Vancouver Regional FreeNet Association Board Meeting 411 Dunsmuir, Vancouver -- July 18, 1995 MINUTES Attendance: Brian Campbell (chair), Margaret Coates, Stephen Gauer, Lorne Gray, Neil K. Guy, Larry Kuehn, George Lindholm, Ross Penner (recorder), Eric Teachman, and Vic Vaivads. Absent: Penny Goldsmith, Tom Hanson, Eric Yung. 1. Call to Order at 7:00 p.m. 2. Adoption of Agenda as altered M/S Larry Kuehn, Vic Vaivads; Passed. 3. Minutes of June 27, 1995 were not available. 4. Staff Organization (in camera) Recommended that a FreeNet Coordinator be appointed to attend Board meetings and funnel projects from the Directors through her to the staff. M/S Larry Kuehn, Lorne Gray that the VRFA create the position of FreeNet Coordinator and appoint Kathy Fournier to it to coordinate staff. Passed. HDRC slippage has amounted to about 6 person months (for one position). VRFA to approach HRDC to fund the appointment of one position to work with community groups for uploading and with volunteers for training uploaders. This is to be a more technical position. M/S Margaret Coates, Larry Kuehn that the VRFA hire Jason Currell as Community Upload Coordinator. Passed. S. 25 Project has 12 more weeks that couldn't be used with the current staff. Phil Lyons is qualified for this work. M/S Margaret Coates, Larry Kuehn that the VRFA appoint Phil Lyons to the position subject to HRDC approval. Passed. (end of in camera session). 5. Board Structure (Brian Campbell) M/S Larry Kuehn, Margaret Coates that a committee be struck to bring a recommendation to the next meeting that up to six Member-at-Large positions be created and to discuss the mechanism for committee representation. Passed. The following were appointed as members of the above-mentioned committee: Steven Gauer and Lorne Gray (co-chairs); President or designate; Kathy Fournier. 6. Nominations Committee Report (Brian Campbell) Eight directors are willing to stand. 7. On-line Fundraising Campaign (Kathy Fournier) Summary: on-line request for funds; vendor VISA/MasterCard accounts; similar format with ongoing use statistics. M/S Lorne Gray, Larry Kuehn that the Board authorize Kathy Fournier to proceed as outlined in her written report. Passed. 8. Sun System Purchase (George Lindholm) It was recommended that we stay with Solaris as that is where we have our experience. A 40% discount is available from Sun. M/S Larry Kuehn, Vic Vaivads that the Board accept the proposal to spend up to $35,000 (Cdn). for a Sparc 20 Model 71 (single CPU, 160MB RAM, Solaris upgrade license, 2GB drive, Solaris media). Passed. N.B. a second CPU would cost $7700; extra RAM would cost $3200/64MB; documentation would be $1000. 9. Newsgroups (George Lindholm) CBC would like a newsfeed of the vrfa.* groups. The Board grants Kathy Fournier discretion to deal with this issue. 10. Web Server and Languages (Kathy Fournier / Neil Guy) Some discussion regarding problems and possibilities of foreign language material via web on our system. Kathy Fournier to do further research into this area. 11. Committee Reports a) Treasurer (Tom Hanson; none) b) Community Content (Ross Penner; up to 63 Information Providers now) c) Hardware/Software (George Lindholm; as per above Sun purchase) d) System Design (Vic Vaivads; none) e) Fundraising (Kathy Fournier; as above) f) Public Relations (Neil Guy; Brian and Kathy are to meet with a potential volunteer who has marketing experience. We should focus on what our users and IP's want). g) Membership Coordinator (Eric Teachman; 3 weeks ago we had 6391 user accounts and approximately 1800 members. There are 5 volunteers updating the membership list.) h) Volunteer Coordinator (Lorne Gray; Lorne Gray and Jack Vickery hold volunteer orientations on the 2nd Saturday of the month. Lisa Penney is dealing directly with volunteers.) i) User Training (Stephen Gauer; User Training is on the 2nd and 3rd Saturdays of the month. LCD panels are being donated by Sharpe and VPL. There is a BCIT volunteer who is willing to do a 2 hour video for VRFA use. 8 Trainers are now available. Some training is being done at Neil Squire Foundation offices. Help Pages 4, 5, 6, and 7 are almost done (e- mail, lynx, upload/download)). j) Labour Liaison (Larry Kuehn; Met with the Labour Council the previous week (20+ people). They are interested in homepages.) k) Public Access (Penny Goldsmith; a report was distributed) 12. Office Computer Upgrade (Jason Currell) The request to upgrade the office 486 from 4 to 8 MB RAM was referred to the next Operations Committee meeting. 13. System Administrator (Margaret Coates) Tim Guay (guay@freenet) has been appointed system administrator. 14. News Releases (Ross Penner) A request to allow staff to send out timely and more frequent news releases was deferred to the next Operations Committee meeting. 15. Adjournment The meeting adjourned at 9:04 p.m. [Minutes corrected as per resolution of August 8, 1995 meeting.]