HAL-PC Board of Directors

Houston Area League of PC Users
Board of Directors

Executive Committee Meeting Minutes 10/18/2011

Executive Committee Meeting

Attendees (5):
Annette Story, President
Open, First Vice President (N/A)
John Furby, Vice President Programs (absent)
Christian Hanlo,n Vice President Communications
Erika Hanlon, Recording Secretary
D J Brown, Membership Secretary (absent)
Jerald Linsley, Treasurer
Rick Archibald, Executive Committee
Bernard Silverman, Executive Committee (absent)

Called to order at 7:30.

I. Security
1. Doors
  1. CCURE status
    CCure is now working. Member cards can be fixed. There are now a lot of member cards that need to be reset.
  CCure system UPS batteries were replaced.
1. Proximity cards
  Need to identify who needs access to what.
1. Second combination, 'box' for keys outside Accounting office
  We have a spare combination box. Recommend two combination boxes outside of the office so that we can separate the SIG room key and the mailbox key. Rick Archibald volunteers to take care of this.
2. Databases, private data, web site
  There is now a PDF form on the website that you fill out to become a member. Cannot fill out the form online anymore because there were security issues.
Propping doors open is generally not a good idea - all present agree. This will probably go away when proximity cards are distributed.
R M Crow Lease costs & actions
1. A cost increase each year is part of our three year contract. There are additional escalation costs for utilities, insurance, landscaping, etc. Jerald Linsley is going to look into when these are due. Gary Loh is a commercial real estate person that may be able to advise us. May want to look into auditing for next years rent increase. This may need to be done by a CPA.
SIG Room C
1. Computers
  Some computers for Linux SIG for the Lab. Other computers we were given last year for A+. Education computers: there are two sets of these, new black ones and old white towers. For very basic classes it might be possible to use the old white towers. Rick suggests giving away the old white towers to members. Jerald knows someone that might want them for their organization.
We need a volunteer to inventory the computers in SIG C.
1. Old Cable
  Would like to clear this out pretty fast. Annette Story is interested in purchasing some of this from HAL. The rest can be given away, sold to salvage, or sold to members. Robert Spotswood said he will sell some of the really old cable.
2. Records - storing digitally
  Greg is able to get old records shredded. Greg also has a good feeding scanner that we can use to scan records. We have a scanner at HAL but it is very slow.
DSL Terms of Service
The terms of service should include a blurb about copyright infringement (we reserve the right to ...). DSL terms of service should also be on the website. This will buy us a lot of protection in terms of liability.
1. Copyright Infringement
  Christian Hanlon recommends creating an email account at HAL-PC.org for copyright holders to email us at (copyright@, infringement@).
2. Spamming
  Christian recommends an official policy for spamming.
  These should be posted on the wiki as projects.
Domain names Ticket 43807 and Change Request 43620
Ticket 43620 - The purpose of this ticket is to get name@(list of domains) rerouted to [email protected]. We need to respond to the ticket with something like "this is great information, are you going to hold us responsible for its technical accuracy?" Need to come up with a good way to phrase this. Action: send info to Jerald about the ticket and he will help with wording.
BOD Meeting on October 27, 2011
1. New Business
  1. Add Safety and Security Committee to Standing Committees
Add TAC overage bill to BOD agenda. Need to approve the remainder of the money. We did pay the month of April bill. We still haven't gotten the invoices for August and September.
1. Executive Session to verify changes to minutes of July 28, 2011, Executive Session.
2. Format of Officers Reports
  Emailing out reports a few days before the meeting could help the meeting move along more quickly. Christian and Jerald plan to try this out.
Lonestar College Seminars
Annette had an action to talk to Joe Winnery about participating in one of the seminars. We need to have people step forward to participate. Maybe we should ask the question of the organization somehow on the website. Possibly put this on website under volunteer opportunity.
Itemized list of Job Tasks requested July 14
Rick requests a list of committees.
Financial
Believe this week we will make the last late payment to AT&T.
1. October Quickbooks course
  Haven't heard from Gil yet, but will contact him with a reminder.
2. Liability Insurance with Hartford Insurance
  Will pay about $3200 at the end of the month.

The 990 tax forms have been e-filed. This is on time. Started on 3rd round of reconciliations of the checking account. Should finish this by the end of the month.

Lab Wiring Upgrades
1. Problems with connections and recovery, troubleshooting
2. Testing, planning, documentation
  SIG leaders that use the lab need to get together and decide what functionality is required in the lab. Jeff Browning is responsible for keeping the Windows updates in the room. Computers need to be reconnected after work is done in the room.
HAL-PC Membership of SIG Leadership
SIG leaders have to be members according to the bylaws. SIG leaders are elected from the members of the SIG, and all SIG members must be members of HAL-PC.

Annette will try talking to Robert Stewart (current Database & GUI DeSIGn SIG leader) about renewing his membership. Emails are being sent to remind people in SIGs to renew their membership. The executive committee should review the email that is being sent out.

E-mail distribution lists
Need to be created and given out to make sure that all interested parties are included on emails.

XIII. Other

Network status: have added a new server to the server room. It has a wiki site on it and two web servers. One can be exclusively for testing and the other can be used to host the website. An authentication server is in work that will allow for single SIGn on. This could replace the account authentication in Office.

Jerald said he is interested in 3rd party software for credit card processing that can integrate with Quickbooks. Christian stated that there are plugins for Drupal that will allow the website to work with Quickbooks or 3rd party software. Rick suggests Platypus for a possible top to bottom replacement for Office. This is a package oriented for ISPs.

Visitor/door/guest policy is needed that encourages new members and generates interest. Public special events would be good.

XIV. Adjourn at 10:05