooncat, Gelinas), Against 1 
(MDW), Abstained: 0

7.      Patriot Act: 
Mary would like to contact the ACLU for a referral as to whom we could 
contact should we need it. Other was of the opinion that it would be 
okay to speak with Michael Steinberg (who worked with Grex in 
Cyberspace, et al s. Engler) to see what he would recommend we do if 
something came to Grex- then keep in mind the source and act 
accordingly. The Board was in general agreement that the responsible 
action on their part would be to gather as much information ahead of 
time, and to speak with the ACLU and get what advice they can give us 
so that we are prepared for the eventuality that something could come 
to Grex due to the Patriot Act. MDW was of the opinion that even on the 
remote chance that the government does want to look at the mail all 
they would have to do is go to our ultimate ISP and plug into it to get 
all the mail that passes through.

Other volunteers to contact the ACLU for a referral that we can call 
upon should we need to.

9.      New Business:

8.      Schedule Next Meeting: Tuesday October 21st, 7:00 pm 
Zingerman s Next Door in the Kid s Room.

10. Closing Gavel: 8:13 pm.

response 2 of 37:

Sep 24 02:46 UTC 2003

Thanks, Anne (mooncat), for so promptly posting the minutes of tonight's 
meeting!

response 4 of 37:

Sep 24 11:58 UTC 2003

Wow, how speedy, Anne.  Thanks!

One correction - under colo, last sentence, I think what came out of the
staff meeting wasn't that we'd need a rack but that we'd need half a rack. 
That's a lot of space. 

My reasoning on voting to drop the staff line is I sense this is how staff
would vote.  If staff comes back to say that the vote was a mistake we
still have some time to re-evaluate before anything happens.  But we must
take steps to cut our expenditures and this amounts to $240 per year.
In fact, if staff does see this private line as necessary I'd suggest
we go to 3 dialin lines to keep us at 4 total.  My opinion, of course. 

response 6 of 37:

Sep 24 15:43 UTC 2003

I'll do more to help in the next auction.  The timing on this one was bad.
I have volunteered to go to local businesses and try to get gift certificates
or donations of cool stuff.  Anyone who knows someone I could hit up, let me
know.  

response 14 of 37:

Sep 25 17:01 UTC 2003

I look forward to the auction.  I hope it can be continued.  It might 
be a good idea to give it a limited time period, though.  

response 16 of 37:

Sep 25 21:35 UTC 2003

(The minutes are in the order the items were taken up; the numbers are in the
order the items appeared on the agenda.  #9 was taken up out of order, before
#8.  These things happen. ;)

response 18 of 37:

Sep 25 23:19 UTC 2003

It turns out Zing's didn't have reserved space available for us
for the date posted in the minutes, so we've rescheduled the
next board meeting for Monday, October 27th, 7:00 pm, in the
kid's room.

response 20 of 37:

Sep 26 03:12 UTC 2003

re 16 & 17 Thank you for that clear explanation.

response 22 of 37:

Sep 26 06:18 UTC 2003

three years ago the insurance premium was $300 and now it is $525 and going
up? It sure seems like this insurance company is taking grex to the cleaners.
Any more increaes and Grex will be paying double what it did three years ago.
Surely there are other alternatives.  There must be an insurance company that
will understand waht Grex is and give it a flat rate and not raise it
every year.  Does this insurace company think grex is a for profit operatioa
nd can afford all these increases?!

response 24 of 37:

Sep 26 11:23 UTC 2003

(Inusrance companies are not charities, nor are they non-profit enterprises.
Their rates are set to insure that they collect enough money to pay claims
AND make money for the owners.  The premiums are invested so that both needs
can be met; paying current claims from current (or new) premiums gets them
into them into trouble, y'know.)