Agenda
Board Meeting
October 22, 2000

1. Minutes of Last Meeting - Approval

 

If there is no objection to the minutes as posted, they will be considered ratified as correct.

 

2. Review Committee for Server Software - Vote or NOT

Short report from Jurian on current status and future of the Server Committee, and its operation in Ron's absence. Vote or NOT on the proposition that Jurian be made the new Chairman of that Committee in Ron's absence.

3. Approving Router and T1 Line - Vote or NOT

 

Report from Nancy, who says that if the funding comes through in November, as it has been hinted it might, then she'd like to take advantage of her husband's planned visit for 2 weeks over Thanksgiving to get the router and connection setup! He could even purchase and ship or bring a router from Silicon Valley, where the shopping is darn cheap and he as shopper a proven entity (the servers were budgeted at $4,000, but came in at about $2,500). While we still don't know whether the funding will be made available or not to the Inc., it's a good idea to decide on this issue beforehand, just in case we do get the money in time.

 

4. Compensation for Brochure Efforts - Vote or NOT

 

Vote or NOT to grant Shirley $1,000 for her Herculean efforts of creating a summary of all the web topics for the brochure. This requires combing through everything and picking the most important, which takes a great deal of time. In the Old Budget (April, '00) that was expected to take several people, each in their area of expertise, and in reality Helena's doing it all on her own. I know this has taken hundreds of hours of her time, and like any other extraordinary volunteer contribution to the Corporation, this effort also should be compensated.

 

5. Approving Watching Room for Guests - Vote or NOT

 

There was much discussion after the previous meeting about the need to make the Board Meetings as public and accessible as possible on one hand, and to ensure order and lack of disruption on the other. It appears that we've agreed on doing the Watching Room idea that was proposed and set up by Jurian. Since this is a pretty innovative way of conducting meetings, we should vote on making it an official Policy of the Corporation, in the event that we agree at the meeting that it's a good deal.

6. Absent Staff - Discussion

 

Just a short discussion. I don't think a vote or a Bylaw change will be necessary, as Section 6 of Article 4 in the Bylaws, titled "Vacancies", pretty much covers the whole thing. However, the issue of what to do in the event of a continuous absence of an important position holder who is not an Officer, such as General Project Manager - should be at least discussed.

 

7. 800 Number Change - Vote or NOT

 

Nancy has posted that she needs to take at least a part time job, and was thinking that an answering machine in her home in Wisconsin (for starters anyway) would be easier to unload and put on e-mail than an answering service, and also much cheaper. We should hear a report on prices of answering machines, the general reasons for this change, and whether the answering machine is really the best and most efficient solution. Then we can vote on purchasing the machine, instead of the 800 Number we voted on at the last meeting.

 

8. Treasurer's Quarterly Report - Report by Nancy

 

Wenger LLP are now our official bookkeepers. A guideline of $150/quarter was authorized at the last meeting, and the contract I signed agreed to $150-$200/quarter with additional funds required at year-end for 1099's. Ron's database from Quickbooks 2000 was in good order. A copy of all Bank Statements, PO's and Receipts, and Quickbook reports were sent to Jan, our Internal Auditor - some 500 pages of documentation. For the turnover from Ron to Nancy, Nancy did an audit and found only a $4 discrepancy between the Excel Spreadsheet kept as a quick reference for Board Meetings and the Bank Statement, and only an $8 difference between these and the Quickbooks totals. The quarterly Balance Sheet and Profit & Loss statements do not reflect outstanding checks or activity during October. The true cash on hand is $9,977.87, close to $10,000.

 

9. Budget Review - Discussion

 

Discuss various propositions pertaining to the 3-Year Budget text, which Nancy has posted as text on the tt-inc mailing list. Discuss changes in the budget which will reflect recent changes and priorities. (I don't think we're ripe to vote on committing the Budget to anything definite yet, we'll have to do that in November after the discussion which will hopefully ensue on the group till then.) The Old Budget can be compared to a New Budget, which is a strawman to facilitate discussion.

 

10. Project Status from Principals - Report

 

a. Worms/Hydroponics/Aquaponics/Synergy Lab - by Nancy
b. Brochure - by Nancy/Helena
c. TV Clip & Promotion - Nancy
d. Unix/Server - Jurian/Nancy
e. Seed Team (including funding proposals) - Nancy/Roger/Toni
f. On Foot - Michael Murphy
g. Clothing - Wendy
h. Community Garden - Barry
i. Short-Wave - Anyone? (in Ron's absence)

 

11. President-at-Large - Vote or NOT

 

Sol has served this past month as President-at-Large. This position needs to be filled for the forthcoming month of November.