[wplug-board] Draft Minutes for Board Meeting, 2/15/2006

[David Ostroske]

Here are the draft minutes for the WPLUG Board meeting held last
month. Just in time for the Board meeting this month.

A reminder: We're having a WPLUG Membership Meeting at 10:30am this
Saturday, March 11th, conveniently located at the GUM. The PR
Committee proposal will be discussed, and discussion of PR (and
anything else related!) is encouraged. If you want to get something
started with other wpluggers, this is a great time to do it.

---
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA LINUX USERS GROUP
Scheduled Board Meeting, February 15th, 2006, 7pm
Whitehall Borough Public Library

CALL TO ORDER
The meeting was called to order at 7:27 pm.

All 5 Directors were present at the meeting:
* Bill Moran, Chair
* Chris Teodorski, Director-At-Large
* Beth Lynn Eicher, Vice-Chair
* Patrick Wagstrom, Treasurer
* David Ostroske, Secretary

MINUTES
The minutes for the January 18th, 2006 Board meeting were adopted as
corrected. The draft minutes are here:
http://wplug.org/pipermail/wplug-board/2006-January/000602.html

OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS
* ErieLUG Revival
Chris reported that Bill Bukowski ("justbill") was married recently.
Chris will get in contact with him, possibly with Beth via IRC, to
arrange for future activity regarding ErieLUG.

* IRC chat room
Patrick reported that he attempted to contact Rob Levin ("lilo") on
several occasions with no success. He will continue to try getting in
contact with him. We have had no problems with #wplug during this
time.

*Internet Committtee
Beth reported that she met with Jonathan Billings and James O'Kane on
what Penguin is used for.

Bill is working on the new Penguin, which has a problem with its CD
drive. He will work with Duncan to get it working, and Beth is willing
to help.

* BusinessCalendar.org
Dave reported that he will report on efforts to post meeting
announcements to BusinessCalendar.org at the next Board meeting.

* Demo Day
Beth reported that we had a tremendous turnout and much success on
Linux Demo Day, February 4th, 2006.

* March Membership Meeting
We agreed to hold a membership meeting on March 11th at 10:30am to
11:30am at the GUM. Dave will send an announcement to the membership
of the meeting, and will also repost the brainstorming meeting notes
and the events at wplug.org notification.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS
* PR Committee
At this point in the meeting, we switched to discussing the PR
Committee language that we recommended in January.

Vance Kochenderfer had recommended an amendment to the recommendation
on the wplug-plan list. The topic of altering the amendment was
discussed. After debate and amendment, we changed our recommendation
to include the second sentence.

--BEGIN
WPLUG PR committee
A Public Relations Committee shall be appointed by the Board, and
shall be renewed promptly after a new Board takes office. The WPLUG
Vice-Chair shall be a member of this committee and serve as its chair.
Its duties shall include:
1. To swell the ranks of WPLUG membership.
2. To establish and maintain WPLUG's reputation as a key organization
for Open Source in western Pennsylvania.
3. To maintain a high level of awareness of WPLUG activities with the
general public.
4. To obtain favorable publicity for WPLUG.
5. To establish and maintain contact with other Open Source
organizations to coordinate efforts to further the cause of Open
Source.
The committee shall provide regular reports to the Board and to the membership.
--END

This recommendation will be given to the membership for their
approval. It was brought up that the Board could create committees,
but couldn't authorize expenditures on new programs.

We then returned to...
OFFICERS AND COMMITTEE REPORTS
* Treasury
Patrick reported that we have about $497 in cash funds. Beth has $40
from the February 4th meeting that Dave received from Patrick at an
earlier meeting and gave to Beth on the 4th.

The status of the bank account is still unknown. We would have $68.72
in the bank account, if that account were still open. Beth reported
that she checked the statements from the Association for Women in
Science account, and she verified that the WPLUG funds were not merged
into this account. She also reported that she received no letter from
the bank stating that the WPLUG account is closed, and that the bank
has no policy that would allow them to close the account without
notification. So likely, this is a bank error. Beth and Patrick will
meet with the bank on Friday to ensure that our account remains open.

* Program Committee
Patrick reported that the committee has had a horrible time trying to
schedule a meeting. He insisted that holding a meeting is important,
and that they give it one more shot before we consider drastic action.

* Newsletter Committee
Bill reported that the Newsletter Committee is moving along, things
congealing, and Vance is getting more input. Vance has started a
program to track newsletter distribution more closely. He wants to
keep track of how many newsletters are given to members for
distribution at public libraries, and he would like to get in contact
with anyone interested in doing this. He also wants to get more
article submissions. He and the committee still need to set deadlines
for submissions.

NEW BUSINESS
* Board webpage
Beth feels we need a section on wplug.org for the Board, and that we
should have alias email addresses for the officers. The Internet
Committee must take this up.

* Destroy ballots
Dave noted that Vance Kochenderfer, the head teller for last
November's elections, still possesses the ballots for that election,
and that he requested that the ballots be destroyed. Without
objection, the Board so ordered. Dave will alert Vance of this
resolution.

* Minutes webpage(s)
Dave noted that we need a place to post official minutes to membership
and Board meetings. Patrick recommended that we make the website into
a wiki, like most other LUGs do. Bill will consider installing a wiki
on the new Penguin. This is ultimately a matter that the Internet
Committee should handle.

* PayPal
Patrick, as Treasurer, will be given control over WPLUG's PayPal account.

* VMWare
Chris reported that VMWare want to start a users group in Pittsburgh.
We could create a sister group to facillitate cross-polination between
WPLUG and VMWare's efforts. Chris will hear more from them soon, and
will report to the Program Committee in time for their talk in April.

ADJOURNMENT
The Board adjourned at 8:53 pm. Our next meeting will be March 8th, 2006 at 7pm.

--
David Ostroske <eksortso at gmail.com>