|
Grex > Coop > #276: Board Minutes for April, 2010 | |
|
| Author |
Message |
denise
|
|
Board Minutes for April, 2010
| 
Apr 14 01:26 UTC 2010 |
Board Minutes: April, 2010
Present: remmers, mary, gelinas, unicorn, tsty, denise, and kentn [by
phone].
Called to order at 7:08pm
-Meeting frequency: We ve been meeting monthly for the past several
months; do we want to continue this frequently or stretch it out to
every 8 weeks? Compromise, will meet next in 6 weeks. Next meeting will
be May 23rd, 6pm, at Denise s. Tsty has posted a list of other possible
places to hold meetings, he will look into finding something with no or
low cost.
-Treasurer s report: aruba and tsty have met to start handing over
treasurer duties to tsty. Will be meeting this week to change signatures
for the bank account. Aruba may be willing to be a back up signature on
the account. The balance is about $3,000; the phone and provide.net
bills will be paid this week. Will have access to PayPal. Membership
list with expiration dates is being worked on. -Tsty motioned for
unicorn to be reimbursed for gas used to attend meetings [120 miles
round trip]; denise seconded. Motion passed; unicorn will be emailing
tsty about this.
-Staff report: remmers has set up a FreeBSD machine to do hourly backups
for the bbs. Root has access to this virtual machine [can do the things
that root can normally do]. -USB drive has been working correctly. -At
the recent staff meeting, was increased disk space quota as well as
future location discussed? No. Opening up the database still continues
to be discussed. Staff will keep board informed about what it does/wants
to do. Can we allow the board/staff to do something without a vote? If
discussed in meeting minutes and approved. -What are the parameters for
the grim reaper deleting old login ids? To be discussed by staff.
-Mission: Does it need any changes or updates? Mary will post the
mission in an item in coop for members to discuss.
-It was recently asked: what kind of system do we want to offer
[machinery, services, etc]? What are people currently using Grex for?
STeve has reported in the past on various things being used by members;
email will be sent to STeve to get an update.
-The first Grex meeting was at a picnic; a lot was decided there with
feedback from the users? It may be a good idea to have another similar
gathering to discuss various issues.
-Do we need to continue providing dial-in lines? It was determined in
March that the phone lines the month before was used for a total of 24
minutes. We need to find out who s using the phone lines and how often,
then phase out. Mary will enter an item in coop as a place for
discussion.
8:25pm Denise moved to adjourn the meeting, tsty seconded; motion
passed.
|
| 15 responses total. |
rcurl
|
|
response 1 of 15:
|
Apr 14 04:21 UTC 2010 |
"Tsty motioned for unicorn to be reimbursed for gas used to attend
meetings [120 miles round trip]; denise seconded. Motion passed;"
"A charity's ability to reimburse volunteers for expenses incurred while
volunteering plays a huge role in nonprofit organizations abilities to
recruit and retain volunteers, especially as gas and energy prices
continue to soar. Currently, charities may reimburse volunteers, on a
nontaxable basis, up to the charitable mileage rate of 14 cents per
mile. That rate has not changed since 1997 and no longer covers the
price of gas. In addition, if charities reimburse their volunteers more
than the 14 cent mileage reimbursement rate, volunteers pay taxes on the
additional amount because it is treated as income thus, taxing
individuals for donated services."
http://is.gd/brP5I
However all the non-profits (501(c)3) with which I have been associated
have not done this, primarily on the basis that that is not what
members' dues should be used for, travel not being a specific purpose of
the organizations. Volunteers are encouraged to just deduct their
expenses on their income tax returns. In one national organization while
I was president, the officers met in alternate officer's homes and the
officers all shared each others expenses (mostly airfare), even the
person at who's home they met. This way officers in more remote
locations did not have higher travel expenses.
|
tsty
|
|
response 2 of 15:
|
Apr 14 05:38 UTC 2010 |
so .. you wanna aoll go to filnt for hte next borg meet? [ed: sorry for
the sarcasm] ...
we ru nour own ship. i like the current sailing. tax crap says $0.50/mi
for decuctoins. $60>$20 .. so we are geting a 'deal' imnsho.
and i f rcurl were in grand rapicds i wouild declare identical posotion.
|
tsty
|
|
response 3 of 15:
|
Apr 14 05:38 UTC 2010 |
if rcurl were on borg and drove to a meeting ....
|
tonster
|
|
response 4 of 15:
|
Apr 14 13:24 UTC 2010 |
It does seem rather odd to reimburse someone to attend a meeting,
especially considering there are alternatives to driving there if he
still wanted to attend virtually. Certainly there are tax benefits and
the mileage can be written off as a donation, assuming unicorn uses
itemized deductions. Either way, this just seems odd to me. Maybe it's
just me.
|
mary
|
|
response 5 of 15:
|
Apr 14 14:52 UTC 2010 |
I think if we ever managed to get a really good conference call setup in place
having board members attend, remotely, would be great. But we're not there
and I feel the meetings are suffering because of it. It was helpful having
Chuck present and not adding to the connection issues. It also feels unfair
to ask him to drive, two hours, round trip, AND pay for gas. There are
obviously limits to what we can do to facilitate remote board members being
physically present but this one seems reasonable. For now.
|
rcurl
|
|
response 6 of 15:
|
Apr 14 18:11 UTC 2010 |
All the board members had expenses to attend (and probably for a meal too).
I presume all the other board members paid their own ways. One way to equalize
this is for all the Board members to chip in so everyone has the same expense,
and it won't be money donated by members in general.
Please note that in #1 I gave both sides of the argument. My *preference* is
affected by my experiences, which is that all donated monies serve all
members.
|
lar
|
|
response 7 of 15:
|
Apr 17 09:08 UTC 2010 |
unicorn is a freeloader. If he can't afford gas or his own membership
dues then he needs to resign from the board.
|
slynne
|
|
response 8 of 15:
|
Apr 17 17:07 UTC 2010 |
resp:7 STFU
|