Council 2006 12


 * Date: 20 Dec 2006
 * Facilitator: Richard
 * Scribe: Aaron
 * Minutes Checker:
 * Place: FG meeting room

Attendance
Aaron, Steve, Loren, Eugene, Mario, Bonny, Edmund, Ron Marshall, Wes, Jeff, Matthew, JJ, Jim, Matteo, Ali, Richard, Seamus, Wren (late), Elizabeth (left early)

Old Commitments

 * oso will contact Iain about board intentions. - Tabled (no Oso, board already elected)
 * Laurel will remind Oso to contact Iain. - Tabled (No Oso, no Laurel)
 * David: consensus training (No David, carryover.)

Training
Seamus: How to be a good Scribe

Reports
No formal reports this month. Freeform Q&A instead. Matteo: Could we have a budget report next month?

Laptops & Breakin
Seamus: How has the breakin impacted the laptop program? Jeff: Wes: Was the breakin through a door that was left ajar? Richard: [Roughly: no.]
 * We lost the bucket-o-ram, but we were able to recover more RAM from laptops on the shelves.
 * Increased laptop donations helped make up the loss.
 * People actually mailed us more laptop RAM.

New Office Coordinator
Ali: Announcing our new office coordinator, Elizabeth! Everyone else: Applause, whistling Ali: ...And we got the Spirit of Portland Award!

General Priorities
Next Priorities & Optimization meeting is 26 December, 7:15 PM. Matteo handed out printouts of the General Priorities page: http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/General_Priorities

We started out with a list of items under consideration, then added anything else that we've talked about.

We rated the items on a grid of low to high effort, and low to high benefit. Low-effort and high-benefit is good. High-effort and low-benefit is bad.

We then assigned the items to four lists:
 * "Infinite resources" - Things we'd do if we had infinite resources. Things that might be worth doing at some point.
 * "A list" - Do it whether or not we have grant money to pay for it.
 * "B list" - Do it if we can get matching funds, or a grant to pay for part of it.
 * "C list" - Do it if we can get a grant to pay for all of it.

The whiteboard with the four lists was there for all to see. There was some Q&A on specific items.

Matthew: I propose that we find these lists basically acceptable.

There was general discussion of whether Council has had enough time to look this stuff over (it was sent out on various lists, on the Wiki, etc.), whether Council even needed to decide to approve the lists (it's just a guide), whether it was useful to the Grants committee (yes).

Jim: I propose that this approach is acceptable to Council, and that the Priorities and Optimization committee accepts responsibility to keep these lists updated for presentation to Council meetings each month.

Richard: Do we have consensus on Matthew's proposal? [No stand-asides, no blocks. General consensus.]

More discussion: Can Council override P&O's priorities (yes, P&O is merely advisory). Further discussion of specific items.

Richard: Do we have consensus on Jim's proposal? [No stand-asides, no blocks. General consensus.]

Space Usage: Zoning Proposal
Richard passed around floorplans like this: http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Zoning_Proposal

Roughly, the White Hole gets moved into the Lab where Phil & co. currently hang out, folks move into office space where the white hole used to be. This should create a low-traffic, quiet area where work can get done.

There was discussion of whether this would actually help things.

Nathan estimates $1,000 for the wall around the current White Hole. This needs to happen whether we move things around or not.

Ali: I propose we accept the zoning idea set before us. Richard: This does not commit us to specific details, just a general "should we move things around like that?"

Discussion of the classroom (nothing changes there yet.)

Richard: Do we have consensus on Ali's proposal? [No stand-asides, no blocks. General consensus.]

Discussion of whether the P&O committee should've handled this.

Next Meeting

 * Facilitator: Seamus
 * Scribe: Shawn
 * Minutes Checker:
 * Consensus training: Dave, communicating consensus
 * Date and time: Jan. 17
 * Place: Free Geek