Vancouver Community Network Board Meeting Minutes - June 15, 1999 Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Vancouver Community Network, Board of Directors, held on Tuesday, June 15, 1999 at 6:30 P.M. in the Boardroom, 411 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, BC Present: Alison Curtis, Lyle Gardiner, Penny Goldsmith, Suzanne Klinga, Josee Lebel, Sujay Nazareth, Darlene McBain, Jonn Olldym, Greg Sturk. Staff: Jason Currell, Peter Royce Absent: Paul Hunt, Keith Kan, Richard Smith, Richard Songhurst. Chair: Penny Goldsmith Secretary: Greg Sturk 1. Acceptance of the Agenda. M/S/C 2. Minutes of the May 18, 1999 meeting accepted. M/S/C 3. Staff Issues: 3a. Motion to have staff issues discussed in camera with staff absent M/S/C (Motions were passed in camera that set staff salaries and hours of work.) Motion to leave in camera. M/S/C 3b. Suzanne presented a draft of a Staff Policy Manual. This is the first time that the VCN has had a staff policy and she noted that some of the comments in it are a bit vague, partly because the staff circumstances change so much. Penny also noted that the draft is lacking in definitions. In the draft, there is a first time provision for the VCN supporting staff professional growth. There was general agreement by the Board that the VCN in future budgets will set aside funds for the purchase of books and other professional development. 4. Financial Report: Darlene Our operating revenues for this past month were $5,822 and revenues from projects were $27, 873. After deductions for operating and project expenses, there is a surplus of $3,372. Because of the current project funding we are doing quite well financially. The financial report now shows a breakdown by project. Darlene noted the difficulty in interpreting the financial data because it comes to her attention immediately before the Board meeting. She suggested that we change the date of our Board meeting to give the financial committee time to analyse our statements. There is no Board meeting in August so September was decided to be the best date to switch. Motion to move the Board meeting to the first Tuesday of each month, the change to start September 7, 1999. M/S/C Staff requested funds to purchase a new computer in the office to help with the VolNet project. The approximate costs would be $770.00 for the computer, Office Suite 2000 software $535.00, and Windows 98 software $155.00. Peter would use the new computer and the older 486 computer would go the volunteer office, where it would be a useful and much needed upgrade. Motion to approve funds for a new computer. M/S/C Jason requested that new memory is needed by the server to cope with on-line demands from new Langara students. The funds would come from monies from the Langara project, quoted as $2,273.16 for 512 Megs of memory. Motion for funds to upgrade the server memory. M/S/C 5. Fundraising Meeting: In minutes given from the Fundraising Committee Meeting - Monday, June 14, 1999, Peter has noted that the final payment for the Spanish Language Project is in. The final report is to be submitted soon to B.C. Multiculturalism and possibly used as a model for other projects. The committee has also discussed the concept of expanding the Spanish language web-site by adding health-related information as a sub directory. This expansion would require revitalizing the advisory committee and looking for new members. 6. Update on PPP access: 6a. Jason presented his System Administrator report. Installing server timer software involved severe problems, which took three weeks longer than expected to install. A major software bug was found that the timer software technicians are looking into. The Help Desk software has been purchased and a very large menu tree has been read into the program. To help with PPP access, a couple of web pages have also been set up. Today was the first day to sign up for PPP, and 53 people have come in, which is a significant number for one day. Jonn raised the issue of difficulties for the disabled to get on the system. Penny replied that at this time, we would be handling problems on a case by case basis until we get a better idea of what is needed. Sujay suggested that a few open houses for validation might help to resolve the issue. 6b. Nothing yet to report on personal web pages. 6c. We plan to have an update to members and users regarding PPP in about a month. 6d. A press release and "story" is planned for next month. Lyle mentioned that our "user agreement" at the library would also have to be updated. 7. Project Reports: 7a. The VolNet project is now past the two-month assessment phase, with 200 groups, including 2 on Bowen Island. Industry Canada has commended the VCN's work as "exemplary". Peter is now seeking a location to provide the training phase for 30 groups for 6 hours each. We would also provide on-site training to cover basic skills and configure computers. Groups may also want other services such as list serves. 7b. We are now working on a proposal for the development and publication of health promotion/education online resources in Spanish, creating a directory of Canadian sites. The Spanish language project is now wrapping up. Our work has been well respected in the Spanish community. Motion to make it a goal to develop and publicize health promotion and education in online resources. M/S/C 8. Help Desk Volunteers: We are introducing voice mail and a tiered approach with the volunteers to ensure more accurate advice. There will be membership support, help desk and tech help desk. There should be basic skills training for volunteers for the first few dates. As volunteers gain more experience we will be able to give references. 9. User Profiles: Steven Chan has done a computer analysis of those registering and validating on our system. There have been a large number who have registered online but did not get validated. Over a period of time many do eventually get on the system. There is at present a decline in active users and an increasing rate of decline. It is not known why people have stopped using the system or if they are having problems understanding the registration process. We need to look at factors to close the gap between those registering and not been validated, and those successfully getting on the system. It is a possibility that the Communications Department at S.F.U. could have some students do a research proposal to see why people have used, and no longer now use the VCN. 10. Any Other Business: None