Council 2005 08

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  • Date: August 17, 2005
  • Facilitator: Dave
  • Scribe: Laurel
  • Previous Meeting Minutes

attendance

Oso, Bobby, Clint, Matteo, Charno, laurel (scribulator), Dave (facilitator), Clout, martin, Xen, Wes, Mark Allyn, Debi, Richard, RevPhil, Rick

Checkin: martin has new shoes. Xen has a new laptop. laurel has stolen Xen's laptop. Oso is gassy and textural. Sweatshop labor is bad. RevPhil has a chastity belt. Beer and cider are good.

OLD COMMITS

  • Knowledgebees: recommend Envada. This is a ticket in RT for kbees and doesn't need to be on Council commitments anymore. DONE
  • Clint: wiki page about truck donors. is working on Freightliner and collaborating with Oso on a letter. CARRYOVER
  • Clint: boardnetusa.org is a clearinghouse of board members. he and martin looked at it. there could be some good candidates. we'd need to register on the site and use it to put out feelers. DONE
  • Oso: pickups for fee. Comcast is still trying to unload all their trucks and stuff; still may be a potential donor. Need to be aware of our limits when it comes to larger loads. ONGOING
  • Richard: thorough report on Homestreet via email. Has been project overseer for this for the last month. Progress is being made. We hope to see Nathan back full time in the next coupla weeks. Martin and Jeff S. are both still involved. CARRYOVER.
  • Richard financial report: see below.

REPORTS

Coders

(richard) see council list report from Richard. http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/council/2005-August/001335.html

Education

(laurel) because there will be a gap after the end of August without an education coordinator, scheduling of adoption classes will happen with Michael Westwind. Other class planning is happening even without an education coordinator, but results may not be immediately apparent.

Fgoly

(laurel) laurel is the mothership ambassador for fgoly. They are working on umbrellaing, bylaws, and making stuff work. Yay fgoly.

PAWC

(matteo) see council list report from matteo. Main item: PAWC is planning a conference for member organizations to plan future projects. Matteo is the new PAWC delegate. http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/council/2005-August/001330.html

Financial

(Richard) for the last four months, we've been in the black. We're seeing our usual summer doldrums, but they may have already passed! Goal is to pay down all past debts. We have $6 or 7 grand to go on a personal debt. A debt to Total Reclaim is the next priority after staff payroll (and before bills). See the wiki for month-by-month financial reports. http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/Financial_Overview

OLD BUSINESS

Hiring strategy group report

(Richard presents)

group met once. Decided to hire a more money-making position before an education coordinator - so the next steps will be 1) hire a printer coordinator, 2) reinstate the 5% paycut, 3) education coordinator. Steps after that will be determined by reports from Flowmaster M and Xen; probably will have to do with more support for reuse and recycling. See council list for report. http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/council/2005-August/001325.html

Bylaws revisions

(Charno presents)

The bylaws group has worked together with the interim board to amend the bylaws in order to recognize the council and more clearly define the role of the board. In general, changes were minor, largely removing restrictive speech so that the bylaws would be accurate to what our structure is actually like. We changed the minimum number of Directors so that there's more of a buffer between our minimum (5) and the legal minimum (2). The largest change is that the Council will be electing the board. It should be noted that a number of discussed changes were not made as amendments to the bylaws. Many of these will be adopted as standing resolutions by the Board (such as explicitly naming consensus as the decision-making method). Standing resolutions, unlike amendments, do not have to be submitted to the IRS. The bylaws are largely ready for submission; there are only a couple of points left unresolved.

PROPOSAL: The Council gives the Bylaws revision working group authority to go forward with the existing changes (and further non-substantive changes at the discretion of the working group) so they can be submitted and enacted. The Board should report to Council upon approving those amendments. APPROVED.

If you want to know more about the bylaws stuff, talk to someone on the Bylaws revision committee (Richard, Charno, Jeff K., Joe Buckmaster, laurel, Oso, wren). Also, check out these relevant links (thanks, Charno):

NEW BUSINESS

Board

(Oso presents)

the interim board will be resigning soon. The board says: "The four current board positions will be up for re-election, and we are adding one additional board position." Oso has started work on a New Director Contract which outlines the expectations we have for new board members: see it at New_Director_Contract and contribute if you have contributions. Changes to this document will be reported to Council.

These expectations should be kept in mind when making nominations for the (at least) three new Board members that we should elect next month. It would probably not be a great idea to have a lot of people with material interest in freegeek (ie., staff) on the board. We need to have at least three nominees by next Council meeting. Charno nominates Joe Buckmaster. This volunteer position should be publicized in all of our normal ways for publicizing volunteer positions.

Laptops

(Clint presents)

Has been talking with IBM about donating 100 specially designed laptops. The vice president of the IBM Linux Development center is Clint's current contact. Ideas about the characteristics of these laptops should be communicated with Clint. The advantage of this to IBM would be that we'd sell their engineering feat and get a bit of coolness rubbed off on them.

Events

movie night tomorrow night, here at Free Geek: Sin City. Tonight- Phil will be showing a bunch of shorts about biking dangerously in traffic at the Clinton St.

NEXT MONTH

  • Facilitator: Oso
  • Scribe with impunity: martin
  • Minutes reviewer: rfs
  • Date: September 15
  • For agenda: Board nominations

NEW COMMITMENTS

  • The Board will refine the New Director Contract so it can be used in contacting potential nominees.
  • Clint, laurel, and martin will try to find good candidates via boardnetusa.
  • Charno will ask his nominee (Joe Buckmaster) if he'd like to serve.
  • All council members will watch for good board members and make nominations.
  • Richard will post something on the website, halls, FG email lists.
  • Oso will post to News for Neighbors and City Club.
  • Laurel will post to CNRG for board members.
  • Richard will talk to his sister at IBM about the laptop proposal.
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