Present:
Dennis Cavanaugh, Board Chairman
Larry Porn, Board Vice Chairman
Solomon Johnson, Board Secretary
Beverly Duval, Board Member
Scott Gifford, Board Member
Georgia Kitchen, Board Member
Charles Wright, Board Member
Janet Craig, Office Manager
Kenny Thomas, Systems Manager

Also Present:
Gareth Cumper
Naomi Campbell
Ron Campbell
Thomas Newvine
Jerry Preston
Pat Wright

Call to order 7:00pm. Board Chairman Dennis Cavanaugh presiding.

Chair Report, Dennis Cavanaugh:
Challenges:
Montrose service still a problem
Losing members to Broad-band
Increasing costs
Insurance
Accounting Audit
Technology
V90 and DSL upgrades would be costly with no guarantee of new members

Opportunities:
Genesee Wireless could gain customers and reduce costs
Better penetration of markets where we have phone lines available, but few members
Lapeer and Imlay City are current growth areas
Stress people-to-people connection for our community-based mission.

Finances:
Increasing Costs
Insurance
Accounting
Office
Diminished Revenues
Membership churning
Some are leaving and returning after higher cost services from other providers

Technology:
Genesee Wireless could reduce our need to have Merit modems.
Php capability is being added to Web Pages
We can gain members left behind by leading edge technology. iFlint closure is one example.
People with limited means still need access to information.

Summary:
If nothing changes we will run out of money in 60 months.
If we can expand our membership this time can be extended.
We have to find a way to provide low- cost service for Montrose.
We need to increase membership and sense of belonging to an Internet community.

Treasurer's Report:
The treasurer position is currently vacant. Those duties are currently split between Chair Dennis Cavanaugh and Vice Chair Larry Porn.

Monthly fixed expenses include office space rent and Internet services at OTC and 123.com, Merit ISP service fees, office telephone services and stipends for system consultants. These total about $6200 monthly. Other expenses include Accountant fees and Business Owners insurance premiums.

An IRS penalty was incurred when a filing extension request was not executed for Form 990. GFN expects to be reimbursed by the auditing firm error. Commented during the meeting was that the auditing firm should pay IRS and no funds should come from GFN resources.

Vice Chair Report, Larry Porn:

Board Terms 2006 Election

2006 Election Nominations:

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 - Sol Johnson

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

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:
Dennis Cavanaugh Three YearSol Johnson Three Year
Beverly Duval Three Year
Debra A. Miller 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.

ByLaws:
Need to modify Board of Directors term limits to allow as many terms as willing to serve. Ten (10) members of the Board are required to change the bylaws. GFN does not have ten Board members. During discussion it was suggested that the bylaws should be interpreted to allow continued service after a year off. The limitation is on more than three (3) "consecutive" three year terms.

Annual Office Report:

Personnel

Current Office Staff:
Denny Cavanaugh
Ron Crang
Beverly Duval In Training
Janet George Office Mgr.
Sol Johnson Secretary / Orgs
Larry Porn Chairman
Robin Rabidue
Charles Wright

Tech Volunteers:
Richard Crang
Matt Lewicki
Jim Thomason

We Are Always in Need of Additional Volunteers.


2006 Goals:
Database Input Interface Features:
Staff can view users by last name.
Staff can update and renew accounts.
Staff can re-instate accounts.

Members have 100 Megabytes of mail space.
Size limit of a single message increased to 5 Megebytes.
Operating 69 active modems in GFN owned Portmaster array.

No MAC support at this time.
No setup disk at this time. UM example not used. It disrupts computers.

Technical Committee Report:
Discussion of php features for Web pages. Technicians need to solve some authentication problems before implementing. Some discussion on how Spam Assassin works.

Discussion on sending letters to college administrators of marketing classes in attempt to get students needing community service credits to do tutorials on Web page development. Provide instruction on reducing the size of pictures before sending in a message.

Website Committee Report, Chad Cramer:
Board member Charles Wright reported from message sent by Chad Cramer that the Web server has been upgraded to Apache version 2.2.2 with php5 and that the database server has been upgraded to MySql 5.0.24. There were 463 Community Links on the Web server.

System, Kenny Thomas:
Open Web Mail implemented. Mail space quota increased to 100MB and single message size limit increased to 5MB. Portmaster automated reset procedure scheduled to run on Tuesdays and Fridays and when interrupt occurs.

Miscellaneous:
Another server and Portmaster may be donated to GFN by OTC after November 1^st 2006. GFN will accept former iFlint Business Accounts as Organization Accounts should application be submitted to GFN.

On October 31^st Wireless Genesee is expected to meet to choose a service provider. Jerry Preston is not privy to details but connection speeds are expected to be up to three times that of dial-up connection speed.

Member Ron Campbell inquired about the number of active GFN members. Response was about 1000. A precise count is not available.

Meeting adjourned at 8:38pm.

Next Regular Board Meeting:
Thursday, December 14, 2006, 5:15pm at the Flint Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, 316 Water Street.

Respectfully submitted,

Solomon T Johnson, Secretary