VANCOUVER REGIONAL FREENET ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MINUTES OF MEETINGS October 5, 1993 Vancouver Public Library The meeting was called to order at 7:10 pm. Regrets: Tom Hansen, Susan Pendakur, Sandy Mayo, Stephen Chan 1. Agenda Approved 2. Minutes from September 21st Board Meeting Approved with modification that the ALS Society has not yet officially endorsed the FreeNet. 3. Policy Issues 3.1 User registration procedures deferred for one month. 3.2 Canadian FreeNet Organization Resulting from the national FreeNet conference, a group of participants, mostly with no affiliation to any FreeNet, have started a discussion to create a national community computing organization. They have propsed David Sutherland (Ottawa) as president and Gary Sherman (Victoria) as VP. Issue: Does the VRFA support the efforts and direction of this discussion group to create a national organization. Motion: (Phil Lyons/Jaqueline Van Dyk) That Brian Campbell communicate with the Can-FreeNet discussion group and all presidents of other Canadian FreeNets and organizing committees that the VRFA does not want to be involved until we know what the constitution and bylaws of the proposed National organization are about and that the VRFA wants it to be a federated system with one representative from each FreeNet organization and that this national organzation can bring in other individuals as needed. PASSED 4.1 Membership - no report 4.2 Fundraising - Greg Buss * Case statement is going to the printer. * Hardware/software committee is making informal contacts to organizations about donations of old hardware/software * It was suggested a fundraising committee be called soon. * Community content needs a place donated to do training. 4.3 Community Content - Guy * Has one new endorsement and information provider * Handed out copies of the updated database * Information package cover letter should come from Brian but can be signed for him by others * Need to ask endorsers to provide money as this carries more weight. * It was suggested a seperate form be included with the endorser letter which looks like an invoice and lists the various subscriber levels. * Concern was expressed about the status of decision on how Information Providers can upload information. Communty Content and Hardware/Software committees will get together to resolve. Motion: (Mike Lehman/Guy Thomas) That VRFA gets the first information provider on Mike Hrybeks machine by the end of October. PASSED 4.4 Public Relations - Fritz * Report will be posted * A design has been formulated, are looking for an artist to do a rendition. 4.5 Hardware/Software - Mike * Has split into 4 subcommittees, 35 people total, many with excellent skills * Will have bi-weekly meetings with breakout groups * Working on testing basic system services - much work to be done * Two co-op students are working with us for 6 weeks. * Working on an overall menu structure which will be available for the boards perusal at the next meeting. * Where are treaurers and membership reports? 5. Endorsements - Phil * Had a work bee last saturday and sent out 17 letters and made arrangements to send out another 60. * Have 10 official endorsements * Endorsement Letter will be put online * Will post list of current endorsers on board-info 6. Equal Access - Margaret * Working on other things currently 7. Review Brian express concerns about lack of focus and progress in many areas. Long discussion ensued. Some suggested a business plan schedule be considered. Board decided to focus on 4 priority areas 1. Find a location 2. Focus on fundraising for money for telephone lines 3. Get as many endorsements as possible as quickly as possible 4. Have 5 information providers online by November 15th. 8. Next meeting will be held on October 19th at the VPL at 7pm. The meeting was adjourned at 9:45 pm