Board meeting Minutes/23 October 2007

Prior: 25 September 2007

Board meeting Minutes

Next: 6 November 2007

Minutes approved: 6 November 2007

Present

Trey Harris (chair), Chris Palmer, David Parter, Jesse Trucks, Derek Balling, Philip Kizer, Sam Albrecht, Matthew Barr, Bob Apthorpe

Apologies

Stephen Potter

Opened

19:06 Eastern Time

Closed

20:38 Eastern Time

Consent Agenda

• Approve minutes of 25 September 2007

Consent agenda passes without additional comment.

Action Items

• Albrecht:
  • Contact Hans regarding tracking of volunteers for program committees
  • (with Potter) to develop revenue/expense projections through EOY and provide report on impact of payment Steve and I would like to push this one more meeting so that we can have a full three quarters worth of data to work with
• Balling:
  • to talk to Jane-Ellen to get a booth about getting a standard 10x10 @ LISA (jel@usenix.org) - DONE
• Harris:
  • Figure out state of committee policy, return with recommendation on policy and active/defunct committees
• Kizer:
  • to contact "Dallas Locals" via e-mail - Initial message sent, received a handful of replies so far, will report more next week
• Parter:
  • develop charge for ad-hoc committee on public policy issues
  • to check on Suite @ hotel for LOPSA After Dark.
  • policy meeting BOF at LISA
• Potter:
  • (with Albrecht) to develop revenue/expense projections through EOY and provide report on impact of payment Sam and I would like to push this one more meeting so that we can have a full three quarters worth of data to work with
• Trucks:
  • follow up on renewal notices - current notices now working, but we need to send notices for the memberships that expired since they broke in the spring
  • to check into a "site plan" for realistic LISA web site expectations - no time for volunteers to create anything in time for this years LISA of any note.

Standing Reports

• Executive Director's report
  • September hours report presented

• Treasurer's report (second meeting of the month only)
  • Sam and I have discussed the contract from a financial perspective. I recommend approval of the 2007 agreement, with a request to AH to continue negotiations on the 2008 agreement. These are the financial notes:
    • Clause 5 includes an estimate (from beginning of year) management fee of $91,100. This is an estimate only and is not binding in any way. Clause 5 includes wording that fees for additional years will be agreed upon during the 4th quarter of the prior year. Clause 5 includes the outstanding balances owed for 2005 and 2006 as of the beginning of this year. Payments made year to date, and new accruals, are not reflected in this agreement. The AH Loan Program will be in force for fees accrued during 2007.
    • Clause 7 includes wording of an automatic renewal for 2008 unless 90 days notice is received. We are already past the 90 day window for 2008. For various reasons, we may wish to negotiate a rolling 60 or 90 day cancellation clause in the 2008 agreement.
    • To discuss at next meeting.

• Membership report
  • See member data report for this week's status
  • Trucks to have expire notice changed to include current Board President, Harris, rather previous Board President
  • Suggestion to have something special for member number 1000, which might happen during LISA

• Technical Services report
  • TSC chair getting up to speed
  • member expiration notices complete

• Conference/events activities report
  • None

Roll call again

Palmer, Trucks, Apthorpe, Balling, Kizer, Albrecht, Harris @ 19:19

• Development report (Meeting focus at first meeting of the month)

• Upcoming MtM (last meeting of the month only)

#lopsa IRC channel

Discuss tech-team's proposal for the #lopsa channel's migration to freenode.

• Trucks reviewed work effort
• Palmer would leave it with the TSC
• Parter
  • Question on running bots
  • Propose people TSC gets volunteers for assisting users/members with the transition (nick registration, etc)
  • proposes we have really good documentation on how to use nickserv etc on various clients
  • have freenode room ready with bot and/or people to assist even during RFC period
• Balling thinks proposal is good as is and we should do it
• Harris thinks we should post an RFC on the site and see how the membership that uses the IRC channel(s) prior to enacting transition
  • Comments that private messages can only be done when registered with NickServ
  • priv messages are silently dropped if sender not registered
  • suggestion on having a bot greet unknown users
• Barr agrees with Harris on an RFC period and asked Harris his thoughts on the issue of nick changes
  • also suggests emailing regular IRC users in advance to get their feedback
  • concerned with losing some heavy contributors during change

• Action Item for Trucks: work with TSC Chair to post an RFC on the LOPSA web site, contact regular users for feedback, have someone available in the freenode channel to assist with answering questions regarding Freenode NickServ and other related technical issues, and draw up some documentation on how to configure some popular IRC clients for automatic identification to Freenode NickServ. Also, include mention of private messages only working from registered nicks on Freenode.

AH contract (Harris)

Please refer to the LOPSA AH 2007 Agreement. We've been operating under the terms of this contract since the new year, but we never actually signed it. The same contract will be used for 2008.

• Albrecht: For 2008 budget a review will be done by the Secretary-Treasurer and ED prior to review by the Board.

MOTION by Barr second by Balling: To amend Clause 7 of the 2007 contract with Association Headquarters to change 90 days to 45 days. PASSED

MOTION by Kizer second by Palmer: To approve the contract with Association Headquarters as presented for 2007 with Clause 7 amended to change 90 days to 45 days. PASSED

Board-only Wiki

One or more of the new/incoming board members still don't have access to the board-only wiki

Action item: Harris to add new/incoming board members to wiki

LISA 2007

Discuss LOPSA presence at LISA '07.

• Public Policy BOF not scheduled yet (possibly after the LOPSA BOF)
• Board NOT going to LISA: Palmer and Trucks
• No formal Board meeting during LISA
• LOPSA BOF needs large room
• Barr to occupy LOPSA Suite
• question on LISA funds
  • Albrecht verified funds are in LOPSA budget
• Parter asks about budget for shirts and other materials for LOPSA LISA booth
  • Budget for shirts already available
• 4 nights of suite - tuesday - friday from membership budget line item
• Harris will schedule LOPSA Community meeting for Wednesday at LISA and will do a presentation at that meeting.

New Business

Expire notices

• Barr proposes sending notices to those who never got a notice as though it hasn't expired by changing their expire date (effectively extending their previous membership)
• Parter proposes sending apologies and explaining error
• Both Barr and Parter agree to send notice of error and ask whether to backdate membership or provide extended membership
• Harris points out that any members running for Board would not be eligible if membership not extended
• Balling points out that the Board could move to grant those individuals eligibility
• Barr asks about financial impact of extending renewal date out for these individuals
• Palmer points out that founding or charter members would lose their status if membership is not extended
• Harris says either we grant the extension if individuals renew within some arbitrary timeline and/or send the issue to offline discussion

MOTION by Barr second by Palmer: To extend the memberships of all members whose membership expired during the period the notices were broken. NOT PASSED

• Agreement to take issue to email for further discussion and/or motions.

Vassar can supply new conference

• Vassar does not pay different fee for 800# line, so Board will test that option for next meeting

Adjournment

MOTION by Kizer second by Barr to adjourn. PASSED