Minutes of Genesee Free-Net Board of Directors Meeting
December 9, 2004
UM Graduate Admissions Conference Room

PRESENT:
Vahid Lotfi, Chair
Larry Porn, Vice Chair
Solomon Johnson, Secretary

Chad Cramer, Board
Scott Gifford, Board
Georgia Kitchen, Board
Harvey Sherman, Board
Robin Rabidue, Marketing Co-Chair

Call to order at 5:28pm. V. Lotfi, outgoing Board chair, presiding.

Officers' Reports:

Chair ~V V. Lotfi:
Presented information on how GFN could become an Amazon Associate. Discussion on the best method of joining the program and revenue that would accrue to the Free-Net. Apparently 5% to 8% of sales generated through a link on the Free-Net Web would be returned.

Scott Gifford moved that GFN join Amazon Associates after investigating the best type sign up method. Harvey Sherman supported the motion. The motion was modified to support GFN signing up as an Amazon Associate for a trial period while consulting with Naples Free-Net on their experience with the program and continue to look for a better match for non-profits. Supported by Harvey Sherman. Motion passed.

It was suggested that the effort be included in the planned informational document to GFN membership.

Vice Chair ~V L. Porn:
Reported on additional issues related to the GenTech move. GenTech security measures have changed. Four passes have been issued by GenTech for the GFN office. GenTech has a photograph of all who have a pass.

GFN has been requested to get rack mounts for its equipment. The cost is estimated at $500.

Presented for Board consideration the possibility of using GenTech PRI lines for GFN dial-in service. GFN would be charged for the bandwidth it uses. GFN would still need Merit service for the out areas it serves. Montrose service may be a problem requiring the purchase of tokens from Merit. Details of a modified dial-in service needs to be formulated before the current Merit contract ends in March.

Robin Rabidue commented on e-mail problems experienced today, December 9, by some members.

J. Preston called V. Lotfi to apologize for the Convention Bureau meeting room being locked when GFN arrived and offered a key for future access.

Scott Gifford moved that System Administration investigate putting all or some of GFN dial-in service through GenTech and report findings to the Board in January. Harvey Sherman supported. Motion passed.

J. Preston is working to resolve billing and connection problems with the office telephone.

L. Porn reported on Board election results. L. Griffin opted out of a three year term. The Board is now short five directors. Needed is strategy for getting Board directors. S. Gifford suggested current directors solicit new directors. H. Sherman expressed the need to involve as many business types as possible in the makeup of the Board.

Secretary ~V S. Johnson:
No report.

Treasurer ~V K. Schwartz:
No report.

L. Porn has a full year of database financial data for November 30, 2003 to November 30, 2004. The income for the year was $65,100. The data can be skewed some because of the nature of our members payment habits.

There was mention of possibly switching the checking account from Citizens to ELGA Credit Union and a comment that Harvey Sherman may be a good candidate for next treasurer. He has been labeled "mister spreadsheet" at work.

Committees' Reports:

Marketing & Outreach ~V R. Rabidue:
Arrangement of presentation at the Disability Network is problematic.

The GFN brochures are being updated for address and telephone with stick-on labels.

L. Porn moved that the member referral program be extended through 2005. Support by Scott Gifford. Motion carried. Remains to be resolved is when to apply the credit to member account renewal.

An e-mail message to GFN membership is planned to inform of recent occurrences within the Free-Net.

Web Site Committee ~V C. Cramer:
C. Cramer reported a busy time applying cosmetics to the Web page. The resident ht://Dig search engine has been upgraded to version 3.16. A template has been updated to rotate the WJRT ABC12 and Flint Journal logos. Google will now search both the World Wide Web and the GFN Web.

With respect to the Denial of Service attack, Mod Perl was upgraded to 1.1.33 and used to redirect requests to GFN for a nonexistent image back to the requesting site. The action appeared to alleviate the attack. A Washington Post reporter talked to Chad questioning how did GFN happen to become an attack target? The reporter's understanding was that sites previously infected with a variant of the bagle32 worm were being used to launch attacks. Question arose about GFN hunt group statistics available on the Merit Web. Harvey Sherman will investigate getting the Merit hunt group statistics.

Office Operations ~V L. Porn:
V. Lotfi and D. Cavanaugh were thanked for the two computers they contributed for office use.

The renewal letter template has changed and now generates letters for all the Individual Accounts except the Basic Account. The manual work should be greatly reduced for Marilyn Sage in processing renewal statements. Otherwise, L. Porn reported the office is in pretty good shape.

Systems Administration/Technical Committee ~V K. Thomas:
Relayed to the Board was message from K. Thomas about the power outage on the west side of Flint that affected FALCON and loss of DNS for GFN. DNS time out that had been set short was reset to five days. Expressed need to change the primary DNS dotted quad for GFN.

S. Gifford has fixed The password letter template used by the account generation utility.

There was a question of whether the date recorded in the database for member's last received/sent e-mail was correct. Concern will be relayed to K. Thomas.

Adjournment: 6:39pm.

Next Meeting:

January 13, 2005 at 5:15 pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau on Water Street.

Respectfully Submitted,

Solomon T Johnson, Secretary