Council 2006 09

in attendance: seamus, laurel, kerm, zea, john, matteo, dave, eugene, richard, shawn, roger, jon, marie, ali, jeff, oso, martin, wren, aaron, phil, tallwes, bobbie

reports

pawc

founded in 2003, share resources and knowledge. we are members. PAWC has had trouble meeting quorum, wants to change. looking at a board-like structure. wants our input on the future shape of things. nov 9th, 6pm meeting to decide on future structure (@ people's) sat, nov 4th, 7:30pm party and raffle (@ freegeek) matteo and shawn are our delegates, talk to them if you would like to be more involved. pawc cards are expired but occasionally still honored. future work on this theme will be done. pawc has done promotion and education for collectives. pawc needs more people showing up to their meetings with energy to support their community.

media grant

mt hood cable grant for a media project. grant was tentatively offered with huge caveats - mostly that they could not cover the necessary staff costs. tried to find an additional grant to cover this, but failed. renegotiated, freegeek would need to pay for a total of ~$15k. many volunteer teachers. free access to their studio. cost overruns? hopefully not. future after the coordinator is done? the students would be required to teach it into the future. documentation? required by the grant and part of the general tone of the project, so hopefully. are there hidden costs in the in-kind donations? if they fall through, the project will be falling apart and so will be scrapped. shorts won't be that bad, though. the coordinator goes away at the end of the year, but they will be expected to perform some floor shifts for integration purposes. will coordinator responsibilities bleed into staff? more likely into the volunteers. will teach the students how to do documentary film making. we gain public image. our finances will need to be determined first. goal to use open source. how does this compare to our other priorities? we don't know. council is in charge of overall spending priorities. this will be presented to the board with that context. does the timeline for this mean we should jump? regardless of it fitting in, if we could do it, we would. CONSENT what are our priorities? convene a priorities and budget meeting tuesday night, push this to the board for final approval if that committee agrees it is our priority. CONSENT

laptops

rocks! lots of organizational improvements, sales and grants are more than tripled for two of the last three months. working with ebay for future sales. looks sustainable, but we're not sure. volunteers are far more active in laptops. 3 more months to decide to keep the position.

providence

space usage proposals are being worked on. providence has been quiet. rename?

startups

4 more freegeeks to come soon.

old business

board elections

laurel and marie are losing their positions. both are running for reelection. jon and aaron are in the room. iain was not present but expressed interest. questions for the candidates: what nonprofit work experience makes you a good choice?

aaron: has done volunteer work with a few other coops and a bunch with us.

jon: volunteers with a publishing house for many years now.

do you have any of the specific skills we are looking for? aaron: beancounting. jon: company running. long experience with freegeek, but not as close as some.

why not just be a normal volunteer?

  jon: has a bigger picture position about things. will occasionally having to make emergency email decisions work

for you? have you read the board member expectations and feel that you can make them?

  jon: sure.
  aaron: unknown.
   http://wiki.freegeek.org/index.php/New_Director_Agreement are you okay with the legalities implied by the position?
  jon: sure.
  aaron: probably.
   okay, there are four slots open.  discussion deleted.
   put laurel and marie on the board.  CONSENT.
   put jon on the board.  CONSENT.
   postpone the decision of the forth position for a month (giving aaron a chance to read his responsibilities and answer questions about them, iain a chance to respond to questions,

anyone else a chance to apply). CONSENT.

new business

office coordinator

kathie is retiring, we want to change her position into the office coordinator. Office Coordinator. Were other staff priorities considered? no.

straw poll? 4 of 5 collective members say yes. 1 abstained.

would this cover hours other than the front desk? yes.

we would want to hire before december.

put this to the budget meeting on tuesday.

next meeting

reports

budget priorities

agenda

interns (martin)

board elections

commits

seamus will convene budget meeting on tuesday.

• facilitator: phil
• scribe: seamus
• consensus trainer: ali