Vancouver Community Network Board Meeting Minutes - May 18, 1999 Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Vancouver Community Network, Board of Directors, held on Tuesday, May 18, 1999 at 6:30 P.M. in the Boardroom , 411 Dunsmuir Street, Vancouver, B.C. Present: Alison Curtis, Lyle Gardiner, Penny Goldsmith, Josee Lebel, Darlene McBain, Jonn Olldym, Richard Songhurst and Greg Sturk. Staff: Jason Currell, Peter Royce Absent: Paul Hunt, Keith Kan, Suzanne Klinga, Sujay Nazareth and Richard Smith. Chair: Penny Goldsmith Secretary: Greg Sturk 1. Acceptance of the Agenda. M/S/C 2. Minutes of the April 20, 1999 meeting accepted. M/S/C 3. Staff Issues: 3a. Penny gave a general update on staffing personnel matters (staff absent). 3b. Peter's Report: Peter distributed a written report and gave some highlights. He has faxed a request to corporate donations for a Macintosh computer. He is looking to add a health component to the Spanish Language Project and also looking to expand that same project to another language. On the Urban Community Access Program he is keeping in touch with people to place VCN appropriately as the program ends. The Casino application for funding is up coming and must be done soon. The main focus at this time is working on VolNet with Terri and Caroline. Also noted that memberships are down. Jason's Report: Jason distributed a System Administrator Report. Most of his time this month was spent coding the new timer, with much of the time taken up having to learn a new programming language called Expect. List servers are up and running, question remains if it will be a pay service or someting else. Penny suggested that we advertise our new services. Peter suggested a press release with help from Josee. Josee suggested that bus signs are available for a very low price. Peter said we have in the budget $750 allocated for advertising. There was a general agreement that we need a discussion on list serves where we will have to develop a pricing structure and look at various options. 4. Financial Report: Darlene Generally speaking our finances are OK. It was noted that we rely on project funding and that we lack any core funding. Also noted that our financial statements do not total the costs of projects versus our revenues. Darlene to see if the financial statements can be changed. 5. Fundraising Meeting: Report given from Fund-raisings Committee Meeting of Monday, May 3, 1999 Discussion on corporate funding has been tabled for future discussion. 6. Community Learning Network Proposal: Penny was in a conference in Ottawa held by the Office of Learning Technologies, which emphasized a community learning network initiative. Most of those in attendance were librarians, teachers, internet specialists in online learning etc. Peter noted the mandate to develop learning on-line is a new way of looking at what we're already doing and could be a way for community nets to get core funding. The initial phase of research is assessed at $25,000 with a possible $100,000 in core funding for three years. Motion to draft a letter of intent M/S/C 7. Update on PPP: Alison 7a. Penny met with a lawyer to check and make changes in plain language. Lawyer made a few helpful corrections. 7b. Alison noted June 15 as the date for PPP 7c. Noted that the voice mail system is not ready yet 7d. "Peter's Portal Proposal" report distributed. Peter suggested that we could include personal web pages as part of the new proposal. Motion to have a one megabyte limit on personal and non-profits web pages to go out with the new user agreement. Motion by Lyle, seconded by Jon. M/S/C 8. Project Reports: 8a. VolNet project has contacted over 2000 groups using lists supplied by 30 different agencies. There was a small article in the Vancouver Sun about the project, with about 80 applicants at present and about 50 in the works. With the implementation plan in place the two most successful groups are first, the Ottawa FreeNet followed by the VCN. 8b. Langara Project, the final contract is ready for approval. Motion to sign by Jon, seconded by Alison. M/S/C 9. Response to Alison's letter to the BCCNA: A conference call was set up during which there was acknowledgement of the criticisms in Alison's letter and some positive feedback. 10. Announcements: None 11. Any Other Business: None