VANCOUVER REGIONAL FREENET ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MINUTES OF MEETINGS March 28, 1995. 411 Dunsmuir Meeting Room Present: Brian Campbell, Vic Vaivads, Eric Yung, Margaret Coates, Tom Hansen Neil K. Guy, Sharon Zaluski, Phil Lyons, George Lindholm Absent: Larry Kuehn, Claire Toynbee, Ted Heatherington, Eric Teachman, Stephen Gauer. Guests: Lorne Gray, Penny Goldsmith 1.0 Agenda * Penny Goldsmith introduced herself and gave us a brief bio about herself. 2.0 Minutes of Feb 13th and March 7th. Motion: (George/Margaret) To accept the minutes of Feb 13th. PASSED Motion: (Tom/Phil) To accept the minutes of March 7th. PASSED 2.1 Phil's Resignation: * Phil informs us that his resignation is effective as of the next Board meeting, and his committee has appointed Ross Penner as his replacement. 2.2 Public Access Chair: * the Board create the role of Public Access chair to be the coordinator of the previous roles of Equal Access and Library Liaison, while also coordinating the location and support of Public Access terminals. Motion: (Tom/Phil) To elect Penny Goldsmith to the Board of Directors as Chair of Public Access. PASSED. 3.0 Policy Issues: 3.1 WWW: Neil (discussion paper distributed) * a fairly detailed discussion paper on the World Wide Web was presented by Neil, and after some discussion, the matter was tabled for the next Board meeting while Board members perused it. * some concerns about the performance hit using HTML files, and about the nature of going to a graphical user interface. 3.2 Human Resource Development grant: * Margaret signed the necessary papers last week on a one-year, $150,000 grant from HRD. This inclues a marketing plan with sustainability included, which needs to be done in the next few months. * we are also committed to 20 public access terminal sites by the end of December and a new CASE statment by the end of May. * Margaret to forward a copy of the budget to Tom. * deadlines for the staff positions are this Friday, and they are to be hired by April 10th. 3.3 UBC Contract: * UBC Telecommunications has sent a partial telecommunications contract to us. * extreme concern was raised about our site costs at UBC, and fact that it looks like we are not getting any favourable discounts, except as being treated as an UBC "internal" organization. Some other possibilities were discussed. Motion: (Tom/Vic) That we contact UBC and pay for charges to date, specifically: 1) 2/3 of the $7500 yearly charges for network connection 2) the UBC phone lines for 10 months 3) $5000 hookup/installation fee but that we not pay the additional $1500 in the Telecommunications contract, and that we continue to negotiate for this year's costs. PASSED. 3.4 BC Tel: * despite our move to move the modem pool to 411 to take advantage of the Centrex system, BC Tel is going to disallow use of the Centrex and basically the money spent to move the modem pool has been wasted. * effective probably sometime in August, we will be charged (as all other large-scale dial-in providers) roughly $100/month/phone line - exactly the same charges as incurred at UBC previously. * this is an increase of 287% to our line costs, and seriously impedes our ability to expand our facilities. 3.5 New Computer Site: * some discussion was made as to alternate siting of either/both the computer and/or the modem pool. * proposed alternate access sites are the new VPL building, or possibly BCIT, but for a variety of reasons, the Board favours VPL. * VPL's new building is due to open on May 26th, and Brian will talk to the VPL Board about possibly siting us there. 3.6 New Membership Form: * a new membership form, with significantly different wording and information layout, was distributed and discussed. Motion: (Tom/Neil) That the new membership form/memo be approved and used. PASSED. 3.7 Fees for Additional services: * item was brought up from office staff who are being asked for ID name changes - a rather staff-intensive procedure. * discussion centred around charging for "vanity" services which are not necessary, but requested by our users, that are also staff-intensive. Motion: (Tom/Vic) That we charge for extra services, and that the Operations Committee be delegated to deal with the details of which services to charge for and how. The Operations Committee will report back to the Board with its recommendation and will establish both a list of charges, and a baseline of "free" services. PASSED. 3.8 New microcomputer for the office: * the staff have requested $1500 for a new microcomputer for the office. Motion: (Margaret/Tom) That $1500 be allotted for the purchase of a new Microcomputer for the office. PASSED. 4.0 Committee Reports: 4.1 Fundraising: Ted absent * concerns raised about Ted's continued (third consecutive) absence from Board meetings, especially without prior notification. * Brian and Operations committee to deal with this matter. 4.2 Public Relations: * visuals of a portable display and display box were passed for examination. Motion: (Neil/Tom) That $300 be allocated for the manufacture of the above noted display and display box. PASSED. * the FAQ is coming along, and should be done around the end of the month * draft of the first newsletter has been emailed to the Board for approval * publication style guide has been prepared. * queries from PR about our Vancouver Computes ad - another spot is available, and it was suggested that we emphasize financial support, especially in light of the new phone line charges. * Neil to forward log file analysis of WWW to Vic/George. * Phil: comments about displays and problems at the Computer Fest. Suggest we need a team of displayers/presenters for such occassions. Neil stated that such a team is being created. 4.3 Community Content: * a report was distributed from the last Community Content meeting * a further 15 IPs are being approached, and they are preparing a "What's New" area on the FreeNet menus * Ross Penner has been nominated by the committee to replace Phil as the chair, and this will be effective on the April 17th board meeting. Ross will email a short biography to the Board of Directors. 4.4 Hardware/Software: * new memory module has arrived and been installed * purchase of the new HD (as previously approved by the Board) was discussed. * George expressed dissatisfaction about how the payment was arranged by Tom of the memory board, and discussion about how such difficulties could be alleviated in future were discussed. * Vic and George both raised the concern that a new SCSI controller card should be added as more peripherals are being added. Motion: (George/Vic) That a second SCSI controller card be purchased for the FreeNet machine. PASSED. * discussion of motion indicated that as per previous purchases, pricing to be carried out by George/Vic and emailed to the Board. 4.5 System Design: * the withdrawal of John Jay (Tanlimco) from the System administrator group raised concerns about our volunteer staffing. * Vic informed us that there have been recent changes to the "loophole" providing FTP priviledges through our system, and that there has been some rather large files accumulated on our system as a result. This has been dealt with by the sys-admins. 5.0 Treasurer's report: * Tom distributed a complete report, but the details are that we have $70,687.80 on deposit, but after all encumberances, we have only about $30,000 towards the purchase of a new machine. * also, memberships/donations have dropped off significantly in the last several weeks. Motion: (Tom/Vic) That we accept the Treasurer's report. PASSED. 6.0 Vice President's report: * legal services workshops are being planned (three of them). 7.0 Membership Coordinator's Report: Eric T. absent * report emailed to Board * mailout of 230 members is ready and to be mailed tomorrow * Claire moved the membership database to a more reliable machine in the office. 8.0 Volunteer Coordinator's Report: * a very trying volunteer orientation session was conducted recently * a new mailing list, contacting all volunteers of VRFA has been created. * we were planning an Open House for April 7th, but it looks like that has been postponed due to coordination difficulties. 9.0 Labour Liaison's report: Larry absent * report on further discussion between Larry and organized labour was posted. 10.0 User Training/Documentation Coordinator: Stephen absent * report posted 11.0 User Support Coordinator's report: Claire absent * report was posted and several motions suggested in absentia Motion: (Phil/Tom) That VRFA participate in the Fall ComputerFest (Nov. 17-19th) with an exhibit and that letters of appreciation be sent. PASSED. * Neil to followup on the letters of appreciation. 12.0 Public Access Liaison: * Penny also now chairs the Equal Access committee and heads up our library liasions. * workshops are pending (from the Legal Services committement) - three groups targetted - women, anti-poverty and seniors. * questions about PR for the public access sites - to be discussed with Neil. Meeting was adjourned at 9:30pm.