Minutes of Genesee Free-Net Board of Directors Meeting
July 27, 2006
Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau
316 Water Street
PRESENT:
Dennis Cavanaugh, Chair
Larry Porn, Vice Chair
Solomon Johnson, Secretary
Scott Gifford, Board
Georgia Kitchen, Board
Charles Wright, Board
Chad Cramer, Website
Kenny Thomas, Systems
ABSENT:
Les LeMieux, Board
Call to order at 5:16pm. Vice Chair Larry Porn presiding.
Finances.
Larry Porn presented work he had done to ascertain an estimate of GFN's yearly expenses. Monthly expenses include $2168 for OTC services, $1630 for contract personnel, $683.33 for Merit support services and $100 for office postage expenses. Additional estimated expense is $180 per year ($15 monthly) for voice telephone service for the office. Total yearly operations expense is estimated to be about $55,000.
With respect to GFN's ELGA checking and savings accounts, about $4700 was in checking and $65,000 in savings. The last deposit to checking was $1845 and month of June deposits exceeded expenditures. However, long term, cash flow through the account is negative and $3000 has been shifted from savings to improve money float for bills being paid.
GFN needs both new members and volunteers. Membership loss is about six (6) to ten (10) a month.
The annual billing from Merit has been received. The amount is $7200 for the coming year for 15 modem lines at rate of $40 per month per line. Billed also is Merit annual membership fee of $1000 for total billing of $8200.
Discussions.
Portmaster usage appears never to exceed 35 to 36 lines at a time for the 69 Portmaster modems available through the three PRI lines to the modems. After the Board meeting Larry and Kenny will go to the OTC site and attempt to reset Portmaster #1.
Chad Cramer has been working on the database and the Web site. The Apache server software with php support is compiled and ready to go. Time the last couple of weeks has been spent configuring version 5 of MySql to work with the Access database setup for GFN. With respect to a request from former Board member Ann Chow for an interactive Website, nothing has been done yet. It appears there has been a change in her institutional affiliation.
Email to Members increasingly is filling their mail space allocation. Scott Gifford suggested that GFN acquire 750 gigabyte hard drives and set individual mail space to 100 megabytes. Chad Cramer will check the servers for available disk space to see if 100 megabytes of mail space per member can be accommodated currently.
Larry Porn reported on a discovery with Open Webmail. If the Folders Button is clicked, Open Webmail will display all the mail folders created and the space in use for each folder and the total space in use by all mail folders. It was suggested that the default hold period for Trash in Open Webmail be set to zero and that a tutorial be placed on the GFN Web about Open Webmail Trash folder usage. Kenny Thomas commented that some 200 options are available in the Open Webmail configuration file and that only a few have been implemented for GFN. Denny Cavanaugh asked if the Calendar could be turned on?
Denny Cavanaugh commented on new charges for the office voice mail. The Chamber of Commerce has opted out of the Convention Bureau voice mail system and distribution of costs among remaining participates results in a new charge to GFN of $8.50 per month. Chad Cramer commented that Skype has a VoIP system in beta testing and that GFN might investigate trying that service to keep telephone cost low.
Actions.
Denny Cavanaugh reported that he had purchased a 21 inch monitor for the office computer. The display on the old monitor was not stable. Seems a new video card is needed to improve performance of the new monitor.
Scott Gifford moved and Charles Wright supported that mail space for members be increased to 100 megabytes and that impact on the system be investigated. The motion carried.
Charles Wright moved and Denny Cavanaugh supported that the physical size of a single email message be increased to 5 megabytes. After question arose as to how long would a member have to wait to download or send a 5 megabyte size message, the motion was amended to allowing 5 megabyte physical size messages for a trial period. The amended motion carried.
Denny Cavanaugh moved and Solomon Johnson supported that the Calendar feature be turned on in Open Webmail. The motion carried. Kenny Thomas activated the Calendar feature in Open Webmail remotely during the Board meeting.
Denny Cavanaugh moved and Charles Wright supported paying the Merit billing for modem services and membership fee for the coming year. The motion carried.
Merit /OTC Switching Tree Problem.
Member Frank LeMieux suggest GFN look into getting a Cisco router to resolve the ~Sspanning tree~T problem affecting the Portmaster modems. He is looking for the name of the person he knows who may have access to outdated inventory that may be contributed to a non profit entity such as GFN.
Family Accounts.
The Board considered the question of implementing family accounts to enhance GFN member services. Appears the major problem is how to manage multiple email addresses for a single account. Could the family account be setup similar to the way some Organization Accounts now operate.... have one master account with several auxiliary accounts? Would only one account be able to dial in at a time? Scott Gifford was asked to investigate the technical aspects of setting up family accounts and work with the System Committee in drafting a proposal for the next Board meeting.
System Matters.
Chad Cramer will be looking into providing content management software on the GFN Web that members may use to create and maintain personal Websites.
Larry Porn and Georgia Kitchen speculated on equipment and software Susan Rose, a visually impaired member, may need to access newspaper offerings over the Internet. Georgia will contact Susan to determine specifically what she needs.
Kenny Thomas reported on a problem with the mail server that occurred Tuesday, July 25th. Apparently, someone tried to exploit a presumed weakness of the system causing the mail filter to go into an endless loop, shutting down the mail server. The only way of getting the system back in sync was to reboot. Also, Kenny is looking into configuring Open Webmail to allow users to manage spam. Open Webmail may eventually use its Spam Folder to train Spam Assassin, the spam filtering software on the GFN server.
Montrose access through the Merit lines is still a problem. Frequently, all lines are busy when members attempt to dial in.
Adjournment: 6:42pm.
Next Regular Meeting:
Thursday, August 24, 2006, at 5:15pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Respectfully Submitted,
Solomon T Johnson, Secretary
