VANCOUVER REGIONAL FREENET ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS MINUTES OF MEETINGS February 13th, 1995 411 Dunsmuir Meeting Room Present: Brian Campbell, Phil Lyons, Eric Yung, Vic Vaivads, Tom Hansen, George Lindholm, Neil K. Guy, Sharon Zaluski, Larry Kuehn, Margaret Coates Absent: Ann Doyle, Eric Teachman, Paul Ruiterman, Ted Heatherington Guests: Howard Hunchak, Lorne Gray, Jason Currell, Claire Toynbee 1.0 Agenda * added 3.5 BC Home Pages (Neil) * Brian gave the regrets of the missing Board members * added Federal government grant to the agenda. Motion: (Phil/Vic) To accept the agenda with the above noted changes. PASSED. 2.0 Minutes of January 24th: Motion: (Vic/Phil) To accept the first paragraph of Phil and Vic's proposal as our policy towards mailing lists. Motion: (Neil/Margaret) To accept the Minutes of January 24th. PASSED. 3.0 Policy Issues 3.1 Handles/Pseudonyms: * discussion about whether we "police" userids for "acceptable" userids. * no resolution, deal with it as the situation arises. 3.2 Late night T-shirts: * the user that posted to Lawrence Lee is to be given a warning, and is to be removed for further offenses, as per our policy of no commercial activity. * Raymond Rogers: (and University Colleges Society) was discussed. Discussion about IP accounts (and accountability). Further discussion about IP email accounts vs. personal email accounts. * Matter deferred to the Strategic Planning Session on Feb. 25th. 3.3 BC FreeNet: Motion: (Tom/Larry) That Eric Yung contact the BC FreeNet President and get the BC FreeNet AGM underway. PASSED. 3.4 BC Information Coalition: * Eric Y. gave an update on the formation meeting Wed. Feb 8th. Motion (Phil/Margaret) To endorse the letter to IHAC/David Johnston from the BC Information Coalition. PASSED. Motion: (Larry/Phil) That VRFA participate in the formation of the BC Information Coalition. PASSED. * Brian asked for Board members to attend the subcommittee panel meeting of IHAC on Feb. 22nd. 3.5 UBC Contract: * Brian still to follow up on the UBC contract. 3.6 Federal Government Grant: Margaret * job descriptions of the Federal government grants were discussed. $110,000 for 3 people (roughly). The three positions are: UNIX system administrator, Fundraiser/marketeer, and either an Executive Director or an Administrative Assistant. The latter position was not decided by the Operations Committee and was brought back to the Board. * Phil: coordination function, but no "senior bureaucrat" needed. * Eric Y.: an Executive Director needed, especially with turnover of working Board of Directors. * Tom: coordination of hired staff needed - creation of position with these duties and to provide a sense of continuity. * Neil: The title of "Executive Director' connotates someone "in charge" of the organization. * Brian: wants position to supervise staff. Motion: (Larry/Phil) That we hire an Executive Administrator with the duties of supervision of staff. PASSED. 3.7 BC Home Pages: * Brian: pointers to commercial activity Home pages - in opposition to our policy. * Eric Y. - clarified policy as of Sep 7/93. * Larry: this reflects back to a basic policy on commercial activity and may be better suited to the Strategic Planning Session on Feb. 25th. * matter tabled for commercial policy discussion on Feb. 25th. 4.0 Committee Reports: 4.1 Community Content: (report posted) * Randy to get a list of IPs to work with. 4.2 Hardware/Software: * purchase of memory has being purused * quotes on hard drives, questions as to how much money we can spend. * available space has reduced by 50% (500k/user, 3600+ users). Motion: (George/Vic) To purchase two 8 GB hard drives. PASSED. * discussion about the cost of two 8 GH hard drives. George suggested that two hard drives are needed. It was stressed that the money spent towards purchases of the HD(s) would be money not available for future hardware upgrades. Motion: (Tom/Margaret) Amend the previous motion to purchase 4 GB of hard drive space. 7 in favour, 2 opposed. 4.3 System Design: * trial of offline reader is proceeding, users to be allowed shortly. * Andrew Haigh working on the offline reader, and doing an excellent job, including FAQ and user support. 4.4 Fundraising: (Ted absent) 4.5 Public Relations: * new brochures has some flaws from printing. * Neil interviewed by Rodger's community channel. * newsletter proceeding. 5.0 Vice-President's Report: nothing to report from Margaret 6.0 Membership Coordinator's Report: * 3625 users, 1367 members (230 expired to end of February). * there are now 4 members of the committee * discussion about membership drive. * Sharon: legal aspects of membership draw? Motion: (Neil/Phil) That the membership committee focus the membership drive on a new computer. PASSED. Motion: (Tom/Margaret) That we allow the membership committee to go ahead with the membership draw, pending a legal opinion. PASSED. 7.0 Volunteer Coordinator's Report: * Scott Simmer working on social activities. * Orientation session on Feb. 18th. - possible conflicts with Ann's training session? * committees have a specific person to place new volunteers. * room bookings at 411 Dunsmuir require a phone call and followup with the staff at 411 Dunsmuir. 8.0 Labour Liaison's Report: * update to labour relations * Larry working with Devin for IP information. Motion: (Larry/Tom) That Vancouver FreeNet be listed as a participant of Mayworks, to the extent of setting up a public access site, listed in the Mayworks literature, and sepaking on Coop Radio. PASSED. 9.0 User Training Coordinator's Report: (Ann absent, but posted report) * Brian indicated that Ann intends to resign and is looking for a replacement. * Eric Y. to follow up report for logistics. 10.0 User Support Coordinator's Report: * Claire Toynbee has volunteered to be Paul's replacement as Chair of User Support. Motion: (Margaret/Sharon) To accept Claire Toynbee as Chair of User Support and sit on the Board of Directors. PASSED. 11.0 Library Liaison's Report: * no new news, but brochures distributed to libraries. * Phil: need someone in the role, as IP liaison with libraries needed. * discussion from Operations Committee about Public Access Liaison to subsume the Libary Liaison and Equal Access roles. Motion: (Margaret/Larry) That we change the Library Liaison member-at-large to a Public Access Liaison, with the duties of representing Library Liaison and Equal Access liaison. PASSED. 12.0 Treasurer's Report: * after new phone lines, amount of money has doubled, but while the number of donations has increased, the amount per donation has dropped. * contingent liability to pay for potential tariff rate on our phone lines, which is roughly $50/line/month. * Motion: (Tom/Vic) To accept the Treasurer's Report. PASSED. 13.0 Other Business: 13.1 Cabling of the office: * Vic updated the Board as to the cabling from a terminal server in the office to the communications closet downstairs. * Pricing of equipment back to Board and ordering equipment to be done. Vic is pursuing this. Meeting was adjourned at 9:45pm.