Minutes of Genesee Free-Net Board of Directors Meeting
January 22, 2004

Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
Flint, MI

PRESENT

Garry Viele, Board, Chairman
Vahid Lotfi, Vice 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

Dennis Cavanaugh, Board
Lynnette Griffen, Board

Also present:
Kenny Thomas, Staff

Absent:  

Call to order 5:15 pm. Meeting conducted by G. Viele.  

OFFICER COMMENTS:

Election Results:  78 ballots were returned.  One abstained; four abstained for one candidate or the other and the remainder voted for both Sol and Denny as Directors.  Two vacancies remain.

V. Lotfi made a motion to nominate L. LeMieux as an Honorary Director.  J. Prestion supported.  The motion passed unanimously.

Election of Officers: 

Nomination for Chairman.  J. Preston nominated V. Lotfi.  J. Preston directed the secretary to cast a unanimous vote for Vahid Lotfi.

Nomination for Vice Chairman.  D. Cavanaugh nominated L. Porn.  The secretary was directed to cast a unanimous vote for him.

Nomination for Secretary.  S. Johnson nominated P. Peterson.  The secretary was directed to cast a unanimous vote for her.

Nomination for Treasurer.  V. Lotfi nominated K. Schwartz.  The secretary was directed to cast a unanimous vote for her.

Multiyear Charter payment discussion:  L. Porn reported that a Charter member wished to pay $100.00 for four years use of a custom account.  L. Porn made a motion to accept multiyear payments by a Charter member; other members would be limited to no more than two year payments.  The payments would be non-refundable.  J. Preston supported.   

V. Lotfi made a motion to amend the motion so that a Charter member could pre-pay four years, and that the board would explore multi-year contracts for regular members as a marketing tool.  L. Porn supported.  The amendment passed unanimously.  

K. Schwartz made a motion to hire DuPuis and Ryden to prepare the Genesee Free-Net's tax forms and a financial review of the year at a cost of $1000.00.  J. Preston supported.  The motion passed unanimously.

Officer Comments:

Chairman:  We have a new representative at Merit.  

L. Porn nominated L. LeMieux to fill a Board of Directors vacancy.  K. Schwartz supported.  The motion passed unanimously. 

Vice Chair:   V. Lotfi reported the election results.  He added a promotion for classes from the Office of Extended Learning (OEL) at the University of Michigan - Flint to the "What's New" section of the web site.

Secretary:  The minutes are on the web site.

Treasurer:  K. Schwartz distributed the year-end report.  When comparing 2002 to 2003, there was a loss of $4473.00.  There was more revenue, but, also, more expenses.  The GFN's end of year equity is $82,730.  She reported it is time to renew business insurance for the two sites (Pasadena Ave. and the Resource Center) and the Directors and Officers Liability insurance for about $1900.00.  J. Preston suggested that we check into raising the deductible to lower the rate.  Kay will look into it.

Technical Committee:

Kenny Thomas reported that Wayne Schneider has taken a job in Minnesota.  C. Cramer made a motion to honor him with a resolution plaque from the GFN in appreciation for all he has done for the organization.  S. Gifford supported the motion.  It was passed unanimously.  Chad will develop the wording and buy the plaque.  He will bring it to the next meeting.  He asked that Board members e-mail him with suggestions for the wording.

There was an upswing in utilization and the no-tokens but on the average it is ok.  It is part of a predictable pattern at this time of year.  The system is stable although spam continues to skyrocket.  Seventy-five percent of incoming e-mail is not even delivered.  Twenty percent of deliverable mail is spam.  

The largest outages during the past month were due to telephone company problems.

Chad and Kenny are making progress on items on their to do list.  Acme Mail is becoming the main mail system.  A question was asked about the GFN responsibility if the Recording Industry Association ask for e-mail identities.  They cannot hold the ISP liable.

Web Site Committee:  

Chad Cramer reported that the Tucows mirror shut itself off because it exceeded its allotted 40 gb.  He proposed getting rid of it and then choosing which programs from Tucows we want listed on the GFN site for our users.  This is content syndication.  C. Cramer made a motion to disable the Tucows mirror.  L. Porn supported.  The motion passed unanimously.  Chad has plans to "templatize" the web site to make it easier to update.   Also, to automate links submission and approval.

Discussion of pointing to the Naples, Florida  Freenet instructional pages.  Les will talk to that organization.  If you have questions about this, e-mail Les.

Office Operations

Larry Porn reported that all financial information is in the database.  There is a need to meet and discuss staff privileges.  The office is doing well.  MacIntosh and more technical questions are difficult for the staff to answer.  An ad will be placed in Volunteer Here! for someone who can help and the membership will be polled for expertise.

Marketing Committee:

A report of a committee meeting with Karl Olmsted of Olmsted and Associates held on January 15.  There are a list of options to consider: re-vamping the brochure, doing psa's, placing articles in school newsletters and the CPSA Courier, television interviews, and rewarding members who get others to join.  It was proposed that the same theme and colors used for the brochure be used on the web site.  The committee will decide if other marketing firms need to be contacted after they see Olmsted's proposal.

Next Meeting:  February 26, 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