Vancouver Community Network Board Meeting Minutes - April 20, 1999 Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Vancouver Community Network, Board of Directors, held on Tuesday, April 20, 1999 at 6:30 P.M. in the 411 Boardroom, 411 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC. Present: Alison Curtis, Lyle Gardiner, Penny Goldsmith, Paul Hunt, Suzanne Klinga, Josee Lebel, Darlene McBain, Sujay Nazareth, Greg Sturk Staff: Jason Currell, Peter Royce Absent: Keith Kan, Jonn Oldym, Richard Smith, Richard Songhurst Chair: Penny Goldsmith Secretary: Greg Sturk The Chair called the meeting to order at: 6:40 P.M. 1. Acceptance of the Agenda. M/S/C/ 2. Minutes of the March 16, 1999 meeting accepted with changes; article 3a: "grant from the Vancouver Foundation" should read "grant from the City of Vancouver", article 4: "Reduced budget of $18,000 approx." should read "Reduced budget by $18,000 approx.". 3. Staff Issues 3 a. Chair announced the resignation of Richard Songhurst as Secretary of the Board, citing the great amount of work he is doing, Greg Sturk to assume the duties. Richard will continue as a Board Member at Large. 3 b.General discussion of Staff salary increases (staff absent). The subject was tabled for further study, there will be a report at the next board meeting. Suzzanne and Penny to investigate staff benefits policy. Staff Reports 3 c. Peter Royce, Coordinator Peter distributed a written report, highlights of which are; the legal components of the Spanish Language Project have been met and a fabulous web site is a result. He is now developing further proposals for health information and one for legal info. The VolNet project started on April 6 with Carolyn Nantais part-time and Terri Kennedy full-time with much work to be done on outreach, although a few inquires are already in. Peter noted that our membership is down to around 3,300 from a previous 4,000 not counting Langara students. 3 d. Jason Currell, System Administrator Jason presented a "System Administrator Report" and a "Jason's To Do List". Jason has gathered some basic statistics on useage of our system; there are about 2,000 dial-ins a day on the main telephone number, plus 800 telnets from the libraries and other systems, about 7,200 users, and 300 Information Providers. About 15% of our total traffic is now done by Langara students. Jason recommended that we could improve our Help Desk with the addition of new help software. With a voice mail system people could leave messages that qualified volunteers could answer without coming into the offfice. He estimated that there are about 15 to 20 basic questions that are repeatedly asked and some could be covered by the system. The voice mail software will keep a log of calls and Jason will delegate volunteers to answer questions. Concerns were expressed about the lack of human contact with voice mail. An option on the system will be to contact a real person but because of volunteer schedules this may not be immediate. Peter expressed a concern that there will be an increase in our phone time. Jason will check to see if an addition to the phone lines can be made throught the Centrex system at little or no cost. 3 e. Motion made by Lyle and seconded by Sujay, that we purchase the Voice Mail software as suggested by Jason which will cost approximately $425.00 U.S. Carried unanimously. 4. Financial Report - Darlene McBain Darlene presented a three page financial report consisting of a "Consolidated Budget Comparison and Balance Sheet", a "Revenue Budget Comparison" and an "Operations Budget Comparison". She noted a Special Donations entry of $215 which was money received this past month for the purchase of a CD-ROM, which makes a total of over $700 after a request to members for funds. There is an estimate from Carolyn of $104,000 in special projects funds that are expected in the next couple of months against a projected $12,000 in expenses which includes the payroll for VolNet. A long term budget forecast was requested by the Chair for the next meeting. 5. Fundraising Meeting Report - Suzanne Klinga Suzanne presented a report of the Fund Raising Committee Meeting of April 12, 1999. Much of the financial information is contained in the Langara and VolNet projects. She noted that in the VolNet project the cost of a computer for participating agencies is now $690, which means we may consider refurbishing computers as part of the project. The first payment of $24,990 to VCN for services has been agreed to verbally and in writing. There is also a marketing package that is in place. In the Langara project it has been suggested by Langara that we revisit start-up costs and a meeting will be held. A letter of intent has been established and the contract needs to be finalized. 6. Update on PPP access 6 a. Penny referred to a "new user ageement draft" given to Board members. She noted that it does not define the term "Spam" but rather what is not acceptable usage of the VCN system. There is a new appeal process of rotating three board members on an ad hoc basis and the mission statement added to the beginning of the agreement. The Board agreed with the suggestion to send out the user agreement draft to all members/users with an announcement of pending PPP access (with a date) and a request that any concerns about the agreement be sent back by a specific date. 6 b. Alison presented a "PPP Access to VCN - who, what, when as of April 20/99". In it, the chart shows our progress on PPP. It has been decided that on-site volunteer training may not be practical but rather Help Pages and a list of FAQs be used along with the automated voice response. The question was raised about possibly getting a MacIntosh computer which would help in instructing set-up. Jason noted that even used Macs are expensive. Board members were asked to se if they knew anyone with used MacIntoshes. 6 c. Update timelines: May - legal check/ final draft of user agreement circulated to members along with notice of ppp access (access date to be decided at May board meeting) - set up ID verification process - print,email & web help pages and FAQ's completed - acquire automated voice response software for help desk June - implement automated help desk system - offer ppp access in June/July when we are confident we have all necessary supports in place 6 d. Penny requested that Lyle's suggested survey on computer needs be deferred. 7. Project Reports 7 a. VolNet update - Peter Royce VolNet is the program and "604 Connect" is the project. It is designed to reach out quite widely to groups not yet on the internet that are registered non-profits. It started on April 6 with Carolyn Nantais part-time and Terri Kennedy full-time. It will be a major project for the VCN for the next two months. There are posters and flyers that need to be distributed which is very important. Peter requests that Board members contact other agencies that they may know of or be part of. 7 b. Langara Project - Jason Currell The Langara project is all up and running. Sign-ups are a little slower than expected but that may be due to the lack of advertising by the Langara Student Union. Jason also noted that it has been a lot of time for him to help people get on-line. 8. BCCNA meeting and AGM - Alison Curtis 8 a. Alison raised some concerns on the recent BCCNA conference held in Vancouver. She noted that the conference is held about 6 months before the AGM which makes it very difficult for the widely separated groups to attend both sessions. 8 b. She also noted some concerns about how the technology used at the conference and the accountability of the BCCNA. As the representative of the VCN to the BCCNA, she will be sending a letter for the Board of Directors of the VCN to the BCCNA. 9. Report on Community Learning Networks conference Deferred to next meeting. 10. Announcements None. 11. Other Business Chair to e-mail Keith Kan regarding his status on the Board. Motion to adjourn at 8:30. M/S/C/