Minutes of Genesee Free-Net Board of Directors
Meeting
September 23, 2004
Flint Area Convention and Visitors
Bureau
316 Water Street
PRESENT:
Vahid Lotfi, Chair
Larry Porn,
Vice Chair
Solomon Johnson, Secretary
Dennis Cavanaugh, Board
Chad
Cramer, Board
Scott Gifford, Board
Georgia Kitchen, Board
Les LeMieux,
Board
Garry Viele, Board
Robin Rabidue, Marketing Co-Chair
Call to
order at 5:23pm. V. Lotfi presiding.
Officers' Reports:
Chair – V. Lotfi:
Explained why some Board
members were absent. H. Sherman has a schedule conflict until January, 2005. V.
Lotfi wondered if another meeting time would better mesh with members schedules.
Would like to schedule a meeting with Marketing & Outreach to discuss member
initiatives.
Vice Chair – L.
Porn:
Had hoped to meet with J. Preston to work out details of the GenTech
agreement for the office move. Expects rent fee to be $2400 a year for a two
cubicle size space. Not sure if file cabinets and a copier would be available
for GFN use. Likely the GenTech conference room would be available for the
monthly GFN office staff meetings. GFN mail can be received at GenTech. Office
staff will have access to the GFN servers but GenTech building security and
entry issues need to be clarified. Need to consult with J. Preston on the
telephone system.
Secretary – S. Johnson:
No report.
Treasurer
– K. Schwartz:
No report.
Committees' Reports:
Marketing &
Outreach – D. Cavanaugh:
Provided a handout of September, 2004 activity. No
meetings. One quick discussion with Co-Chair R. Rabidue about future directions.
Need a presentation for the Disability Network about computers. G. Kitchen gave
John Burke as contact person at Disability Network.
Possible presentation
topics:
●What is the Internet?
●What
is ISP?
●What are browsers?
●What is
Email?
● Free web based
● ISP
provided Email
● Mail Handlers
●
Outlook Express
● Incredimail
●
Mozilla (or other browser embedded mail
servers)
Committee Tasks
1. Schedule Marketing meeting.
2. Develop
Presentation about Internet.
3. Develop “Grab and Go” Informational Materials
for manning booths at local events. G. Kitchen suggested a “to do” list for
volunteers staffing booths.
4. Contact Disability Network for
presentations.
5. Contact schools for presentations.
6. Contact Senior
Centers for presentations.
7. Contact channel 17 about access channel program
by GFN for the public. G. Kitchen suggested arranging an interview by Karen
Gatlin.
8. Other suggestions (6 more arose during discussion including
developing a press kit. Preparing a news release to coincide with launch of the
new GFN Web site. V. Lotfi provided press contacts. Mentioned a
10th anniversary celebration for the FreeNet.
Develop audio CD for radio stations.)
Web Site Committee – C.
Cramer:
Majority of activity has been with the new Web site. Work completed
so far is on the GFN server at www.gfn.org/gfn-new. Currently editing old
content which will take a few more weeks to complete. Also reformatting
information after weeding out a lot obsolete material. C. Cramer has written two
cgi-bin programs for uploading content to a web page. V.
Lotfi suggested going live with minimum adequate content to attract new
members.
Office Operations – L. Porn:
Most effort has been toward
developing an agreement with GenTech for office space in
their complex.
Systems Administration/Technical Committee – K.
Thomas:
C. Cramer reported for K. Thomas. The reverse DNS (rDNS) problem is
supposed to be fixed. K. Thomas will install a password reset option on the
server so that L. Porn may reset member passwords. In the interim, if K. Thomas
fails to respond to requests for member password reset or username change send
requests to C. Cramer.
Members and office staff have experienced
intermittent loss of connection with the mail server. There have been times when
the office computer could not link to the database on the server. A few members
still have problems sending mail through AcmeMail. S. Gifford will send to volunteer@gfn.org the type of information he
needs to diagnose the AcmeMail problems.
Matters Arising:
Annual
meeting is approaching. In the past, J. Preston has made arrangement to hold the
annual meeting at the International Institute. October 28th was
mentioned as a annual meeting date consistent with past annual meeting times. L.
LeMieux will search for the ballot template to solicit member nominations to the
board. V. Lotfi will search for the list of incumbent board members eligible for
re-election to the board.
The office received notification of non renewal of FreeNet insurance policy which expires 18
November, 2004. D. Cavanaugh will check with Brown&Brown agency on insurance
renewal.
Adjournment: 6:29pm.
Respectfully
Submitted,
Solomon T Johnson,
Secretary
