Open to the public, San Francisco, 12:00 PM Pacific Time, December 20, 2003
Please email board@onlinepolicy.org for specific location if you wish to attend.
Board Meeting Action Item Summary
Now located at
http://onlinepolicy.org/wiki/index.php?OPG%20Board
Upon formation of Operations Advisory Committee, many of the action
items previously discussed by the Board moved to the committee instead.
You can see those action items at
http://onlinepolicy.org/wiki/index.php?OPG%20Operations%20Advisory%20Committee
Board Meeting Agenda
1. Welcome
2. Approve Agenda
3. Board Responsibilities
4. Review Action Items
5. Financial Report
- Status: Month, Quarter, Fiscal Year to Date
- Forecast: Upcoming revenue and expenses
- Donor thank you notes
- 990 and 199 Filing
- Bank and brokerage account
- Grant proposals
- Fundraising strategy brainstorm
- Board fundraising commitments
6. Services
- Online Services: Email list hosting, Website hosting, Domain registrations, Colocation services
- Other Services: Educational Training, Technical Consulting, including SF LGBT Community Center CyberCenter
- Support: Task Manager, Upgrades, Redundancy
- Calliope (Online Community Forum)
- New services
7. Research
- Overall: need to recruit volunteers/interns and prioritize projects
- OSPA
- School & Library
- Online oddities & atrocities museum
8. Outreach
- Website status
- Materials: Logo design, website design, business cards, letterhead, brochure, reply card, office sign
- Schwag: T-shirts, stickers, etc.
- Events
9. Action
- Action alert updates
- Legislative and policymaking updates
10. Network
- Web and email list hosting excellent way to expand networking
- Networking brainstorm
- Tech Fed
11. Media
- Media coverage
12. Office Space
- EFF
- LGBT Community Center
12. Legal
- Representation
- Terms of Service Policy
- Privacy Policy
- Event Liability
13. Human Resources
- Board, advisory board, and committee recruitment
- Volunteer recruitment (regular weekly project meetings)
- Intern recruitment
14. Vacation and travel schedules
15. Public Comment Period
16. Next meeting(s):
- 12 noon, Saturday, December 6, 2003
- 12 noon, Saturday, March 6, 2004
- 12 noon, Saturday, June 5, 2004
- 12 noon, Saturday, September 4, 2004
-end-
Board Meeting Minutes
1. Welcome
Attending:
Will Doherty (Director), Roger Klorese (Director, by phone),
Art McGee (Board Candidate),
Theeba Soundararajan (Director), Susan Tenby (Director),
David Weekly (Director)
2. Approve Agenda
Motion to approve, seconded, and approved unanimously.
3. Board Responsibilities
Discussed overview of board responsibilities.
4. Review Action Items
Reviewed and updated action items.
5. Financial Report
- Status: Month, Quarter, Fiscal Year to Date
Will provided report. Covered July 1 - December 20, 2003 and last fiscal year.
- Forecast: Upcoming revenue and expenses
- Donor thank you notes
Action Item: Will to catch up on backlog of thank you notes.
- 990 and 199 Filing
First year the feds and state require OPG to file by
October 15, 2003, although
OPG filed last year anyway with documents appearing on
the OPG website. Took extension and filing before Dec. 24, 2003.
- Bank and brokerage account
Brokerage account recovering. Cash position ok.
- Grant proposals
Proposals refused by foundations.
Action Item: Susan and Theeba to meet with Will and Sharon to kickoff development efforts
- Fundraising strategy brainstorm
David mentioned that CCCP will do another fundraiser at CodeCon this year.
Susan suggested a raffle. Will mentioned an auction would not require
understanding raffle regulations in this state.
Action Item Will: Check out Groundspring and other online
mechanisms as a donation vehicle.
Theeba and Susan suggested improving wording of thank you at
time of subscription to email lists or receiving other
services.
Action Item Roger: Put "hosted by OPG" message on "coming soon" page
for new websites.
Action Item Will: Set up website resource for client who want
promote OPG on their email list or website.
Action Item David: suggested house parties. Will said he could do one too.
Action Item Will: Susan suggested the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence doing
a Ba Da Bingo event to give proceeds to OPG/QueerNet.
- Board fundraising commitments
Susan volunteered to work with the grant writer intern to give more
continuity to fundraising efforts.
Action Item: Susan will sign OPG up for car donation program as
long as there is no cost to OPG in funds or effort.
6. Services
- Online Services: Email, Email list hosting, Website hosting, Domain registrations, Colocation services
92,524 subscribers on 896 email lists with 59 domains. Recently added
UC Campus Grad School Unions. About 250 websites on about 316 domains.
120 colo clients in Fremont and 5 in Seattle. Seeking ISPs in Seattle
and Washington, DC. Shinn brothers are coordinating DC effort with
about 10 potential clients already there.
Theeba mentioned getting lots of good feedback from DRUM and other
clients.
Action item Will: Add "where did you hear about us?" item to service
request forms. (Done)
Action item Roger: Set up email quotas. (1x renew)
Action Item David: add Roger to colo ops email list. (Done)
Action Item Roger: get OPG server racked and labeled properly at colo. (Done)
- Other Services: Educational Training, Technical Consulting, including SF LGBT Community Center CyberCenter
Will read Mitch's report on training, consulting, and computer refurbishing
Mitch will do presentation to Compumentor
staff and Bay Area Tech Soup members.
Action Item Will: Remind Mitch to prep board report each meeting (Done)
- Support: Task Manager, Upgrades, Redundancy
Action Item Will: Create a sccp colo queue (Done by David)
Action Item David: Transfer sccp requests from cccp to sccp queue (Done)
Action Item: David to give Roger account on server1.communitycolo.net
Ops advisory committee has come up with ideas on how to improve
operational security and prevent downtime. David feels we are
between 99.0 and 99.9% uptime, but we can improve to 99.999%
uptime.
- Calliope (Online Community Forum)
We need Java programmers for the project. Discussed whether or
not to continue the project and decided to continue on for now
and have further discussion about evolution of the project.
Action Item: Will to send Susan a volunteer description for Java
programmers for Calliope. (1x renew)
- New services
Will reported on The Voting Place project for coalition voting.
New volunteer working on it.
7. Research
- Overall: need to recruit volunteers/interns and prioritize projects
- OSPA
- School & Library
- Online oddities & atrocities museum
Action Item: Roger to identify groups for outreach on
collaborative research.
Action Item: Will to write description of potential
research collaboration.
Theeba mentioned that Third World Majority has been
working with EFF and other organizations on a
project called CointelNow to develop strategies and tools
for activist organizations to improve security,
especially in response to certain incidents.
Will and Theeba discussed how OPG clients could
benefit from the existing work on the project
and to assist OPG clients.
David talked about training organizations on
basic principles of information security.
Susan suggested republishing nonprofit technology
security information published originally on
Compumentor.org.
Theeba gave more background on the project
and asked for ways that OPG could help on
the technical aspects of the project. Susan
suggested that OPG probably doesn't have the
bandwidth to pursue the project in a major
way right now and Will said perhaps OPG could
participate in a big way in the second round
of the project. The board agreed we could
participate with occasional consultations
in the meantime as needed. A website is
under development at cointelnow.org
8. Outreach
- Website status
Action Item: Susan, Art, Will, Theeba, Roger to form website redesign committee (Done)
- Materials: Logo design, website design, business cards, letterhead, brochure, reply card, office sign
Susan reported on website design progress. The first volunteer didn't
deliver so Susan set up a meeting between Will and Mitch and herself
regarding potential changes to the website. Then, Susan set up a
preliminary meeting with a potential website design firm
which happened yesterday, including a basic website mockup.
So far, Susan and Will are reasonably impressed. Next step
is for the firm to provide several mockups in the next phase.
David reported about another website firm that generated
a mockup for an OPG site, the same firm that created a
mockup for the CCCP site. David explained that he is moving
forward with that company on a CCCP site.
Action Item: David to put Susan directly in contact with the
firm with whom he's connected.
Roger feels the OPG site look and feel is off-putting.
Some things are not easily navigable.
Having another web design meeting prior to any further
vendor meetings.
Action Item Will: Give Theeba online version of brochure. (Done)
- Schwag: T-shirts, stickers, etc.
- Events
See CodeCon discussion under fundraising.
9. Action
- Action alert updates
Discussed alerts OPG is considering. Will provided update on
MSN Groups. Discussed why we haven't done AOL and Yahoo action
alerts.
Roger prepping an AOL alert.
Action Item: Susan to email Will documentation of Friendster problem. (Done)
Action Item: Art to email Will article on Friendster problem. (Done)
- Legislative and policymaking updates
10. Network
- Web and email list hosting excellent way to expand networking
Mitch doing event at Compumentor (see above).
Art mentioned ovation OPG received for Diebold
lawsuit at National Media Reform Conference.
- Networking brainstorm
11. Media
- Media coverage
- Media releases
12. Office Space
- EFF
- LGBT Community Center
12. Legal
Summary of OPG's lawsuit against Diebold and potential
for legal precedent
Action Item Will: Finalize changes to TOS and send notice
to all clients.
13. Human Resources
- Board, advisory board, and committee recruitment
- Volunteer recruitment (regular weekly project meetings)
- Intern recruitment
Action Item Will: Update graphic designer internship description. (renew x1)
14. Vacation and travel schedules
Susan out of town from Dec 27 - Jan 6 and then week of
February 6 and 13 for Go Go's tour!
David out of town from Dec 21-28 and Hawaii sometime in March.
Theeba in San Francisco Bay Area until January 9.
Theeba will go to World Social Forum in January 9 - 28,
then back to NYC.
Will in Mexico from Dec 24 - Jan 12 and rural Oregon
from Feb 12 - 16.
15. Public Comment Period
No members of the public attending.
16. Next meeting(s):
- 12 noon, Saturday, March 6, 2004
- 12 noon, Saturday, June 5, 2004
- 12 noon, Saturday, September 4, 2004
- 12 noon, Saturday, December 4, 2004
-end-
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