Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
316 Water Street
Flint MI 48503

Present:
Dennis Cavanaugh, Board Chairman
Larry Porn, Board Vice Chairman
Solomon Johnson, Board Secretary
Chad Cramer, Board Member
Scott Gifford, Board Member
Georgia Kitchen, Board Member
Les LeMieux, Board Member
Charles Wright, Board Member

Also Present:
Naomi Campbell
Ron Campbell
Jerry Preston
Joan K Smith
Wesley Smith
Pat Wright

Call to order 7:20pm. Board Chairman Dennis Cavanaugh presiding.

Reports:

Chair Report:

Issues this Year:
Cost of Operation.
Move to GenTech.
Ownership of Modems.
Declining Membership.
Montrose Dial-Up Problems.
ELGA Credit Union for Banking.

Issues for Next Year:
Dedicated lines for Montrose Members.
Reduction of failures to connect.
5% increase in new members.
Increase community awareness of GFN.

Secretary's Report:
Recorded the proceedings of the 2004 Annual Meeting and the intervening nine (9) monthly Board meetings.
Thanks to GFN Webmaster Chad Cramer, all minutes are posted on the GFN Website.

Technical Committee Report:
Scott Gifford reported.
Technical Committee Members:
Chad Cramer
Scott Gifford
Les LeMieux
Kenny Thomas.

New Modem Pool
Reduction in peak Merit modem usage from 95 to 32.
Reduction in operating cost.
New modem pool at the same location as our servers (improved reliability.)

Email
25% Increase in average message size.
10% Decrease in email volume.
70% of incoming email transactions are rejected as positive spam.

Future Plans
New web mail software (Open WebMail.)
Further decrease in Merit modem pool.
Continued improvement of spam filtering.
Continued automation of routine tasks.

Website Committee:
Chad Cramer reported.

Overview
55 hosted non-profit and individual web sites – this is the same as in 2004.
9 domains hosted – this is up from 8 in 2004.
499 links under “community Resources” - this is down from 540 last year.
Few new links added.
Many links removed automatically because they are no longer valid.

Unique Visitors by Month
Conclusion
Page views, unique visitors and visits down in 2005.
Fewer people viewing few pages fewer times.
Drop off started after new site design in October, 2004.
Bytes served down significantly,
Less page views,
Fewer images served?

Most visited pages the same as 2004 - Community Resources, Help and Contact pages.
Page views for these pages are actually higher – Less 'clicks' to get to these pages in the new design since they are
now found in left hand nav. They were in bottom nav in the old design or could be found by “drilling down” into the site.

Both top entry and exit page is “Community Resources.”
Suggests that users come just for this info and then leave.
Typical visitor stays 2-3 minutes, same as 2004. However, typical visitor looked at 17 files in the past 12 months
compared with only 4 pages in 2004.
Consistently 17 after new design and 4 in old design for 12 months each may be counting image and style sheets?

Recommendations for 2006
Find more relevant content for Front Page.
Replace Amazon link since we are receiving little or nothing through it.
Something more relevant than ABC12/Journal box?

New services for Web Site.
Blogs?
Control Panel?
Dynamic Web Pages?

Vice Chair Report, Larry Porn:

Board Terms 2005 Election
Name                                                                  Expiration Date                  Eligibility

Garry Viele                                                              12/31/05                        Not eligible
Kay Schwartz                                                          12/31/05                        Not eligible

                                                                          Up for Election
Larry Porn                                                               12/31/05                        Three Year Term
Scott Grifford                                                           12/31/05                        Three Year Term
Scott Arnst                                                              12/31/05                        Two Three Year Terms
Opening                                                                  12/31/08                         Two Three Year Terms
Opening                                                                  12/31/08                         Two Three Year Terms

Sol Johnson                                                            12/31/06                         Three Year Term
Dennis Cavanaugh                                                  12/31/06                         Three Year Term
Opening                                                                  12/31/06                         one plus two Three Year Terms
Opening                                                                  12/31/06                         one plus two Three Year Terms

Opening                                                                  12/31/06                        one plus two Three Year Terms

Chad Cramer                                                            12/31/07                         Two Years Remain
Georgia Kitchen                                                        12/31/07                         Two Years Remain
Harvey Sherman                                                       12/31/07                         Two Years Remain + 3 year Term
Charles Wright                                                          12/31/07                         Two Years Remain + 3 year Term
Opening                                                                   12/31/07                        Two plus two Three Year Terms

Nominating Committee

The Chair of the Board shall appoint a Nominating Committee composed of five members including the Vice Chair, who shall serve as chair of the Committee, and only one other director. The Nominating Committee shall recommend at least one candidate for each vacant seat on the Board of Directors at the Annual Meeting in October. The Nominating Committee must place on the ballot any nominee submitted and supported by 25 or more members providing the proposal is received at least 24 hours prior to the annual meeting.

Members:
Board Vice Chairman -                    Larry Porn
Second Board Member -                 Les LeMieux

Three Non-Board Members - 
                                                       Janet Craig
                                                        Robin Rabidue
                                                        Ron Grang

The term of a director shall be three years except that the first Board of Directors elected under these bylaws shall consist of five (5) serving for one (1) year, five (5) serving for two (2) years and five (5) serving for three (3) years. Thereafter, each newly elected director shall serve for three years unless elected to a vacancy, in which case the term of office shall be for the unexpired term. No director shall serve more than two consecutive three year terms.

Nominations Received:
                                                        Scott Gifford     Three Year
                                                        Larry Porn         Three Year

Vacancies

Vacancies on the Board of Directors shall be filled by appointment by the Board of Directors maintaining the broad representation of the Genesee County area community. Should the Board appoint a director to fill a vacancy with a term of one (1) year or more, the appointed director shall serve only until the next Annual Meeting at which time a director shall be elected to fill the unexpired term.

Annual Office Report:
Current Office Staff
    Denny Cavanaugh
    Ron Crang
    Janet George Office Mgr.
    Sol Johnson Secretary / Orgs
    Larry Porn Chairman
    Robin Rabidue
    (Marilyn Sage) Retired - Renewal Letters

We have automated the process and will continue to do so to replace Marilyn.

We Are Always in Need of Additional Office Volunteers.

2005 Achievements:
Added Modems at the Office Site
    Was Completed in Mid 2005
    Required Number Changes
    Can Monitor Members Log-in
    Trouble Shooting Tool

Added Two Additional Computers
    To help Trouble Shoot Systems
    Support more than One Volunteer

Small Office Network
    Support, Scanning, Printing, Etc.
    Also supports Wireless

Office Located at GenTech
5225 Exchange Drive
Flint, MI 48507- 2395
810-720-2880

2006 Goals:
Complete Database Input Interface
Staff to Enter Data as Received
        Reduces Steps Required
        Reduces Error
Staff to Change Account Type
Staff to Change Username

Add Volunteers (At least Two)
        To Help Trouble Shoot Systems
        To Process Paperwork

Better Utilize Tech Support Staff
        Now have Three Technicians
        Plus Two Support Businesses

Add Additional MAC Support

    Provide a Setup Disk


The Treasurer's Report was Not Available.

A complimentary comment was made by Joan K Smith on help from the office staff.

Several questions were asked about handling e-mail. Several e-mail manager programs were mentioned and the Web mail product on the GFN Web site. It was advised that members have three products installed: a firewall, anti-spyware and anti-virus. Several other comments made were with respect to the new dial-in numbers and problems logging on after the number change was made.

Meeting adjourned at 8:05pm.

Next Meeting:
Thursday, December 22, 2005, 5:15pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Respectfully submitted,

Solomon T Johnson, Secretary