Vancouver Community Net
                     Board Minutes--September 17, 1996

Present:  Margaret Coates (president), Neil K. Guy, Penny Goldsmith, Greg
Sturk, Lorne Gray, Vic Vaivads, Ann Travers, Andrey Fedoroff, Larry
Kuehn (secretary).

Staff:  Jason Currell, Peter Royce.

1.      The meeting was called to order at 7:05.

2.      M/S/C.  That the agenda be adopted.

3.      M/S/C.  That the minutes of the August meeting be approved.

4.      B.C. in 2001 Conference.

The VCN has been allocated three places at the B.C. in 2001 Conference
being sponsored by the Information Access Technology Office.

5.      B.C. Community Network Association.

Neil Guy was appointed as the VCN representative to the B.C. Community
Network Association.

6.      President's report.

The president presented a report that outlined successes for the VCN over
the past year, but also pointed out that current levels of income are not
adequate to maintain the operation of the VCN past the next few months.
She outlined four possible options for dealing with the situation:

1)  Membership changes to bring in more income (with recommendations on how
to do this from the membership subcommittee).

2)  A highly sophisticated fundraising campaign.

3)  Political lobbying to get resources from government.

4)  Budget reductions that would require cuts in staffing, service and access.

The board considered these options and took the following actions:

1)  Approved in principle changes in membership policy that would: a) give
additional online access time to members over non-members, b) require users
and members to renew user agreements every 12 months, and c) charge for
extra services, such as operating manuals, and extra services such as user
changes that require account administration, Web page setup, etc.

2)  Agreed to leave a major fundraising campaign to the new board, elected
at the Annual General Meeting.

3)  Agreed to lobby government, including at the B.C. 2001 Conference, to
provide funding to support community networks.

4)  Agreed to leave it to the new board to decide if the situation requires
budget decreases and the cuts in service that would go with them.

7.  New access policies.

M/S/C.  That the VCN implement an access policy that:

         1)  That non-members can connect to VCN up to twice a day, for up to 30
               minutes each time.

         2)  That members can connect to VCN as many times a day as they wish,
               with total connect time to be a maximum of 120 minutes a day.

         And that this policy come into effect on October 8, 1996 (if it is
technically
         feasible).

8.  VCN Manual.

It was agreed that a limited print run of the VCN user manual be available
for the AGM, with a revised version to be developed which would include
advertising as a fund-raising approach.  The manual is to be sold at a
price that provides at least cost recovery.

9.  Annual General Meeting.

Margaret Coates reported on nominations to date for positions on the VCN board.

Peter Royce was delegated to find a speaker for the AGM who could provide a
perspective on access issues.

10.  Next board meeting:

October 9 at 6 p.m. to approve financial statements for submission to the AGM.

The October board meeting date will be set by the new board after the AGM.