Board meeting Minutes/20 May 2013

Prior: 6 May 2013

Board meeting Minutes

Next: 3 Jun 2013

Minutes approved: 3 Jun 2013

• NOTICE to those on the line: All present agree to a temporary recording of this call to be be deleted no later than when the minutes are approved. Please speak up if you disagree with this and we will discuss it after roll call.

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Move your name to Present or Apologies prior to the meeting!

Present

(Subject to verification) Philip Kizer (chair), William Bilancio, Ski Kacorosk, Dan Rich, John Boris, Evan Pettrey, Matt Disney, Martin Gehrke

Apologies

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Opened

8:03 PM Eastern Time

Closed

9:02 PM Eastern Time

Consent Agenda

• Minutes of 6 May 2013 approved with no objections

Action Items

Board members are reminded to look at their open tickets and either close them or update them.

Standing Reports

• Treasurer's report

We are in good standing with our liabilities. The 990s are being completed. We have to send the stipend check to the WiAC recipient but we are missing some info. We will get her a form to fill out.

Even corresponded with the person inquiring how to make a payment from out of the country. It is cheaper for him to use PayPal.

The LOPSA-East money will be settled once the Hotel gets us the final bill. The Honorariums have been paid. This should be resolved shortly. Hopefully the money will be in by mid June.

• Membership report

• • 817 members, not including LOPSA-East, had some technical issues importing the data, working with William on that
  • 65 lapsed members in May, 228 year to date (many of those probably LOPSA-East attendees)

The LOPSA-East attendee list was missing data as soon as the missing data is corrected those members will be added to Civi.

• Technical services report

Things are moving smoothly at the moment. Our Certificate is due for renewal.

• Conference/events activities report

An EventBrite page is setup for Southeast Linux Fest. We got our first LOPSA-U registration today. The money that comes in through EventBrite for this event will go directly into PayPal. William will get with Aleksay for Crossbow and get him up to speed with SeLF

The Eastern Tennessee is still redoing their budget for their conference.

Just a reminder to start on the Yerkes award and LISA. We want to have the Plaque by the Face to Face meeting. That will allow us to purchase it and save on last minute production charges. We spent approximately $400 last year. If we use the same type it should be about the same or less as there will be no shipping since William can take it with him.

• Mentorship Status report

We need to acknowledge Thomas Leyer's purchase of shirts for the LMPT as a sponsorship.

• • The LMPT Team met on May 14th. They invited Matt Simmons to be part of the Core team. They are using Matt as a resource for communications. We discussed:
    • How to get more people on the Core team.
      • LOPSAGram
      • Direct contact with other Members
      • Write Blogs on LOPSA.org
  • Google Docs programming assistance for Ed. He is handling the Google Docs coding by himself and we have a spotty issue with the automation.
  • Improving the Core Team role time involvement:
    • Time estimation (weekly):
      • Meetings 30mins
      • On-Call (every 4 weeks) 1-2h split over the week in 15-20 minute blocks
      • Projects as many hours as you would like to
    • Obligations:
      • Attend meetings
      • participate in on call (answer requests, daily business)
      • support in projects/campaigns (automation, marketing, conferences)
    • Requirements:
      • Sysadmin with mid- to higher level of experience
      • Like to work with people
  • The Team will be asked to draw up a message for Martin to deliver to the Local Organizers asking for Core team members and Mentors.
  • A Project ID for each Relationship using first 10 characters of md5sum of the description was implemented. This will aid the core team in locating projects.
  • There are three projects that are very old and these Proteges are being sent emails to see if they can reword their description or do they want us to drop them. The three are:
    • I am interested in becoming more familiar with Microsoft technologies. Windows Server 2008, AD, Exchange. I want to be able to setup a Windows Server 2008 as a domain controller & setup Exchange 2007/2010 for my own personal domain primarily for learning purposes. Ideally all of this would be virtualized. I am willing to buy whatever I need and have an idea of what I need but mentoring would help significantly. I live in Northern Virginia and have the ability to setup a lab in my basement and wouldn't mind someone helping me with that.
    • I have been tasked with building out two servers for my company to replace our aging infrastructure. Our current setup is two Windows Server NT servers. The first is hosting 65 GB of share company documents (80GB total cap.) and the SBT accounting database. The other is hosting our FileMaker Pro (v.4) database. Networking (DHCP/DNS) is handled by our ISP's router. I am looking to mimic the setup in terms of workload, plus add in features which will benefit future admins. We will be using Windows Server 2012 Standard. The SBT, FileMaker, and File Sharing features are very light weight, so I'd like to add in systems for remote management and image deployment, institute Active Directory to handle share permissions, and setup DNS and DHCP to reign in the network. This is my first foray into Windows Server administration. I have been working primarily with OS X, Server, and Xsan. I look forward to hearing what you think about this project. Thanks!
    • Setting up a completely automated thin deployment of windows 7 with scripts to backup user profiles, add to domain, and create VPN network profiles.

• Local Chapter Committee report

The Locals Committee is still waiting to have their meeting. More to discuss later with Dan's suggestion.

• Communications (LOPSAgram, #lopsa-live, etc) (last meeting of the month only)
  • Got LOPSA mentioned on MRC Cup of Joe blog, looking for other opportunities to get our name out in front of the public.
  • Sent out emails/social media about benefits survey, SPDECon, and election #lopsa-lives
  • LOPSA listed as association sponsor on SPDEcon.org website and Linuxfest Southeast website.
  • Goals over next 2 weeks are advertising/sponsors for LOPSA-U at Linuxfest Southeast and LOPSAGram
  • William met some Marketing people that are willing to work with us. They will start with LOPSA-East and then with LOPSA.
• Liaison reports (LC, etc.)
  • The interim-LC is currently in election-only mode, other volunteer development will need to wait until the new term. Philip will ask them for a new summary for the election. Dan asked if there was any announcement about a timeline. Philip stated that will be the gist of his contact with them.

Fosscon 2013 (John Boris)

Fosscon 2013 is a free and open source software conference, and will include talks and workshops on topics including development, community building, hackerspace activities, and more. Learn about 3D printing, security, and protecting your privacy. Network with the local tech community and discover new technologies.

The Ubuntu PA group will be offering support for installation or troubleshooting of your Linux system regardless of what distribution you use, and Hive76 members along with members of other nearby hackerspaces will be showing off 3D printing, electronics, and will even have a combat robot arena that you can try yourself.

Fosscon is also searching for speakers, sponsors, and exhibitors for this year’s event.

I have been in touch with the organizers and we can have a table at the event (Limited space) and They want us to provide speakers or a workshop. Time slots are 55 minutes and 1 hour and 55 Minutes. I also mentioned to them about LOPSA-U. The contact on IRC is JonathanD, Jonathan Simpson, he is on the Freenode staff with Jesse.

I notified Aleksey so he can have a heads up for it with Crossbow.

Looking for ideas for talks/workshops.

I contacted one of my sales guys and asked them to sponsor a speaker for this event (ala Ski).

Ski asked about us sharing logos on our web sites.

Locals / National LOPSA relations (Daniel Rich)

I feel that we need a tighter relationship between the locals and the international organization. I don't want to have the full board solve the problem, but I think we should come up with some high-level ideas that the Locals Committee can explore.

As a starting point:

• Should part of the individual dues go back to the Local they are a member of? If so, should it be pro-rated based on the number of LOPSA members in that group?
• Can we provide services for the locals? Ex. hosting on lopsa.org, e-mail management, etc.
• Can we build a Locals calendar that would allow all of the locals to share their events in a common place? This could be published both in the LOPSAgram and on lopsa.org.
• Can we add a Locals section to the LOPSAgram and/or lopsa.org that would feature a different local every issue with that local's activities?

What other ideas can we come up with that the Locals Committee can work with?

Philip likes the idea of providing the Locals a section of the LOPSAGram.

Per William we provide them with the following:

• Web Space on LOPSA's Site
• Email Management if they ask for it.

We can setup an IRC channel for them.

We can't provide them Bank accounting because of turnover. Maybe once a year we refresh their coffers with LOPSA Swag and literature.

Martin echoed what William brought up. He has asked them numerous times for what they want from us. We should be able to give them some type of working capital per year. But there should be some type of initiative for them to make sure their members are our members. It may be just as easy for them to spend the money and submit for repayment. Martin will try to get some positive feedback from the chapters.

Dan wants something written that is part of the governance that shows

Ski mentioned that O'Reilly will ship boxes of books each month just for the asking. Seattle's group does this numerous times. Both core and non core books. There is a Policy that covers locals and Affiliates which might help what Dan is looking for.

William stated that O'Reilly used to require a review when they gave away books but is not sure if that is still in place.

Evan likes the use of meet ups where we can set them up for the Locals. It is a Win Win for us.

Matt thinks that we have to stay building the community and the hooks into the National should be gentle and voluntary for the locals.

William likes the idea of the locals submitting expenses up to a limit as he remembers starting out with LOPSA-NJ he needed it one time. It is not about making money for the National. He feels that we shouldn't be just holding their hands on everything but we should be providing them the tools and the means to be sustainable.

Dan explained further that this came up as part of other conversations and also during the election talks. We need to do something to grow the locals which in turn will grow the National. Not to raise money for the National but for a way to get money back to the locals.

Matt believes that new chapters should be able to get assistance when starting up as all locals don't have the resources that others may have.

William restated that at first he had a lot of attendees but it dropped off unless he had Tom Limoncelli speaking. So he worked to get better speakers and a sponsor. He feels it is not the National's job to find them rooms and speakers. We should give them pointers and explain how other chapters were built and they should learn from that. We shouldn't do it for them.

Evan restated that Meet-Up is a valuable tool and we should control it and the Locals could then use that to build their membership. It will pay off in the long run.

Dan restated that we should have a Committee that does this and reports back to the Board.

Matt will work out something and bring it back to the board. He doesn't want to force things on the groups. he feels we should be there for them and if we offer money some may want it and others may not need that. So we will have to see what we can offer them.

Dan finalized that if we offer cash it should be tied to membership.

SysAdmin Appreciation Day (Disney)

SysAdmin Appreciation Day is sneaking up on us. I volunteer to kick off some coordination and discussion about next steps, including discussion in the locals committee. Deadline of next meeting to have a plan.

Matt will try to in the Candidates for something and also tie in the Locals to come up with events.

Philip mentioned the Board Wiki Page with what we did in the past. William will populate the Wiki page soi we have a checklist for this year's event.

Matt would like to see some sponsorship if possible for this showing activities in your area.

Philip recommended to speak to the holder of the Sysadminday web site to see what we can do.

SANS (wbilancio)

Please allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jenn Herroon, I represent SANS SEC 464 Hacker Guard with The SANS Institute.

Hacker Guard is a security awareness program for technical people within networking/operational backgrounds.

These privileged users are taught how to detect breaches on a network through base lining. Once a breach has been discovered, this information is provided to the incident response team for further mitigation and remediation if necessary.

Hacker Guard is allowing for IT departments to leverage their staff members in a more efficient manner since there are typically more privileged users than security staff.

Some of the key components of the Hacker Guard program are as follows:

       1.  Knowing what's normal/abnormal for Windows Linux/Unix Operating System.
       2.  Develop a savvier approach of knowing your networks quirks and capabilities.
       3.  Security awareness from a technical point of view.
       4.  Develop better lines of communication amongst various IT Departments to avoid segregated communication.
       5.  Continuing education is included in the initial course tuition to reinforce security awareness training. Continuing education occurs quarterly for the first year of enrollment.
       6.  Hacker Guard is available for either OnSite or vLive instruction.

Tuition includes continuing education for a year, over 14+ hands on labs, and program materials. Delivery of Hacker Guard can be provided to LOPSA members through local OnSite instruction or webcast. Attached you will find the program syllabus for Hacker Guard and link to our program site: www.sans.org/hacker-guard

I've also included a link to a webcast on Hacker Guard so you have a better idea of the some of the curriculum for the program. "Active Defense Is Cool Again"

Please let me know when a LOPSA board member(s) may be available for a deeper discussion on providing this training to your members.

Dan suggested maybe we can work them for a discount to our members. William will contact them about a deal.

Ski stated to be a bit careful working with them as he was promised stuff for SASAG but it never came through. They are selling their services. So the discount for our members is a better proposition for us.

Adjournment

William motioned for adjournment Ski seconded