Grex Board of Directors Meeting Minutes - November 1999

Nov 21 01:50 UTC 1999

                         Cyberspace Communications
                 November 1999 - Board of Director's Meeting
                                   Minutes

Presiding:  John Remmers (remmers)
Recording:  Jan Wolter (janc)
Other Board Members Present:
    Mark Conger (aruba)
    Scott Helmke (scott)
    Dan Gryniewicz (dang)
    Steve Andre (steve) - Arriving Late
    Misti Tucker (mta) - Arriving Late

Members of the Public:
    Eric Bassey (other)
    Steve Gibbard (scg)
    Meg Heberlein (eeyore)
    Valerie Mates (valerie)
    Arlo Mates (arlo)
    Mary Remmers (mary)
    Mark's friend Carol

Board Members Absent:
    none

AGENDA ITEM 1:  Gavel Banging

  - John Remmers began the meeting at 7:08pm.

AGENDA ITEM 2:  Chairman's Report

  "Nope."

AGENDA ITEM 3:  Treasurer's Report

  - Mark Conger presented the treasurer's report for October.  The full
    report is available on-line in coop item 134.

      * September was a good month.

           Total Income:     $725.20
           Total Expenses:   $468.15
           New Members:            3

      * We ended the month with 93 members, 82 of which are fully paid up.

      * Our bank balance ended at $5,453.06.
  
  - Mark Conger presented a preliminary report for November.  Doesn't look
    great, but Novemeber is usually a slow month.  The expenses will be
    higher than usual because they include the credit card application fee
    of $175.

           Income to Date:         $188.02
           Expenses to Date:       $627.75
           New Members to Date:          2

  - Mark sold 8 handbooks to Jim Deigart (jdeigart).

  - The credit card application will be sent out as soon as we find the
    envelope (or at least the address).

  - Mark repaired Grex's copy machine.

  - The auction will be starting soon.

  - Mark will be setting up a money market account, so we can get better
    interest on our savings.

  - Mark is developing an auction handbook.

AGENDA ITEM 4:  Publicity Committee Report

  - Scott Helmke gave a one wallet-card flyer to someone.  Everyone else has
    forgotten that these exist.

AGENDA ITEM 5:  Technical Committee Report

  - Scott Helmke will be taking Grex down for a backup soon.

  - Jan Wolter ran some statistics that suggest that we could cut another
    dial-in without adding many busy tones.

  - The /c drive is still suspect and still needs to be replaced.

  - Our newest staff member, Michelangelo Giansiracusa (mic), has been doing
    useful stuff.  Yeah, mic!

  - An login name formerly belonging to a deceased user (biogal) has been
    retired after someone recreated it and sent tasteless messages.

  - There are still spotty reports about problems on the dial-in modems.  We
    haven't been able to figure out much of a pattern, or reproduce the
    problems.  Scott Helmke continues to monitor things.

  - STeve Andre arrived after the end of the technical committee report but
    added two notes.  He wanted to think whomever recently deposited several
    nice NPI SCSI disk enclosures, a tape drive, some S-Bus SCSI controllers,
    and some 486 motherboards in the pumpkin (Grex's machine room).  Nobody
    knew who had done this.  Apparantly the pumpkin has been visited by the
    disk enclosure fairy.

  - STeve Andre also discussed options of disposing of our old Sun 3 chassis.
    It was suggested that Cindi Keesan, and Jim Deigart might have more
    knowledge about recycling junk computers from their work with Kiwanas.

AGENDA ITEM 6:  Lease Renewal

  - Our lease says we must give 4 months notice if we want to renew our
    lease, which ends in June, so we need to give notice in January.

  - Mark Conger moves

      That we renew our lease under the terms of the current lease
      agreement.

    I forgot who seconded.

    Passed 5-0-0 (STeve and Misti not yet arrived).

AGENDA ITEM 7:  New Business

  - The board will discuss whether or not to cut another dial-in phone line
    at the next meeting, allowing time for further on-line discussion.

  - Nominations for the Y2K Grex board have closed with 7 excellent candidates
    (none of whom have ever served on the board before).

  - There will be a Potluck and Future Planning Meeting at the home of Mark
    Conger on Sunday, November 21.  The potluck will start at 5pm, the meeting
    will start at 6pm.  All are invited.

  - The final Grex board meeting of the millenium will be held on Wednesday,
    December 15 at 7:30pm at Zingermans.

  - There was some discussion of a deal that Arbornet is considering where
    Amazon.com gives non-profits a bit of money on book purchases made by
    people who access Amazon via there site.  Enthusiasm was minimal to
    non-existant.  Seems like it wouldn't bring much money and it smells
    like advertising.  Needs discussion on-line.

AGENDA ITEM 10:  Gavel Cessation

  - John Remmers ended the meeting at 7:54pm (a 46 minute meeting, wow!)

response 2 of 17:

Nov 21 03:21 UTC 1999

As someone who clearly supported getting us into the "credit-card-accepting"
business, I will donate $10 toward the initial fee for doing so.  Anyone else
want to help out on this one-time expense?

response 4 of 17:

Nov 21 10:11 UTC 1999

I wondered when someone would notice.  The tape drive has a broken door
but could be good for parts, or could be sent in to be fixed if this is
thought useful.  I can't explain any 486 motherboards, but I do have the
serial I/O panel that belongs to to the high speed serial interface sbus
card that STeve missed.

response 6 of 17:

Nov 21 22:24 UTC 1999

Just out of curiosity, what would be the technical aspect of retiring "an"
login?