NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/austin/eff/257

Text File | 1992-12-23 | 10.7 KB | 209 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Steve Jackson)
Subject: Minutes of December Meeting (preliminary)
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Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 18:41:12 GMT
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DRAFT MINUTES OF EFF-AUSTIN DIRECTORS' MEETING - DECEMBER 8, 1992
   Unofficial, pending Board approval at January meeting.

    Prepared by Steve Jackson.
    Held at the SJ Games office. Called to order at 7:24 pm, following
an executive session to discuss board appointments. Board members
present: John Quarterman (presiding), Steve Jackson, Ed Cavazos.
Observing: Dick Anderson, Dave Smith, Jon Lebkowsky, Jim Robinson,
Paco Xander Nathan.
   The minutes of the last meeting were approved without changes.

REPORT ON EXECUTIVE SESSION
   Dick Anderson, Dave Smith and Jon Lebkowsky were elected to
the Board of Directors, and took their seats immediately.
   Susan Cisco, Bruce Sterling and Paco Xander Nathan having
accepted nominations to the Advisory Board, the Directors formally
elected them to the Advisory Board. The Board welcomes suggestions
from all members for further nominations.
   It was agreed that an officers' election will go on next month's
agenda, though the Board may at that time decide to delay the election
by one more month.

OFFICERS' REPORTS
   PRESIDENT - Thanked Paco, Dick, Dave, Ed and JonL for the LOCAL
work they have been doing and continue to do.
   VP - Noted that most of the more recent successful projects have
been undertaken by people who are enthusiastic about the particular
endeavor.  Volunteers were advised to try to get involved with
things which seem fun to them, as it makes the job more productive
and enjoyable.
   SECRETARY - Rita acknowledged receipt of the check and thanked us.
We have had two memberships come in by mail since last meeting.
   TREASURER - (Smoot was not present, but later provided the
information that our bank account has a current balance of $335.64.)

EXPECT UPDATE FROM SMOOT.

CYBERTEX
   Jon Lebkowsky anticipates presenting a proposal after the Sysop
Liability panel and the first Arts Committee project are completed -
they will be good "dry runs" for a larger event.

COMMITTEE AND OTHER REPORTS
   Arts Committee: Jon Lebkowsky, chair, Willard Uncaphur, Bob
Anderson, Sandy Stone, Henry Velick, Jamie Thompson, Marcos
Novak, Vernon Reed, Dave Demaris, Paco Nathan. Meetings have
occurred, and more are scheduled. New projects under consideration
include a RaveDawg (possible fund-raiser) and a contest to find a
T-shirt design. The "does information really want to be free?" panel
is still being discussed. The new arts mailing list is active.
    BBS Committee: Dave Smith (chair), Donna McLaughlin, Loyd Blankenship.
(Earl Cooley is interested.)  Progress: No WWIVnet gate yet. Dave has
two written proposals for a flagship BBS. Decision: We will not pick one
"flagship" to the exclusion of another, but Dave will work with both
Richard Hastings and Tom Parish on the "InfoSite" concept, and see how
things develop. Also, the Board decided that the sysop of any InfoSite
BBS must be an EFF-A member. Dave has drafted an agreement document for
such "affiliated" boards, and will post it for comment. The BBS
Committee will be setting up a mailing list as well. Dave expects to be
rounding up names by and at the Cyberdawg and will be in business soon after.
   Education Committee: Dick Anderson (chair), Smoot. Still working
toward a meeting with the vice-president of ACC. Looking at several
other proposals, including business sponsorship of school net access,
and teacher in-service training on the theme of Introduction to the Net.
   Infodisk Committee: Dave Smith (chair), Ed Cavazos. More copies have
been sold. The new edition hasn't been started yet.
   Membership Committee: Ed Cavazos (chair ex officio), Jim Robinson.
Ed has prepared a draft of Membership policies and procedures which
he will post for director comments and suggestions, and then post to
the newsgroup for member review. Barring major objections, the board
will vote on adopting the document in January.
    Network Committee: Smoot (chair), jsq. Recommends that each of our
event organizers make a point of asking each meeting site to provide a
phone line, so that we can take advantage of the offer from Jim
Thompson to let us connect his SPARCbook to the Internet at our
functions, thus demonstrating network use, regardless of the actual
topic of the function; this is an item for Dave's meeting planner
cookbook.  Also, the members-only mailing list is set up and works - Ed
is running it. We do not yet have a guest moderator for austin.eff.
Paco is concerned about lag between the time he submits publicity
material to austin.eff and the time it actually appears there.  Network
committee will talk to Paco about being guest moderator.  The file
for WORD.  Gopher should be up by early January, thanks to Prentiss
Riddle.  Paco may be able to help.  Agreed that we don't want to
combine the Network Committee with the BBS committee at this time.  The
Board also went on record as pointing out that the thesegroups mailing
list is NOT an EFF-Austin project, but is the property of its users. It
is supported by Smoot and John, but in their private capacity.
    Newsletter Committee: Dave Smith. Third issue will be out in time
for the holidays.
    Police Liaison Committee - Dick Anderson (chair), Bruce Sterling,
Smoot Carl-Mitchell. Bruce was supposed to meet with the Secret Service again today. He hasn't been seen since then.
   Publicity Committee: Paco Xander Nathan (chair), jonl, SJ, Monica
Stephens. Paco has developed a list of places to send publicity info,
and is building a list of places where we can leave flyers and so on.
SJ presented voice mail box information. The Board decided to spend
$10/month for a voice mail box. Paco will monitor it until we can find
a volunteer to do that regularly. A phone tree is being discussed;
Jim Robinson has experience with such things. Paco will talk specifics
with Jim and Ed. Perhaps this is actually Membership. Also, everyone is
asked to send Paco ideas for places where we could leave flyers, etc.,
and we'll find volunteers to drop things off. Also: Paco will call
Alston Body at ACTV.

   Liaison to Computers And The Law Committee of the Travis County
Bar Association: Ed Cavazos. Ed and Jim are working with them; they're
very enthusiastic. Their BBS may become an InfoSite.
   Volunteer Coordinator: Donna McLaughlin. Donna was not present.
Agreed that it's not the VC's personal responsibility to work the
table at events! Agreed that the VC should come to director meetings
if possible. JonL will call her for an update. Dick Anderson
volunteered to call and talk to one or two possible candidates for
EFF-Austin librarian.

PROGRAM PLANNING
    Ad-hoc committees for each upcoming meeting:
   December Cyberdawg: Tracy LaQuey Parker will sign copies of her
new book, "The Internet Companion." (It's co-authored by Jeanne C. Ryer,
with a foreword by Al Gore.) Willard Uncaphur and Jon Lebkowsky are
organizing this. Will be 2-5pm Dec. 13 at Europa Books.
    January Event: Ed Cavazos is organizing, not a panel, but a workshop
on legal issues affecting sysops. Mike Godwin has confirmed that he
will participate. The event will be publicized to the legal community
as well as Central Texas sysops. New date is Jan. 30 or 31. We
may want to publish a set of "Proceedings," or give disks as handouts,
or both. George, Donaldson & Ford will probably sponsor it, to allow
us to get a better site. Lance Rose *may* be able to come down!
Ed will call Monica about design of the Proceedings book.
   February GTC meeting: February 11, 1:30 until 3pm. We have not
yet settled on a program. Jon Lebkowsky is our liaison with GTC.
We will have a table there, as well.
   February Cyberdawg: Dave Smith will organize this - if possible,
in conjunction with the GTC - say, at High Time, from 4 until 7 or 8.
   March Event: Robofest is postponed; we need to think of something else.
Perhaps a Public-Net meeting? The idea of a commemoration of the March 1,
1990 BBS raids was also discussed.
   April Cyberdawg: Possibly a rave, maybe at SJ Games. Arts Committee.

   Dave Smith has started a "cookbook" for EFF-Austin meeting planners,
and will distribute it to the list for comment. This time for sure.

LOCAL ACTIVITY SINCE LAST MEETING
   November Members' Meeting: Was held at 2pm Nov. 14 at the
downtown library 4th-floor meeting room. There were over 40
people present, plus officers and directors. We had a lot of good
questions, some membership signups, several volunteers. After the meeting
the floor was turned over to Max Cray to moderate a discussion of the
various "public-net" type proposals circulating around Austin.

OLD BUSINESS
   Jon Lebkowsky reports that DIR is pursuing other questions at
the moment. He recommends we talk to them at GTC.
   John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment: Ed collected
information and recommends that we table it until May, and then
consider making an offer to participate.

NEW BUSINESS
   Susan Cisco's suggestion about a regular ACT show - contact
Alston Body at 472-2869 - was referred to the Publicity Committee.
Paco will make contact and come up with a recommendation.
   Are we interested in having FringeWare sell things for us? Jon
and Paco presented a proposal. We discussed it; we'll talk about
it again next time.
   There is a PUC workshop Dec. 9. Unfortunately, we have no
one who can make it on this short notice.

COMMUNICATION WITH CAMBRIDGE
        Jon Lebkowsky has been accepted as a member of the "chapter
meeting" planning committee. Jon is collecting information for an
information packet Cambridge wants to produce, covering each
existing group.
   The Board decided to create a Chapter Conference Liaison Committee
- JonL, Ed, Dave (chair), jsq.

CHARTER, BYLAWS, INCORPORATION
   SJ asked Cliff Figallo for further clarification on the "non-
discrimination" clause in the Cambridge charter. His reply was
essentially "Please submit your exact question in writing."

ON THE TABLE
   Institutional memberships.
   Fund-raising.
   Talks with DIR - tabled until the GTC meeting.
   John Henry Faulk Conference - tabled until May, for September meeting.

ADMINISTRIVIA AND ADJOURNMENT
   Roll was called. Smoot's absence was excused, since he
told John that he would be absent. Matt did not check in with anyone.
   The next meeting will be January 12 at 6:30 (executive session)
and 7:00 (open meeting), at SJ Games, with adjournment hopefully set
for 10:00 pm.
   The meeting was adjourned at 12:04 a.m. Wednesday morning.