Board meeting Minutes/8 Oct 2012

Prior: 24 Sep 2012

Board meeting Minutes

Next: 22 Oct 2012

Minutes approved: 25 Feb 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.

Unspecified

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

Present

(Subject to verification) Philip Kizer (chair), William Bilancio, Matt Disney, Jesse Trucks, Ski Kacoroski, Dan Rich, John Boris, Martin Gehrke

Apologies

Evan Pettrey,

Opened

20:02 Eastern Time

Closed

20:47 Eastern Time

Consent Agenda

• Approve minutes of 25 Aug 2012
• Approve minutes of 25-26 Aug 2012

Action Items

• Everyone needs to be reviewing the custserv and board cases and taking them! (and/or deleting the spam)
• Too many tickets without owners. Voicemail needs to be picked up. William suggested that Philip take Ticket#641

Martin will look into #625. William asked again that we all keep an eye on our ticketsthe Cutomer Service queue Rubi Bedrunin had questions about Locals in Europe. Philip will get the info to Martin.

Standing Reports

• Treasurer's report
  • Next report will be after vacation is over
• Membership report
  • Martin asked how much is involved in getting the gift membership working. Dan is looking into that.
• Technical services report
  • We are on the new server. A conference call meeting is planned with the Tech Team to talk about direction and break up of duties. They are ready to kill the bitpusher servers. Jesse has started the bps started and needs to get some paperwork to get it rolling. They hope to start redesigning the entire site.
• Conference/events activities report
  • William gave status on LOPSA-East. Evan Pettrey has been selected as the Co-Chair for LOPSA-East and next years Chair. Evan is [unclear]
  • Sponsorship package for LOPSA-East is out. CFPs for Cascadia and LOPSA-East are out. Cascadia's web site is up and working.
  • OLF went well. It ran the same time as the Ohio Comicon was on and the table had some interesting visitors. Still waiting to hear back from SCALE.
• Mentorship Status report
  • The Team is still working on their automation and getting ready to launch at LISA.
  • William asked about a mentorship email with a name he wasn't familiar with.
  • Jesse mentioned how work was being delegated.
  • Lawrence Chen is a member of the LMPT.
  • John asked about getting notified about the Google hangouts. John will double check about being on the list.
• Development report (Meeting focus at first meeting of the month)
• Communications

Ski spoke about getting the LOPSA Gram. He is meeting with Julie about LISA. He asked for input from the board for LISA. He is getting other social media reports together

• Liaison reports (LC, etc.)
  • Dan and Parter have been trying to set up a regular meeting. They have been exchanging emails and Dan has been forwarding contact info to Parter so he can continue to build his list of candidates.

Chapter Approval Process... (Ski)

There are different interpretations of how to approve a provisional chapter (gray area in policy). This item is to clear up this gray area and decide on a clear process. Ski asked Martin to speak on his Draft policy and he has it in front of the committee and is waiting to hear from them before it gets put to the board. William thinks a Chapter is a Chapter whether provisional or regular and needs to be voted on by the board before we announce. IRC is not the place to take the vote and email is legal here in NJ. The vote should be taken at a meeting or out into an email. Jesse explained the intent of his email. He wants to remove barriers and speed up the process. A Chapter doing things in our name can strengthen or ruin our name. The new chapter understands that it is a binding agreement. He agrees that the policy needed reworking and commends Martin for taking on the task. He welcomes the changes but until official we should follow our current guidelines. John commented that he felt it look like it was a bit rushed and that two weeks is not a long length of time to wait for a wait. Take the vote at the board meeting and if that can't happen then put it to a vote in an email.

Martin asked that we make a decision on what the current policy states and lets clear up the grey area and come up with an agreed understanding until we get the new policy in place.

The policy is mute on a vote. The policy states that only a review is needed that there is no need for a vote.

Jesse showed that the provisional chapter is mentioned how to become a regular chapter but it does not say it needs approval and the board has felt that the rules for a regular chapter applied to the provisional where it would have to be approved.

Martin read the policy that "After review the regular chapter would be put on the board agenda for vote." A regular chapter requires a vote and Jesse feels that the provisional chapter should follow the same rule. Maybe this can be delegated but until this can be put into the new policy it should be voted on.

Ski noticed a big distinction between greybeards and young guys coming up and we should try and speed things up as long as we don't open ourselves up for problems. Philip agrees and will hold his comments.

Martin feels that the Provisional status is a one line that just mentions that a Provisional Chapter can be granted. He feels it was just tacked on at the end.

William feels that we (the board) should vote on the provisional chapters as they come under insurance policy and it is our brand. The committee can say "Yes this is a good chapter" with all of the data and the board approves that.

Jesse feels that where the provisional chapter line shows up one can look at everything that describes how a Regular chapter begins, operates etc. a provisional chapter can be seen the same thing as a Regular chapter except it has less members for the first year. He feels we do need to vote on provisional chapters.

Philip commented that wholly objective criteria is used to define a Regular/provisional chapter and is there any subjective data that the board has to see. If there is only a check list to become a chapter than we are micromanaging the process. Going from a Provisional to a Regular chapter there are subjective data we would need to see that they are viable, have enough members are doing things. Although we told them they are

Martin motioned that the Board vote on the LOPSA-DC Chapter. Ski Seconded the motion. Dan amends the motion that we approve the LOPSA-DC chapter as a provisional chapter. No objections so the motion passes.

Martin answered about waiting two weeks. There is a lot of steps and processes that the Chapter goes through to get rolling. (List servs, Domain Names etc) He wants to give them as much support as possible and after they gain that momentum getting things rolling and then have to wait another two weeks to get LOPSA support seems to be put a damper on that momentum.

Jesse stated that a successful chapter takes a lot of time and effort, if waiting for two weeks to get the official approval is too much than the person is not doing good planning and maybe we should allow a faster process. E-mail may be fast enough. He feels if they can't wait the two weeks for something that is long lasting and hopefully years they may not be thinking it through correctly and they may need more guidance.

John feels that this group has to have meetings and during that time they should have been in discussion with us and they are not just waking up and saying "Lets become a chapter." So two weeks should not be a long wait.

Martin passed.

Ski stated that IEEE requires a board vote, ACM farms it out to the head of the Chapter Committee so it is either way how to create a chapter. He feels we that either way is fine.

Jesse agrees with Ski. The requirements, process and approval process should be clear. he is in favor of making the process easier and smoother. We still need to vote on the chapters until the policy is finalized.

Matt adds that the riskier part of the Chapter is down the road. Once we have history with a Chapter is where we should have squared away policies with appropriate deal with problematic chapters. He feels that is much more important than approving new chapters.

Martin responded that we can strengthen the clauses but there is a revocation portion in the policy. It is a bit generic.

Philip stated that it should be generic as there are some discussions about other policies and it would not be correct to have to modify the policy each time a new issue comes up.

Adjournment

Ski motioned for adjournment. Dan, William seconded the motion. 20:47