10 January 2000 Meeting Minutes

Lebanon Public Library Meeting Room
12:00.

Pursuant to Notice given all members of the Board of Directors via Electronic Mail, the Monthly Meeting convened upon the President calling the same to order.

The meeting was called to Order by Terry McCain while awaiting the late arrival of President Wallace. The agenda was pursued as previously distributed via E-Mail. Board Members present were John Wallace, Dave Truitt, Tom Garoffolo, Kelly Murphy, Carl Corson, Cheryl Walden, Rebecca Hull, Terry McCain, Monte Bowman and Jane Brandenburg.

ITEM I System Administrator's /Content Reports

Terry indicated that the new year had come and the system for BCCN had been Y2K compatible. The transition was smooth without problems. She had been adding some patches to the system in late December that were deemed necessary. Where other applications would accomplish the same purpose the purchase of the patch was not pursued. There have been 3108 hits to the BCCN site. The organization is now properly registered with INTERNIC, an organization to advise of web sites and registrations.

ITEM II Content Report

In John's absence Terry went ahead with this report as well. The Lebanon Little League site has been added. There is some approval from the National Organization still pending.

The Discussion Board Software has been updated to allow for passwords. Terry added some new software (DiscussPro) over the holidays. This allows for passwords to be used. Terry next discussed the CAPE program as administered through a grant from the Boone County Community Foundation. There was a discussion board set up to be private at first.

Later, the group decided to ask for a change to allow the board to be viewed by the public due to the nature of the funding. The site now has now surpassed One Hundred Three (103) e-mail identifications on the server.

The survey results from the 4-H Extension Service have now been completely posted on the site. This includes the complete survey results from all three of the County high schools, Lebanon, Western Boone and Zionsville. The topics included results on the use of alcohol, drug use, and other forms of abuse.

All of the Boone County Community Foundation Scholarship Information has been updated in response to queries on same.

ITEM III Treasurer Report from Carl Corson.

Carl had the current financial statements showing the grant from the Lilly Fund being added to the Treasury. The Management fee remained as it had been at the last reporting period. Terry and Dave asked Carl to keep track of the payments made from BCCF since they all list grants as the reason for payment. Carl indicated that invoices for the new year for dues will be sent out in the next week or so. Carl did take some dues payments at the meeting from those who brought their checkbooks or had sufficient cash to pay their dues.

ITEM IV Lilly Grant Applications

Terry then brought up the current status of the Lilly Grant Applications. There are applications pending from the Perry Worth PTO, the Lebanon Boys-Girls Club, The Youth Action Committee Council, the Boone County Senior Citizens, Inc., Cub Scout Pack 358, the Boone Co. Sheriff, the Master Gardeners, Purdue Club, and the Boone Co. Humane Society, among others.

Mrs. Fox, at Western Boone High School, has 19 students enrolled to help in her computer class to build the necessary pages. The class should be ready in about a month. The grant period from Lilly is for a period of two years. Our organizationÍs goal is to place 50 sites on line from the Lilly/BCCF grant. Application forms were distributed to those present for those who had not been able to download from the web page.

Carl inquired about the policy of a Not For Profit (NFP) supporting another NFP for a page.

The next subject dealt with the filtering of applications. Assuming that there are several applications, what sorts of approval process should our group utilize to assure compliance with the original guidelines or if we should have more than 50 applications?

President Wallace arrived late at this point with his son atop his shoulders and a box of coffee mugs. These mugs will go to our new members as an incentive for becoming part of the group.

OTHER STUFF

Terry brought up the issue of Dave's concerns over the manner of conducting on-line voting. Dave had expressed a desire to put some sort of time frame on the voting process when an e-mail vote had been taken between regular meetings.

Just about everybody present expressed an opinion on the subject in a constructive manner. 48 hours was suggested as a time frame to allow votes. A majority of the board would now be five. Discussion centered on the idea that a majority could cast votes before 48 hours passes.

In other words 5 out of 9 would allow passage despite a time limit by simple majority. Dave explained that he does not keep his email up all day long as it requires dial up on a business line. Monte indicated he may be on vacation and not be able to vote in 48 hours. Others expressed a desire to vote and be heard on issues even though the time may have passed.

Monte and Carl both wanted to address the issue of discussion on a pending motion prior to vote. Monte suggested that the person calling for the vote or the person making the motion should specify a time within which to vote, a time stamp so to speak. (i.e. I am making this motion at 9:00 am on Tuesday, by our board policy you have 48 hours to vote) This idea was refined to say the President should first entertain the motion, obtain a second and then have the President certify the commencement of the time limit to begin and end.

Dave suggested that the discussion and voting period be combined to allow members to review and consider different ideas on a vote. In effect, to allow a person to vote Yes at first and if they choose to change their vote to No after speaking with another board member or viewing their response.

The vote would become final after the following:

1) A specific motion and proper second are on the table for consideration;

2) A period of 48 hours passes from the time the President/ Officer calling for a vote by e-mail is certified as commencing.

Those who vote may wish to place a time and date on their vote and not rely on the date stamp that is placed on their e-mail by their e-mail software. Also, in the event there are not enough votes cast in the 48 hour period, the motion must be resubmitted and it fails for lack of sufficient votes of a majority. Additional discussion came about on the topic that e-mail votes have thus far been taken on matters discussed previously in regular bi-monthly meetings, only. No new matters have been subjected to e-mail votes. The previous matters included the mug vote and the server.

Terry brought up the issue of going back to a monthly meeting for a period of time. Dave suggested the use of a grants sub-committee group that could meet in the month that the Board does not meet and report back to the board. Dave moves, Tom seconds for a committee to be established John, Terry, Rebecca, and Jane shall comprise the committee. This is a ratification of a semi-recognized group that had already been meeting to review grant applications.

John, through Terry, had indicated an interest in a monetary authorization/limit on the spending of money. Say a minimum amount. How much? Capital Assets would not be permissible under this policy. Operating Supplies will be permissible. Terry uses DiscussPro Software as an example. This was needed software at the end of the year per Terry who had wanted to donate this. After discussion on assets, supplies purchase was agreed upon but not capital assets. CPA's can consider software as a capital asset subject to depreciation.

BCCF received an application from United Way to update its SAVI database. This is a request for money from the Boone County Community Foundation to expand a database for United Way. This application was referred to BCCN to make us aware of this pending request since a lot of the work is duplication of data already on our site. SAVI stands for social assets vulnerability indicators SAVI - been around since 1994? Generally the Board said this is a duplicate of our stuff.(BCCN) Move on.

Carl inquired about non-payment of graphic advertisements and how are they to be treated? Failure to pay after notice may result in the discontinuation of their graphic.

Kelley inquires about personal home pages of teachers on the BCCN server. They have academic home pages with guidelines set up by Kelley for the school website. Should there be a link allowed to teacher personal pages from their academic page?

Meeting adjourned 1:30 p.m.

John Wallace returns to the meeting just as it is breaking up after dropping off his son. He asked about the spending limit discussion and the e-mail voting policy discussed at length by the board.


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