Item 56. Minutes of the Dec. 21, 1993 Board of Directors Meeting John H. Remmers (remmers) Tue, Dec 21, 1993 (21:24). 91 lines, 18 responses. The meeting was called to order at 7:12 p.m. Board members attending: Valerie Mates (popcorn) [chair], Dan Romanchik (danr) [treasurer], John Remmers (remmers) [secretary], STeve Andre (steve), Meg Geddes (meg), Mike Smerza (morel), Steve Weiss (srw). Others attending: Marc Unangst (mju), Bill Rayl (snark), Pattie Snyder- Rayl (pegasus), Rane Curl (rcurl), zigg-o-rama (ziggy), Chris Bartlett (bartlett), Dave Lovelace (davel), TS Taylor (tsty). Treasurer's report (danr): There were $408 in donations in the last month, bringing the bank balance to about $1300. Technical committee (steve, mju): Greg Cronau will loan us two Hayes Optima high speed modems for a few days for testing on the internet link. It is expected that this "test drive" will be useful in deciding what high-speed modem(s) to purchase. The Eagle news disk is starting to die and went into a read-only state today for an unknown reason. It's working again, but STeve thinks the long-term prognosis is not good. Some hardware and software work needs to be done on the Sun-3 before it can be brought on-line to replace the Sun-2. The technical crew is hopeful that time can be found to do this over the Christmas holidays. The major software systems needing installation and configuration are smail, INN, and newuser -- volunteers to do this are meg, mju, popcorn respectively. Hardware work needs to be done on the SMD disk interface and the serial card. The floor of Grex's new quarters needs to be treated before moving the hardware in. STeve is awaiting a call back from Bell concerning the switch to Centrex service. STeve has a lead on possible donation of several 100mb hard disks. 501(c)(3) committee (popcorn): It hasn't met recently. Valerie plans to get the ball rolling again in January. Moving: In addition to what was reported above, John R. relayed a query from Mary R. regarding the advisability of insuring the hardware once it is in our new location. Concensus was that that replacement value insu- rance should be looked into. Mary has volunteered to make inquiries with insurance companies. Board officer selection: As all members of the 1994 Board of Directors were in attendance, it was decided appropriate that those individuals should select the board officers for the coming year at tonight's meeting. STeve Andre and Steve Weiss were nominated for chair. In a secret ballot vote, Steve Weiss was the winner. The current treasurer and secretary, Dan Romanchik and John Remmers, respectively, were the sole nominees for those offices and were re-elected by acclaimation. Modem overload: Rane Curl expressed concern that it is frequently difficult to get onto the system due to busy signals, indicating a need to increase the number of lines. There had been some discussion of this issue at a summer board meeting, but apparently no decision. It was indicated that this would be relatively easy to do as part of the installation of the new phone service, or thereafter; general feeling was that we should look into costs again. Meg can make an indefinite loan of a Supra 2400bps modem to use on an additional line. New business: TS and Rane reported on the status of the IBM-PC recently acquired for resale purposes from UM Property Disposition. The hardware appears reliable after heavy testing. Rane has contacted two local organizations to see if they are interested in the machine, but has not yet received a call back. TS is working with a staff member at CAEN on the problems with email to 'engin'. At 8:00, Valerie banged the meeting to a close and ceremonially passed the gavel to chair-elect Steve Weiss. Respectfully submitted, John Remmers, Secretary