VCN Board Meeting September 30

Present: Mary Hammond, Amali De Silva, Ruth Tsukishima, Jason Currell, Alison Curtis, Patrick Clark, Sharlene Smith, Alexandra Samuel, Peter Royce, Jim Sayre, Craig McLachlan.
Regrets: Sujay,

1. Agenda moved and adopted.

2. Adoption of minutes postponed to next meeting.

3. Coordinator's report.

4. Steven not present, so discussion of technical coordinator report will take place on board list.

5. Committee reports:
a. Strategic Advisory Group:
i. Taking I.T. Global: youth & tech group interested in developing a Vancouver presence. Amali has put them in touch with Peter to discuss working with VCN.
ii. Putting out feelers re: possible application to SSHRC Initiative on the New Economy.
iii. Possibility of twinning with a city in Argentina. There is funding available for projects promoting inter-American trade. The focus would be on putting Argentinians in the lower mainland in touch with Argentinians in Argentina.
iv. Amali was approached by the World View Foundation, which does development work. There's a group in Sri Lanka that is also interested in twinning.
v. S.A.G. is becoming an incubator for new projects or connections for VCN.  Please funnel those ideas to S.A.G. for its meetings, one week before each Board meeting.
b. Personnel committee: seems to be needed, since there are periodic discussions on the Board list re: personnel issues.
i. Peter tends to take personnel issues to Sharlene, Alison, and Suzanne Klinga.
ii. Mary volunteered to join the list of people consulted on personnel issues.

6. Budget (final version)
a. We're running a $34k deficit for this year because we haven't yet received the BC Gaming Commission money, but we are expecting it. So we'll have only a small deficit for the year that just ended.
b. Revised budget for 2002-3 brings us close to break even position - by reducing communications position to part-time position.
c. We still have a large surplus that we can designate for a special project. 
d. Finance committee has been focused on creating budget for 2002-3, so hasn't yet set policy re: surplus. Part of the surplus was set aside for capital expenditures.
e. Acceptance of budget moved by Alex, seconded by Mary H.

7. Board recruitment goals and process.
a. We have a couple of seats still vacant on the board; and we may have some turnover. We need to set up a recruitment committee, which needs to meet at least once during the month in October.  The work of the committee will be mostly in October/Novemember. Hope to have a list of potential candidates by late October.
b. Recruitment committee will include Patrick, Sharlene, Jonn, anyone else who volunteers.
c. Alex will circulate committee guidelines; board members will suggest potential nominees to the committee (Patrick/Sharlene).
d. This is also the time for board members to revisit their own commitment to the board, and whether they want to stay on the board.

8. ISP Legislation response.
a. Canadian government is considering legislation that will oblige Canadian ISPs to enable law enforcement surveillance. Companies will be responsible for the cost of surveillance equipment.
b. Jim moves that VCN express our strong disagreement with the proposal.  Could work with PovNet. Seconded by Patrick.
c. Need to respond by November deadline.
d. Motion passed. Peter, Craig, and Jim will work on it. Amali and Alex can help. Jim will draft a response.

9. Other updates:
a. BCLA conference (Alison) - focused on access to info issues/privacy since 9/11
b. Amalia attended WSIS (World Summit on the Info Society). Amali is on their Finance committee. 

10. Other business:
a. Need an AGM date and a group of people to do AGM planning (speaker invitation, venue choice, etc). 
b. General consensus was that we need a little more lead time for AGM, and that January makes more sense than November - which is a weird time for an AGM.
c. AGM date: Monday January 20, 2003.
d. AGM committee: Jonn, Amali, and Patrick. 

11.  Next board meeting: October 28th, 6:30pm.