Minutes March 21, 2002 Board Meeting

Mar 26 23:04 UTC 2002

Starring, in order of appearance: (pre: 7 pm) Mooncat*, Mary*, Other*, 
Aruba*, STeve* (with a brief KRJ visit) and MDW*, (* indicates Board 
Member)

1. Gavel Banging: 7:17 pm

2. Chairman's Report: See #7

3. Treasurer's Report: In February we took in $493, Spent $433.
 Two new members (Thank you!)

So far we have collected $363 in March

Membership is at a low 84 paid, and concern is beginning to rear it’s 
ugly head. (please make it go away! ap)  Discussion regarding how to 
get more paying members, including those long-time members who have 
thought about contributing but just haven’t quite done it, or have 
forgotten to renew their memberships, current plan- MOTD message. 
(which is currently up) Also, do we want to do something in 
appreciation of our members? 

Bank Account: Interest rate dropped from 1.74% (when Mark/Aruba opened 
the account) to 1.25% (as of 3/21). 

4. Publicity Committee: Anne/Mooncat reported in for Bhelliom- re-
opening Grex store in progress (getting prices, making item, etc.) to 
get rid of old items.

        New items? Do we want to find a way to get new shirts, perhaps 
with a new design? Could we maybe put Grex shirts up for sale in 
consignment shops around town(s). Much discussion, no conclusion at 
this point.

5. Technical Committee: “Marcus (MDW) has done wonderful things!” says 
STeve. MDW has loaded OpenBSD on one of the machines (mentioned in last 
month’s meeting minutes) and is running Solaris on the other. The BSD 
seems stable and useful for something, but there are some bits missing 
(like a debugger). Operating system isn’t quite doing what it should 
be. Gut feeling: too early to tell, target time a year from now. Need 
to come up with a series of ‘Metrics’ to see if the platforms will do 
what we want them to do. STeve and MDW will be putting together a list 
of ‘Things New Grex Platform MUST Be Able To Do’ and post it in the 
garage conf for discussion.

Other than that, again it has been a rather quiet month. A few re-boots 
have been needed. 

6. Schedule Next Meeting: Thursday, April 18, 2002 7:00 pm, Zingerman's 
Next Door.

7. Reporting Paperwork: Eric/Other spoke to his advisor (father) and 
the conclusion there was that we did need to send in the forms. This 
fit with the decsion the rest of the board had pretty much come to so 
there was agreement with this assessment. Forms have been sent in sans 
cover letter.
     
8. New Business: Art Fair; an anonymous source has contacted us with 
the idea of getting a booth at Art Fair. Talk followed regarding the 
ever popular Art-On-A-Stick and how Grex could capitalize on this 
(tangented over the method one would have to use to actually cut 
computer pieces apart without completely shattering it?), maybe we 
could sell T-shirts. Problem- Who would man the booth and who would 
take charge of organizing this? 

        Auction- when do we want to do another? Decided to start the 
next auction in September (give people time to find items to donate and 
others time to save!) and Anne/Mooncat agreed to assist as an 
additional auctioneer. 

9. Bang Gavel: 8:48 pm

These are the events as I saw them. Please let me know if I’ve missed 
anything.