Board of Directors Meeting Minutes
July 17th, 2001
Attending:
- Ed Dyer
- Tom Fullerton
- Bernie Hart
- Marilyn MacDonald
- John McKay
- Grace Paterson
- Jeff Warnica
- Viola Winstanley
- Andrew D. Wright
Absent With Notice:
- Jamie Carroll
- Mark Rushton
Absent:
Minutes of June 26th Meeting
It was moved by Andrew seconded by Ed that the minutes be accepted as
amended. Passed.
Updates: Provincial Server, CSuite
B. Hart reported he had had email exchanges with Gary Shearman Chair of
Telecommunities Canada who had indicated that TC had applied to Industry
Canada for funds for the Provincial Server. TC in turn had transferred
funds to Chebucto for the purchase of the Server. It appears that David
Murdoch is the present custodian of the equipment but there is no clear
arrangement between David and CCN. Andrew pointed out it is very
difficult to establish a charge for the service because it not clear just
what the server is being used for. Bernie agreed to contact David Murdoch
to determine its present use. The Board will then decide whether a charge
will be levied and what the amount will be. Jeff agreed to identify costs
to date including: the bandwidth being used, the domain name, the physical
space occupied by the equipment and the certificate.
With respect to the CSuite update the Committee of three (Ed Dyer, Andrew
Wright and Chris Watt) which had been formed to review this issue and
prepare recommendations had not met. They agreed to meet prior to the
next meeting and to bring the recommendations forward at that time.
Editorial Collective - Future Role
Michael Cormier was present at the meeting to discuss the status of the
Editorial Collective and the role of the Editor-in-Chief from which he
would be resigning. Michael pointed out that he had experienced problems
because of a lack of participation of IP Editors and because other related
committees were essentially dormant. At this point there is not a Chair
for the IP Committee. Marilyn raised her concern re the lack of any
activity in the essential Internal functions of our organization.
Following a brief discussion of the situation it was agreed that Michael
would meet with Andrew to consider an approach to the role of the IP
Committee following an approach similar to that used for the Policy
Committee. It was also agreed that the Board would invite Chris Majka to
the next meeting.
Inner City Project
Marilyn and Bernie reviewed the activities associated with the project and
recommended that CCN continue working with this group. At this point the
approach being suggested is to have CCN apply for HRDC funding to develop
tools which could be used to support the project which is intended to
assist with education, training, social development and employment in the
inner city area. The kinds of support which Chebucto would be capable of
providing includes:
- providing low cost access to the internet to homes
- assisting with efficient data gathering
- providing the means to work with the information gathered
- providing a vehicle for distance education and training
- providing support and technical assistance in the development and use
of web sites by organizations and small businesses.
It was suggested that this project might provide an opportunity for the
proposed partnership with Knowledge House.
Security of Board List
Because of the sensitive nature of this subject, it was dealt with in
camera.
Neighbourhood Account Agreement
The objective is to have a workable policy in best interest of CCN for
group accounts.
Mailing Lists: A mailing list management service for $35 had been offered
in the past but was frozen after 2 were sold because of liability issue
since there was no accompanying signed user agreement. There are 300-400
mailing lists that were set up automatically as part of the Information
Provider (IP) process, and there is traffic on about 80 of them.
Neighbourhood Accounts: As opposed to IP accounts which were tied to a
person, these are tied to a group and to a position. A mailing list can be
set up with Neighbourhood Account.
Policy Issues: There is no mechanism in place to cancel mailing lists.
For all practical purposes, the user account associated with the IP is
gone. Testing and running the termination script as begun by David Potter
is now in limbo.
Andrew's Proposal: Break IP accounts into 2 categories. First category
is standard and protected. It covers historical and cultural sites that
are considered a record of a particular event or are of particular
interest to readers. Second category are given an expiry date and are
contacted to advise of new renewal policy. There is a policy for expiring
VDN and those who do not respond to expiry notices are turned off.
Contrary view from Michael Cormier, Editor-in-Chief: We have 200 IPs who
came on board with old agreement that did not include renewal fees. The
Board has not said we will automatically charge, but there is agreement in
principle for charging. In order to become sustainable, we have to manage
the change from federal funding to membership funding. Need to do a
selling job to encourage members to go along with new plan. The wording on
invoice will include a clause for those organizations with no paid
employees. It is anticipated that some of the IP editors will lack a
mechanism to ensure payment of an invoice sent to them on behalf of their
group or organization.
The IP database has some status information. Andrew has to look at IP
pages in order to categorize IP. Ed broached the role of volunteers in
helping with the categorization task.
It was moved by Andrew that the following process be followed:
Step 1 -- Andrew compiles list of all IPs with rationale and
recommendation for protected or not protected status
Step 2 -- Board members have 3 weeks to review and provide feedback
Step 3 -- Terms are defined for the invoices, and Andrew issues invoices
to those not protected along with promotional material.
Motion was seconded by Viola and motion carried.
Committee Reports
Finance Committee
Jeff gave an oral report. There have been no unusual bills. There is a
$5000 donation as well as other donations. Fund transfer to GIC is yet to
be done. The signing authorities have been changed and income taxes done.
Process for removing old approved signatures is for those individuals to
go into the Credit Union and ask for their names to be removed.
Technical Committee
Ed gave an oral report. The money spent on UPS system stood us in good
stead during recent lightning storm. Report of no down time and no
hardware damage was greeted with congratulations and job well done!
Dalhousie's equipment in the same machine room suffered hardware damage.
There has been a degradation of some accounts due to interaction between
upgraded modems and phones that resulted in lost carrier. This should be
solved by Compact Modem Manager software. Testing of proxy server to
function as hot standby system is going so well that it may be made
automatically selected. An 8 port switch is on loan, and new switch on
order.
Policy Committee
Andrew described a dispute over ownership of poems that were
posted to a user account. CCN user apparently did not credit poet.
External Committee
Marilyn reported on Cable TV promotion and Resource Guide
promotion. The next Word On the Street is Sept 30 on Pier 20.
Internal Committee
There is no Internal Chair, and therefore no report.
Other Business
John met with IT personnel from Sobey's who are changing their equipment
and a pitch was made for the old equipment. Need to provide a promotional
package. Our status as a charitable foundation means the donation would
be a tax write-off.
Meeting adjourned. Next meeting August 7, 2001.
![[PayPal]](https://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Icons/paypal2.gif){kind=icon}
