PRESENT:
Dennis Cavanaugh, Chair
Larry Porn, Vice Chair
Solomon Johnson, Secretary

Scott Gifford, Board
Georgia Kitchen, Board
Les LeMieux, Board
Robin Rabidue, Marketing

ABSENT:

Scott Arnst, Board
Chad Cramer, Board
Kay Schwartz, Board
Harvey S Sherman, Treasurer
Garry Viele, Board
Charles Wright, Board
Kenny Thomas, Systems

Call to order at 5:34pm. Chair Dennis Cavanaugh presiding.

A number of absences was due to illnesses and inclement weather with thunderstorms and torrential rainfall.

Officers Comments:
Chair:
Dennis Cavanaugh commented that a <93>What's New<94> document would be posted to the Website. Montrose users are getting a <93>No Tokens<94> response, particularly between 5pm and 9pm when they attempt to dial in. GFN connectivity to the Internet is provided by 123.net through GenTech. It was asked that GFN check with 123.net about having a connection in Montrose.

Vice Chair:
Larry Porn has been working with the Portmasters. There was considerable discussion of the possible problems with the Portmasters and ways to resolve problems. The question arose whether GFN could get support through the Portmaster reseller? Scott Gifford questioned whether a <93>loop back<94> test could be developed? When there is a problem, users attempting to connect get a response that their username or password is invalid. Larry has switched the primary and secondary Portmasters to alleviate problems. When users are dropped from RADIUS, they may be locked out of access for up to two hours.

Secretary:
The minutes of both the July and August, 2005 Board meetings have been posted to the Website by Chad Cramer.

Treasurer:
Harvey Sherman could not get to the meeting because of flooding due to the inclement weather. Larry Porn had a report for Harvey indicating revenue to date of $39,150, possibly rising to $40,000 by the end of September. There was one (1) new account so far for the month. On average there have been ten to twelve (10 to 12) accounts created and renewed a month.

Commented was that we have to do something about the Montrose situation of <93>No Tokens.<94> Denny and Larry are to contact Merit on the 23^rd about the services now provided to GFN. A few members have inquired about the Merit 800 service and it was requested that details of the service be obtained during the contact. Specifically, what is the rate for the Merit 800 service and how would billing be handled?

Standing Committees:
Marketing:
Robin Rabidue reported that the Disability Network will be offering Internet classes and will recommend GFN to their students. GFN brochures will be distributed to students and GFN may be called on to help. Robin has taken about fifty (50) GFN brochures for distribution.

Larry Porn will make a presentation at a Lion's Club meeting. Attempts to work with the Hispanic Center may not be successful.

How can GFN extend service to people on the other side of the <93>digital divide?<94> If GFN offers free accounts,what criteria would be used to determine need? GFN would have to decide who gets a free account on a case by case basis. A comment was to use guidelines from the Genesee County Health Plan. Georgia Kitchen knows someone who might be a source of needy people for free accounts. A wood working club may also be a source for finding people who need free Internet accounts.

Denny Cavanaugh informed that GFN is now a part of the County Broadband Consortium along with UM Flint, Mott Community College and Kettering University. Everything is in the very preliminary planning stages but GFN needs to have some free Internet accounts for credibility with the Broadband Authority.

Website:
Chad Cramer could not attend the meeting due to illness. He submitted a report of the more interesting activity for the month:aysoarea8g.org
2. Updated the website in several places to reference the new dial-in numbers page where the old dial-in numbers were referenced. This includes most of the setup pages and a few others.
3. Posted meeting minutes for August.
4. Rotated the apache logs. Error log was getting very large and access log was just shy of 2GB. The logs were last rotated in December 2004. They are not rotated regularly so that it is easier to parse statistics from the logs. They normally don't grow this fast, but because of a few DOS attacks aimed at gfn.org in the recent past, there were a lot of entries.
5. I didn't setup a demo of blogware because of lack of interest. I looked at a couple of free alternatives but they are PHP. One large problem is that we are using mod_perl to run a few things on the website and mod_perl does not work with PHP. There seems to be a decent amount of setup and maintenance required as well so I have not attempted to set up one for testing thus far.

Larry Porn commented on the need to make the Website presentable enough to entice it's use as members' home page. The Board meeting dates were not updated for this year and other items need to be made current. Apparently, no funds have been received for the amazon.com link on the Website. Should the link be removed?

Office Operations:
Larry Porn reported on modem problems. Some members are being disconnected due to bad telephone lines. More volunteers could be used in the office. Jim Goodrich , a MacIntosh user and programmer, may be available as a Board member after Winter in Florida.

Systems:
Kenny Thomas informed that due to the storm and the resulting issues, he would not get out of work in time for the meeting.

Other Items:
Denny Cavanaugh had received a change notice from the Chubb Group for GFN Directors and Officers at policy renewal.

The Free-Net Annual Meeting will be Thursday, October 27, 2005 at 7pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, 316 Water Street. Larry Porn will broadcast the notice to members after consulting with Les LeMieux on procedure. Larry also will issue the call for Board members. Janet Craig, Ron Crang and Robin Rabidue will be asked to serve as the Nominating Committee. The primary need is for candidates with marketing and business operations skills.

Condiments for the meeting will be arranged by Denny Cavanaugh and Larry Porn.

Adjournment: 6:43pm.

Next Meeting:
The Annual Meeting, Thursday, October 27, 2005, at 7:00 pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, 316 Water Street.

Respectfully Submitted,

Solomon T Johnson, Secretary
1. Added virtual host for domain