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Preliminaries
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Preliminary
Agenda
The meeting was called to order in the Green Room at the Greenbelt
Police
Station at 7:03 p.m.
In the absence of a permanent
Secretary, Jeff Travis volunteered to act as Recording Secretary for this
meeting.
Attendees:
Directors - Peggy Bates, Mary Camp, Gilbert Lee (presiding)
Members - Anne Andersen, Jim Bates, Jeff Travis
Monthly Reports
Secretary:
Gil Lee inquired
whether Board members had reviewed the minutes from the Board meeting of
14 September. Anne Andersen
offered minor corrections. The
minutes as corrected were approved unanimously. Jeff Travis will incorporate Anne’s corrections and re-submit
the minutes to Peggy Bates for posting.
Vice President:
Mary Camp reported that there were 8
attendees at the class entitled “Create Personal Web Page,” held on Wednesday,
11 October at the Community Center.
The next class, entitled “Developing Web Pages with Editors,” will
be held on Wednesday, 15 November.
Doug will seek help with logistics for this class from the
Information Technology Dept. at the University of Maryland.
There was extensive discussion of the “Website
Harvest Party,” to take place on Saturday, 14 October, from 7:00-9:30PM
at the Community Center. Mary
noted that the room in which the party is to take place is reserved from
6:00PM onward, and that Doug Love had pointed out to her the need for
someone from GIAC to contact Chris Kunkel of Greenbelt Access Television
(GATE) to verify access to the room as well as the availability of a
phone line. Gil volunteered to
make this call, using a number to be provided by Doug. Gil will also pick up the projector
for the party. Peggy stated that
the Greenbelt News Review article about the party promised refreshments;
Mary replied that only liquid refreshments would be provided, and that “pot
luck” desserts were to be provided by attendees.
Peggy suggested that Russ Haynal, a
professional web developer, might be persuaded to speak at some time in
the future for an honorarium. In
addition to website development, Russ is also expert in Internet security
issues and in the use of search engines.
Peggy reported that Doug had requested
his Instructor Credit in the form of a check.
Treasurer:
Peggy reported that
GIAC had a net income last month of $86.05, and $74.93 YTD. There was some discussion of interest
income received from the IRS.
The fireproof box has
not yet been bought.
Gil flipped a coin to
determine the winner of the door prize for 2 months’ free service (from
the Labor Day Festival?); the coin came up heads, and the Uttam Chand was
declared the winner. Gil will
call Uttam to inform him; Peggy will send him a statement.
Jeff inquired about
the necessity of sending the yellow slips in with the monthly charges. Peggy replied that it is not necessary
to do so, that they are sent out primarily as a memory jogger for members
to remind them that the charges are due.
There was extensive
discussion of PayPal (web-based bill payment), electronic funds transfer
(EFT), and GIAC’s banking arrangements.
Peggy noted that currently our account with Bank of America is a
non-interest-bearing business checking account, and that BoA was chosen
primarily because of their branch office’s convenient location in
Roosevelt Center. Peggy reported
that BoA offers an interest-bearing checking account for non-profit
organizations, but that the minimum balance is $10,000, which we do not
meet. AllFirst offers a similar
account, but with a $1,000 minimum balance. Peggy volunteered to look into what is available from Chevy
Chase Bank.
System Administrator (no written
report submitted):
Anne reported that GIAC
has 89 members, with 1 new connection in the previous month and one
family membership resignation.
FTP access by SYSMAN to
the /cal, /pho, and /dir directories of the website is still not working
correctly. Uploaded files are
somehow becoming read-only, making it impossible to reload them after any
changes.
Jim Bates volunteered
to become WEBMAN; he and Peggy will pursue FTP issues with Chesapeake
Online.
Anne described her
computing background in mainframes, and stated that while she is making
progress, she is not yet up to speed with her SYSMAN duties.
Anne cautioned that a
change of ISP would bring with it inherent difficulties in making the
transition. She requested that
any GIAC members experiencing difficulties with Chesapeake e-mail their
complaints to her (E-mail address?), and noted that in her
conversations with Joyce Brown at Chesapeake, Joyce had expressed willingness
to help resolve any difficulties.
Lastly, Anne noted
that Dorian Winterfeld would negotiate with Chesapeake Online regarding
GIAC’s need for CGI services, and stated that she favors continuing our
current month-to-month arrangement with Chesapeake.
ISP Committee (no written report
submitted):
Anne reported on the ISP Committee
meeting of 18 September. She is working
on updating the RFP, but has not finished yet.
Doug has a list of 8
candidates inherited from Neil McLeod; he and Dorian will
make initial contact
with them. It was noted that www.thelist.com has hundreds of ISP
listings, which the committee might make use of in its search. A solicitation from www.localhost.com was presented.
There was discussion
of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) services. Gil noted that DSL connections are not currently 100%
reliable.
Anne accepted an
action item for the ISP Committee to present a list of candidates at the
November Board meeting.
The next ISP Committee
meeting will take place on Wednesday, 25 October at Generous Joe’s.
Legal Committee (no written
report submitted):
Doug Caprette was to
have made a formal presentation to the Board at this meeting regarding
GIAC’s prospects for gaining tax-exempt status. In Doug’s absence, Gil suggested skipping over this agenda
item; all present agreed.
Audit Committee (no written report
submitted):
Peggy will contact
Carol Gordon regarding Audit Committee action items.
Miscellaneous:
Gil has contacted
Jackie Curley of GCP (?) regarding the ongoing availability of the
meeting room at the police station, with the result that GIAC Board
meetings are scheduled for the second Thursday of each month through the
end of 2000.
Old Business
Board and Committee Vacancies:
Gil has not yet written articles for
the News Review and Gazette; no additional recruiting of volunteers has
been done.
Procedures and Documentation:
Gil reported that at
the Officers’ meeting on 5 September, the Web page responsibilities were
delegated; these are listed in the agenda.
The next Officers’
meeting will be held on Monday, 16 October at 7:30PM at Peggy’s house.
Activity Planning:
Mary reported that the
“Cyber Café” is still in the works, but is on the back burner for now,
pending the telephone situation at the Community Center.
New Business
Group E-mails:
Mary noted that the
various group mailing lists in greenbelt.com are in need of update. Messages sent to a list containing
invalid addresses within the greenbelt.com domain are not sent at all. There was some discussion apropos of
this of a member whose services are currently suspended.
Website Appearance Issues:
Jeff commented that
the web page which contains all of the links to GIAC meeting agendas and
minutes is inconvenient to use, as the links are listed in chronological
order, vs. reverse chronological, which is more the norm for pages
of this nature. All present
concurred with Jeff’s assessment, noted that the problem is one of long
standing, and invited him or anyone else to work on correcting it by
editing the page.
Conclusion
The next regular meeting will be held
at 7:00pm on Thursday, 9 November in the conference room at the Greenbelt
Police Station.
The meeting was adjourned at about
9:00PM.
- Jeff Travis
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