Minutes of Genesee Free-Net Board of Directors Meeting
December 4, 2003.

Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
Flint, MI

PRESENT

Garry Viele, Board, Chairman
Pat Peterson, Board Secretary

Kay Schwartz, Board Treasurer
Jerry Preston, Board
Les LeMieux, Board
Scott Gifford, Board
Sol Johnson, Board

Georgia Kitchen, Board
Chad Cramer, Board
Larry Porn, Board

Robin Rabideax, Board

Also present:
Kenny Thomas, Staff

Absent: Lynnette Griffen, Marilyn Sage, Vahid Lotfi, Dennis Cavanaugh

Call to order 7:00 pm. Meeting conducted by G. Viele.  

OFFICER COMMENTS:

Chair:  Ballot for board members has not been sent out.  Everyone will remain in old positions until further information is available.

Vice Chair:  Absent

Treasurer:  Twenty-five modems are on a March to March year billing from Merit and seventy-five are currently on a July to March billing.  In March, all will be on March to March cycle.  The cost will be $41,800.  The Free-Net appears a bit below a break even point at the eleven month point.  We need about twenty new members per month to break even and we are not at that level.

Secretary:  The minutes are on the web site.

Marketing Committee:

A lengthy discussion of marketing took place.  Many ideas were suggested.  Kay Schwartz made a motion to budget up to $2500 of the 2004 budget for a public relations professional.  Scott Gifford supported.  The motion passed unanimously.  Robin Rabideax will co-chair a committee with Lynette Griffin if she agrees. 

Technical Committee:

Kenny Thomas reported that the system is stable.  The no-token rate is decent.  We are using all modems on some days, and a peak day was 120 modems.  GFEC modems are used when the need for modems goes over 100.  Several software packages were upgraded and a new e-mail filter program was installed.  A time stamp problem was identified and solved.   

Kenny will keep the office staff informed of updates and upgrades via a table in the database.

Chad suggested that the Systems Administration and Technical Committees be merged into one committee.  It was agreed to and Kenny Thomas will chair that committee.

Web Site Committee:  

Chad Cramer reported that there is no link to the newsletter.  He will rename the "What's New" button to "Newsletter."  He continues to group links.  He is finding out of date information in the site and needs to know what to replace it with.  Chad and Larry Porn will work on this. 

Office Operations

Larry Porn reported financial information is now available in the database and a standard account can be generated.  Organizational accounts can be changed.  Accounts with over e-mail status can be enabled by staff.  There is a need to define how the telephone should work for the office.

Next Meeting:  January 22, 2004 at 5:15 pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau in its new location on Water St. 

Respectfully submitted,

Pat Peterson, Secretary