VANCOUVER REGIONAL FREENET ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MINUTES OF BOARD OF DIRECTORS' STRATEGIC PLANNING SESSION September 17, 1994 Britannia Library Meeting Room Present: Brian Campbell, Margaret Coates, Tom Hansen, Eric Yung, Vic Vaivads, Ann Doyle, Sharon Zaluski, Larry Kuehn, Sandy Mayo, Ted Heatherington, Neil K. Guy, Phil Lyons, Eric Teachman. Diana Guinn arrived for the afternoon session. Absent: Dennis Breckenridge Guests: Jack Vickery. The Meeting was called to order at 10:10am, with a general introduction of all of the Board members and a short introductory speech from Brian. This meeting did not constitute a formal meeting of the Board of Directors and as such no policies were enacted. However, a short meeting of the Board of Directors was convened later in the day, as noted in these minutes. Agenda: * addition under Fundamental Principles - Free aspect of FreeNet. * Information sharing policy discussion request by Eric Y. * roles of Board members requested by Neil. After general consensus, discussion took place. Fundamental Principles: * discussion went around the table to discuss what each member had been doing (for those who were in the positions in the last year) and what they planned to do in the future. * Tom: we have a surplus of $14,000 for our year start, and we added $1200 from September 1st till now. Our work will be in our outstanding grants and renewal of memberships * Margaret: work on Casino plan grant and Section 25 grants, and work in the Equal Access taskforce. * Neil: PR reconstitution from last month or so onwards, and publication of brochures and new materials. * Vic: formal separation of System Design from HW/SW, and work on registration, the modem problems, IP upload mechanism. * Eric T.: memberships and processing new accounts, as well as a newsletter Brian: do we have problems with processing accounts, and what are the stats? Eric T: we currently have 25% of accounts are members, and there are issues of office hardware limitations and data security. * Ann: 4 committees are designated, 3 are already working - documentation group, user training group, and library trainers group. Data-communications group still needs to be formed. Target date of September 30th for help sheets available at the libraries. * Phil: endoresements and new Community Content work to be done. * Sharon: working up of a volunteer process and tracking of volunteers. Also working on orientation sessions and there followup, and a database of volunteer information. * Eric Y: general facilitator of information flow between committees and archivist for the organization. * Brian: suggestion of putting together a Board manual and policies for all Board members. Brian's been primarily workingon the fundraising and media presentations thus far. Identification of three key goals in the short term: 1) phone line and modem situation resolved and HW stabilized 2) community content information online to be "fleshed out". 3) fundraising capacity expanded. These may call for joint Board actions. Policies: * Brian clarified VRFA's policies to date, in that the FreeNet is free, with no commercial activity, and that we are not an onramp to for Internet access. * some discussion on funding due to this policy, but general consensus with this principle was established for the new Board of Directors. Information Sharing Policy: * Vic mentioned that there's a distinction between newsgroups vs. information files. * discussion about VRFA vis-a-vis the library metaphor (Ted) and general discussion about a commercial distribution policy of our information (Eric Y.) Summary: * no problems with commerical vendors pointing to our information * facilitate newsgroups on local issues * headers/tags should go on all information developed by VRFA. Funding Strategy: * general consensus to get some form of government money. * the ratio of 25% membership/IDs was discussed, and the debate of educating users to subscribe to VRFA versus sustainability without more membership funds was discussed. At this point, a formal Board of Director's meeting was convened, with one agenda item: to nominate Diana Guinn as our Member-At-Large - Library Liaison. Motion: (Phil/Larry) To nominate Diana Guinn as our Member-At-Large - Library Liaison. PASSED. Board meeting adjourned at this point, and the Strategic Planning session adjourned for lunch. Afternoon: Equity issues: raised by Ann * access issues - addressed by availability of public terminals * training issues - need training for information superhighway * forum for diversity of opinions/groups/people * process of organization and communication in our organization * general discussion of the structure and limitations of Robert's Rules as used for our Board meetings. Summary: * it was suggested that the various Chairs of committees have meetings between themselves outside of Board meetings to facilitate crossover of ideas * that email is not necessarily a substitute for direct communication but that it should be used more often to restrict physical meetings to more discussion, than reporting of facts. * that Board agenda items be more of a "discussion" or "roundtable" nature instead of "report"-orientated. * that a longer lead time for agendas be established so that items can be planned more in advance. * that Board meetings be held every 3 weeks instead of every 2. * that quarterly, we hold public Q&A sessions. * that we form a table officers' task force that meets weekly for more immediate items. * that equity should be more expressly stated in our mission and goals. Goals for next six months: First priority items: 1) stable administrative routines 2) coordinate and regulate roles of committes 3) stabilize HW/SW 4) get 100 IP's online 5) more phone lines 6) training of community chairs on volunteer management 7) a new office/operations centre 8) more hardware through solicitation 9) raise public profile Secondary priority items: 1) insurance 2) coordination with other FreeNets in BC and Canada 3) user guide 4) a coordinated database for our organization 5) an alternative location for HW placement Other priority items: 1) job descriptions for volunteers 2) major financial support neede 3) more volunteer involvement 4) effective use of communications, especially electronic (email) 5) tracking of volunteer involvement 6) membership services 7) realistic budget 8) enhanced use of online registration on a day-to-day basis The next Board meeting was scheduled for 7:00pm on Tuesday October 4th, at the VPL Boardroom. * some discussion about the role of User Support, and PR in terms of new brochure distribution and the libraries. The meeting adjourned at 4:10pm.