Minutes for board meeting: Wednesday, July 9, 2014.

Jul 10 01:59 UTC 2014

Meeting begins slightly early to account for inevitable technical difficulties.

Called to order at 20:35 EDT.
roll call: kentn, tod, walkman, cross (tsty is missing)

* tod motions to approve minutes from previous meeting.
  - cross seconds
  - Motion carries unanimously; previous minutes are approved.

* Next meeting scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 10 at 8:30 Eastern.
 
* Business:

  1. Less frequent Agora updates?  Is 4 times a year too much?
     a. walkman thinks a year is fine
     b. tod suggests trying every six months
     c. cross asks if we care?
        Is conferencing something we should worry about?
  2. cross motions to roll agora every six months
     - Roll on July 1 and January 1
     - tod seconds
     - Motion carries unanimously
  3. Rolling Coop
     - We haven't rolled Coop in quite some time: 350ish items
     - The current coop has several (different!) versions of the
       bylaws.
     - kentn will roll it.
       * We'll have one bylaws item with current bylaws.
  4. Ammending bylaws to change the 4:3 election split to 3:2.
     - This is a vestige of when we had a 7 person board.
     - It has to do with the length of board terms and the
       distribution between odd and even election years.
     - Right now, the distribution is 4:1; this will cause
       some awkwardness in the next election cycle (someone
       will have to take a short term or a longer term).
       An ammendment must take this into consideration.
     - cross asks how we can bring something to a member vote?
       * Need to get 10% of the membership to endorse a
         proposal for change before we can bring it to vote.
     - Talk of how we can attract members, how we manage
       membership, etc.
       * Most of this is specified by the bylaws.
       * Should we amend the bylaws?
     - cross motions that we bring the following to a member
       vote:
       a. 4:3 to 3:2 split amendment
       b. Change bylaws to move the membership due structure out
       c. Suggest an annual membership structure with fees TBD
          by the BOD.
       * tod seconds
       * Motion passes unanimously; Dan will post the items.
  5. SSL Class 2 certs for our domains
     - Our certifying authority needs proof we are an
       organizaton.
     - Requires a letter from the treasurer.
     - tod will talk to Tony.
  6. Staff recruitment?
     - There are only a few people doing staff work
     - Lots of plans, little action (time for staff)
     - If we solicit new volunteers, what would they do?
     - If we solicit new volunteers, will anyone respond?
     - What about soliciting specific projects?
       * What projects would we want to do?
     - Who would we want on staff?
     - Something to think about.
  7. Status reports
     - Treasurer report (tod):
       * $988 in PayPal
       * tod is waiting for access to the bank for the rest
     - Staff report (cross):
       * Grex rebooted four days ago; a block device in /dev
         changed mtime (maybe a fsck?)
       * We need to figure out a story for backups
       * We get lots of people trying to run bots and bouncers
         and stuff.
         - Should we care about that?
         - The firewall catches most of it.
  8. Walk-in business.
     - tod has a question about the bank:
       * He'd like to look into using a national bank
       * kentn asks what the fees would be?
         (We don't want to get nickle and dimed to zero)
         - Criteria: no or low fees.  No minimum balance.
       * cross asks if we could just use paypal?
         - tod says can't write a check with paypal
       * tod will investigate going to a national bank
  9. cross moves to adjorn
     - tod seconds
     - motion passes.  We are adjorned at 21:54 EDT.

response 2 of 29:

Jul 10 04:43 UTC 2014

 :)
Nice chat this eve.

response 4 of 29:

Jul 11 03:53 UTC 2014

I would have opposed rolling agora less frequently. More often might help
more. As it is items become redundant and stale very quickly and at least
when it is rolled the decay has to start over. 

response 6 of 29:

Jul 11 19:08 UTC 2014

Every time we roll agora we get less and less items.  So that's not
helping at all.

response 8 of 29:

Jul 12 00:32 UTC 2014

Are you willing to help?

response 10 of 29:

Jul 12 11:52 UTC 2014

Okay then.

response 12 of 29:

Jul 15 19:48 UTC 2014

Doesn't matter if it isn't a "focus" of Grex. Why can't it be just a service?
I haven't been looking for other bbses, but Grex is Ann Arbor centered, and
can host the few people that enjoy it (or might even find it useful), so why
eliminate it?