Item 71. Minutes of the Board Meeting of August 11, 1993 John H. Remmers (remmers) Wed, Aug 11, 1993 (10:34). 122 lines, 12 responses. Board members present: Valerie Mates (popcorn) [chair], Dan Romanchik (danr) [treasurer], John Remmers (remmers) [secretary], STeve Andre (steve), Meg Geddes (meg), Mike Smerza (morel), Marc Unangst (mju). Absent: None. Others attending: Misti Anslin (mta), Greg Cronau (gregc), Rob Henderson (robh), Bill Long (chi1taxi), Bill Rayl (snark), Pattie Snyder-Rayl (pegasus), Marcus Watts (mdw), Steve Weiss (srw), Russ Woodruff (power). Technical committee (steve, mju): Grex has received a donation of seven (!) Sun 3 computers and several color monitors from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC). One of them, a Sun 3/260 with 32 mb of memory and 300+ mb of disk, is currently undergoing testing, is performing well, and will probably become the main Grex machine. Some integration tasks -- installation of a serial card and tape controller -- must be performed first. It is estimated that this machine will show a 12-fold (and certainly no less than 9-fold) performance improvement over our current Sun 2. It is likely that it will consume somewhat more power, but with the installation of more modern disks we should come out slightly ahead in power consumption overall. A Sun 350 that Grex currently owns, and has also been performing reliably under testing, is slated to become the Usenet News machine. All news tasks will be offloaded to this machine. Treasurer's report (danr): Dan has entered his monthly report in the Agora conference. At the moment we are running $22 short in covering this month's expenses. On the subject of finances, Marc reported that he has made some projections regarding Grex's probable future expenses if the various changes currently under discussion (see remainder of minutes, below) take place. He estimates that Grex' expenses would increase $59/month. Publicity committee (mta): Misti plans to have another flyer distribution soon and is soliciting volunteers for the next Public Access TV spot. 501(c)(3): Valerie will form and chair a committee to carry out the application process. Work will begin in September. New quarters for Grex: There is strong feeling on the part of the technical crew and others that Grex needs to move to a new location in order to have better access to the hardware. The current quarters, Communications Electronics, is reliably accessible only during normal weekday business hours. Two possible locations -- the basement room on Liberty Street formerly occupied by M-Net, and the basement of Greg Cronau's house, were compared and discussed. At the conclusion of the discussion, the Board voted as follows: Liberty Street 4 Greg Cronau's basement 3 abstentions 0 Accordingly, STeve will contact the landlord of the Liberty Street location, Nick Kontaxis (sp?), to discuss arrangements. An unresolved issue is whether we will have a lease or go month-to-month. Although we didn't take him up on it, the Board thanks Greg Cronau profusely for his extremely generous offer. Phone service: The Board voted 7-0-0 to change to Centrex phone service when we move. What happens when Marc Unangst leaves: Marc reported that Ivars Upatnieks will be supplying the news feed; Marc is currently working on setting this up and expects to have it in place by the time he leaves for college. Membership in exchange for donations: The issue of whether and how memberships should be granted in exchange for donations of equipment was discussed briefly. As the bylaws define membership in terms of monetary contribution, the bylaws would have to be modified to allow this, which requires a formal proposal and vote by the membership. Someone (who?) will enter an item in Coop to discuss the issue. Binaries newsgroups: The problems associated with the "binaries" newsgroups, (1) copyright violations in newsgroups carrying graphic images, and (2) possible excessive modem time in downloading articles from binaries groups, were discussed. We have already stopped carrying the "pictures" newgroups because of the copyright issue. Someone (who?) will a start a discussion item on the binaries newsgroups issue. Voting eligibility: Remmers asked for refreshment of his memory on the definition of "eligible voter" in Grex elections. Refreshment consisted of the statement that to vote, a person must be a current member and have paid for at least 3 months' worth of membership. Internet connection: Grex has been offerred an opportunity to connect to the internet, with the cost of the connection itself being covered for us. In addition, Marc has offered to pay 3 months' worth of the cost of the additional phone line required. After some discussion of the pros and cons of an internet connection in general and this offer in particular, Remmers moved and STeve seconded that we connect to the internet for a trial period of three months. The Board voted on the motion as follows: yes 5 (popcorn, danr, remmers, mju, steve) no 1 (meg) abstentions 1 (morel) Outgoing internet services (telnet, ftp, etc.) will be available only to Grex members; incoming services (e.g. the ability to log into Grex from anywhere on the internet) will be available to anyone with internet access on another machine. The news feed is expected to be via the internet connection; mail will continue to be handled via netmeg. Mail issues: Meg will take over Marc's postmaster duties for Grex. Meg made a plea for a faster mail connection to Grex, indicating that 2400 baud was too slow for the volume of mail Grex is generating. The meeting was adjourned via ceremonial gavel-banging at about 9:00 p.m. Respectfully submitted, John Remmers, secretary