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Board meeting minutes, 2/26/97
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Mar 1 00:32 UTC 1997 |
Board Meeting Minutes for Wednesday, February 26, 1997
1000. Meeting called to order at 7:45pm
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Six board members were in attendance, with one (Scott Helmke) absent.
Attendees:
Steve Gibbard (scg)
Valerie Mates (valerie)
Dan Gryniewicz (dang)
Jan Wolters (janc)
Mark Conger (aruba)
Misti Tucker (mta)
Charles (arthurp)
qt314 (qt314)
Rob Henderson (robh)
Steve Sarrica (sarrica)
Jared Mauch (jared)
Rob Argy (ajax)
TS Taylor (tsty)
Jeff Kaplan (kaplan)
STeve Andre' (steve)
1002. Treasurer's report
------------------------
January was a record month for income. We collected approximately $900
in membership dues, $1150 in computer fund contributions, and $300 in
other miscellaneous income. We also spent the majority of that money on
the hardware for the new computer, but still gained money overall. We
had 11 returning members and one new member in January. February is a
good bit slower, so far collecting $408.
$170 pledged for the new computer, from six people, has not yet bee
donated. We will send an e-mail reminder, but some pledges in a pledge
drive usually go unfulfilled.
There is $75 of transactions, among three people, from the last auction.
Valerie and RobH may reoffer the goods to the second-highest bidders.
Phone bills are cleared up, except that they're charging us for about a
thousand local calls ($84.60 in a recent bill). It's conceivable that
the Gryphis, the router that calls IC-Net, may have made several many
local calls; staff will look into.
1003. Computer Rehab
--------------------
DanG reports that Steve still has stuff, Dan has non-working stuff.
Dan also has a box of software, some of it decent, but some of it not for
resale. Not sure where rehab going, as it's not really doing anything.
Dan will enter a co-op discussion about that.
1004. Publicity Committee
-------------------------
Misti's recently-volunteered assistant is getting married and leaving for
Cincinatti, and will be unavailable. Misti will have some publicity
stuff ready to go for the concert, if we do the concert. (The concert
is discussed in agenda item 1038 below).
1008. Technical Committee
-------------------------
Sun 4/670 - Jan, the primary staffperson working on this, hasn't been
available to work on it for the past two weeks. He posted a message to
a Sun admin group, got some advice back, and has new things to try.
He said he's still not the best person to be doing this, and it would
be best to find someone more experienced, but will try the new advice
as time permits. Advice was to boot the 670 off the CD, then build
the hard disk, rather than install from CD to hard disk, then boot from
hard disk. Marcus made two copies of a 670 manual, and will give us one
at some point. Other advice: should use Solaris rather than SunOS, but
that's another can of worms that can't be tackled at the moment.
Valerie and Jan recently reconfigured one of the new modems, but it
connects in a laggy Internet-like mode. It also seemed to be in the
telephone trunk hunt, which was unexpected and undesired.
We had five various broken modems, which Jan brought to his brother
Klaus (n8xf) who repaired four of them. Most (all?) are 2400 baud
modems.
One of TS's two loaned modems was among them, and the other of TS's
is still in the pumpkin, but nobody has had time to try them yet.
We have lots of modems, lots of manuals, but most don't agree, so
configuring modems is harder than one would expect. Staff could use
some help from someone with the time and inclination to work on them.
Terminal server - dang is the last person to try them, and couldn't
get anything working when he used one, but scg got past that level
when he tried them. Ajax has one, and is getting manual from Valerie
to look at.
A number of different mail problems were mentioned, including some
security-related issues.
Jan installed a new version of the write program, with selective write
permissions, among other things. It allows filtering out selected
people, or only allowing selected people, to write to you. He mentioned
that he's not enthused with the features, but ackowledged their need
given Grex's growth.
1020. ISDN Connection
---------------------
Jared and CIC-Net have offered ISDN service. We have a customer
service agreement. Basic offer: we buy two ISDN adapters (like
Ascend Pipeline 50s) and two ISDN lines. Jared will set things
up at the computing center, get an IP address. We need to change
DNS, IP address things. Costs are just for ISDN lines and ISDN
adapters/routers; all service costs are being given by CIC-Net.
Scg called Capella Networking; their pricing on Pipeline P50s is
$595 each. We're also considering Jared's offer to configure a
caching proxy server on CIC-Net's side of the link, which would
offload some web usage from Grex's web server and network link.
Centrex ISDN is guessed to be around $27/month per line. This
would be for one channel ISDN. Could be compressed or not, will
check to see. Will keep IC-Net link going at least until this
connection is made; may keep if agreeable to IC-Net and it could
give us more usable bandwidth.
This proposal was mentioned a while ago. Mary Remmers raised the
concern in the meeting agenda item that this was the first it had
been mentioned, but people felt it's been discussed on-line
adequately over several months, with sufficient detail over the
past month, for people to provide feedback.
Concerning the purchase of ISDN equipment, there was discussion of
whether we should purchase this from the general fund, or do a fund-
raiser. We have $3700 in our account. Expenses are $500-$600 per
month. We recently did big fundraiser. ISDN installation is guessed to
be under $140 per line. Might need AUI transceivers to hook to our
local area network. Jared will see if he can find 10Base-T equipment
to use for local ethernet to replace our current coax network. Overall,
estimating on the high side, $1300 for P50s, $300 for installations, $51
per month for both lines. We're currently paying $35 for two POTS lines
for C-Net connection. Ascend Pipelines have added advantage of
replacing Gryphis, our unreliable router.
Motion:
1. We authorize $1600 for the purchase of the two Ascend Pipeline
P50s and installation of two ISDN lines in the appropriate places.
2. We authorize Valerie Mates to negotiate and sign the final version
of the CIC-Net Customer Service Agreement for a zero-cost ISDN
connection, after being posted on-line for one week of public
comments.
Jan made motion, Valerie seconded, motion passed 6-0.
STeve mentioned not to expect quick service from Ameritech. Jared
mentioned that it takes them a while to get a digital connection
working, but once it's working, it tends to keep working.
1032. Appointment of cfadm trainees
-----------------------------------
Valerie is one of current cfadms. Cfadm is not too hard a job.
Volunteers were solicited in co-op, and several people volunteered.
At the last staff meeting, staff decided to ask that void and arthurp
be accepted. Cfadms have access to staff conference, which is why it's
being brough before the board.
Motion:
Add void and arthurp as cdadm trainees.
Valerie made motion, Steve Gibbard seconded, motion passed 6-0.
1038. Poignant Plecostomus offer
--------------------------------
Misti was approached on the 16th by this band that would like to put
together a concert to benefit Grex. They're willing to set up details,
find location, etc., and give proceeds to Grex. They have a good local
following. They're a socially conscious group that likes what Grex
stands for. There are apparently no "catches." This could dovetail
nicely with a planned membership-drive.
Differences from wolfmage's offer of a benefit performance a year or
two ago were discussed: in that offer, Grex had to do the up-front work,
requiring volunteer time from someone with event planning/promotion
experience (which did not entirely present itself), and money for the
venue, entailing some financial risk to Grex. Owners of a venue for this
concert are probably willing to donate the venue space, and being local,
the band can handle the details.
A printout of E-mail concerning the offer was circulated around the
meeting, and will be posted on-line at some point. Participants at the
board meeting were quite supportive of this venture. Details can be
further discussed and worked out on-line.
Motion:
We authorize the use of the names Grex and Cyberspace Communications
in the fundraiser by the Poignant Plecostomus.
Misti made motion, Jan seconded, motion passed 6-0.
1042. New Business
------------------
STeve gave advisory to board that "grex.com" ("Graphics Extension" or
some such company) is currently registered, and he had two recent
queries from people who got to Grex looking for grex.com. He proposed
consideration of registering "grex.org," and/or establishing a dialog
grex.com to arrange for each to explain in our web sites that we're not
the other group. We can discuss more in co-op. We may tentatively
register grex.org now, then decide whether or not to finalize it with
payment, since the Internic takes a month or two to process orders.
STeve or someone will enter an item to discuss this in co-op.
A question was raised as to when talk is coming back? It's an issue
that requires work from a number of staff people so it's taking a
while. No firm timeline has been established.
Valerie talked to Ken Kiarnen at Ameritech, who is still not resolving
our open issues. Valerie talked to Ken Asher (a local businessperson
and Grexer who deals a *lot* with Ameritech), who said he often calls
the Michigan Public Service Commission, which helps resolve problems.
Valerie would like to tell Ken Kiarnen that we're planning to do that,
then contact the MPSC. STeve said Kiarnen has been good until lately,
and would like to give him more time, but others feel we've given Ameritech
a lot of time already. STeve said one of the best ways of dealing with
Ameritech is to go ballistic, and that he'd call them tomorrow. STeve
will leave his pager number, and give Valerie's number as backup, to
eliminate the possible problem of a "lost page." Our major problem is
that outgoing calls are still not disabled. A recent minor issue is that
a line on our trunk hunt shouldn't be in the trunk hunt (it's being used
for a test modem right now), but that may have been reprogrammed to be that
way by Mike.
There was discussion of reimbursing someone for shelter for Grex's
sixth anniversary party. Hesitance was because this wasn't discussed in
co-op initially, and was purchased with mixed approval from individual
board members (Valerie said not to get this yet, Mark said it was ok).
We don't want to encourage purchases on Grex's behalf until the purchase
has been officially authorized.
Motion:
Spend $24 on reserving a shelter in Island Park for a party.
Jan made motion, Mark seconded, motion passed 4-0-2 (two abstentions).
1049. Final Gavel Pounding around 9:30ish.
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