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HAL-PC Board of DirectorsHouston Area League of PC Users, Inc. Approved minutes of the December 17, 2009 regular Board of Directors Meeting. HOUSTON AREA LEAGUE OF PC USERS ATTENDEES (19): Officers: Directors: 5 HAL-PC members I.The meeting was called to order at 7:09 PM, John Furby presiding. II.Motion to approve the minutes as corrected for the regular meeting held on November 19, was made. The motion passed. III.Reports: President, John Furby 2. The General Meeting on January 30, 2010, will be discussed. At the end of this meeting the Board will go into Executive Session (closed session), which means we will meet as the Board of Directors with no visitors or members present. 3. HAL-PC had a power and HALNet outage last week. We were told we were not fast to react so we are reviewing how it was. We will work on the instructions the volunteers have. We will work on the instructions the staff has. The result will be that we have a procedure starting from when we get calls. We want something short and sweet: what to do and what to say at the Front Desks. Before it was over there were angry emails, understandably, and afterwards there were a few emails that expressed thanks for the help they received. John thanked everyone who helped. [A round of applause was given.] First Vice-President, Rick Archibald 2. Bernie Silverman is willing to assume the chair of the SIGs Committee 3. Reported statistics were aDSL down 2, Dial-up down 25, E-mail up 19, and Filtering up 5. 4. Rick gave more detail about the Dial-up and DSL Outage addressed by John Furby, as follows: There was a problem with dial-up subscribers being unable to access the internet and all subscribers being unable to access Yahoo! web sites. The problems, which seem to be fixed, started with a power outage in the facility that houses our dial-up equipment and somehow impacted DSL users as well. 5. Robert Gunn stated that we had a routing issue. 6. Rick said that our front line telephone tech support performed admirably, answering countless difficult calls from very unhappy subscribers. The following were outstanding: Jeff Browning, Gil Vela, "Modem Bob", Doug Kneupper, Marco Ferrufino, Joe Collins, Ken Richardson, and Jim Foote. No reports from Vice President Programs or Vice President Communications. Treasurer, George Vaughn 2. There is still a negative trend cash receipts and revenue. HAL-PC needs to concentrate on generating some revenue. 3. The most important issues are still the office lease renegotiations and AT&T bills. 4. Help is needed to reconstruct HALNet User Management System cash receipts, reconcile to bank and Quickbooks and two months assistance in business office to post cash receipts. Real Estate Committee Chair, Jim Ward Colocation Committee Chair, Jim Ward IV. New Business 1. John Furby said that the [last three] resignations received all stated that they just don't have the time required to serve on the Board of Directors. Rick Archibald made a motion to accept the resignations of Will Beazley, Allan Holtzmann, and Robert Stewart with regrets and appreciation for their past services. Jim Story seconded and the motion passed. 2. John Furby referred to the next motion on the agenda to elect members of the Board to fill a position. Rick Archibald stated that we had one candidate in the room, Sibley Cooley, and Fernando Bobbio who emailed his intent to run. Sibley Cooley said a few words about himself and stated that "I wanted to do what I can do to work with you [the Board] to make this an organization that is profitable, solvent, and what it was originally founded for." When John Furby asked if anyone wanted to speak for Fernando, Rick Archibald began saying that Fernando had served on the Board in the past and as Chair of the Education Committee in the past and is stepping forward to serve again. Jim Story moved that we elect Sibley Cooley to the Board to fill one of the openings. Jim Ward seconded and the motion passed with over 12 votes. 3. Jim Story moved that we elect Fernando Bobbio to the other position that is vacant. Jim Ward seconded and the motion passed with more than 12 votes. Sibley signed his Conflict of Interest form and signed on the sign-in sheet before taking his place with the other Board members. 4. John Furby asked if there was a proposed agenda for the January General Meeting already set for January 30, 2010, and after reference to the Bylaws requirements, Jim Story moved to have the Executive Committee define the agenda. It was seconded. Kojo Idrissa suggested that anyone that has an idea to contact the Executive Committee. The motion passed. 5. There was a discussion of ways to send the official notice of the January General Meeting to the membership. After discussing the possibility of using some of the electronic social networking, a short printed user journal, Rick Archibald made a motion to send official notice on the [HAL-PC] website and by the e-Bulletin. Sibley Cooley seconded and the motion passed with no opposition. 6. Jim Ward made the following motion: "WHEREAS, HAL-PC received a quote from Oplink.net to buy our dial-up and DSL users for a total of $25,000, WHEREAS, the Co-lo Committee considered the offer as insufficient, RESOLVED, that HAL-PC decline the offer from Oplink.net." Annette Story seconded the motion. Discussion included the merit of doing this, just not at this low a price, as expressed by Norman Crook and Greg Brewer, as well as don't do it at all. Sibley Cooley said that the motion before us is to vote about Oplink. Jim Story called the question. After a vote to not continue discussion but to vote, Greg Brewer objected. The majority voted to not accept the Oplink.net offer. 7. Jim Ward made the following motion: "WHEREAS, the HAL-PC AD Hoc Committee was formed to find a co-location vendor for our ISP, WHEREAS, the Colo Committee evaluated nine possible vendors over a two month period, WHEREAS, co-location would save HAL-PC approximately $5,000 per month in expenses, RESOLVED, that NET Star Telecommunications, Inc. be approved as our co-location vendor." Gary Gere, General Manager of Net Star Telecommunications, Inc. and John Agathon, Vice President of Sales, were present to answer any questions. Robert Gunn asked to hear the proposal. John Agathon explained the proposal: "What HAL-PC is looking at doing is to have all your servers located at this facility, you have all your connectivity here at this property, your OC3 with AT&T, your upstream connectivity, all of the power...of those facilities. What our proposal is [is] to lift that entire data center, consolidate it down to 1 rack in our data center and you guys move your OC3 connection over there to support all your DSL customers and sell you some internet where you will still utilize your same IP addresses because you own them and basically you just outsource where your facilities are over to our facility." Jim Ward stated this would basically save $5,000. After questions, both technical and business, and much discussion several Board members felt there was not enough information to decide about this. A motion was made by Sibley Cooley and seconded to refer it back to the committee. Robert wants to add "with a view to resolve any technical details." Jim Story so moved followed by a second. The amendment was approved with 4 against. A vote was taken on the motion to refer the recommendation back to the Colo Committee with the view of resolving any technical details. The motion was passed with 3 opposed. V. Old Business 1. There were no nominations for the Membership Secretary. VI. Meeting was adjourned. The members of the Board of Directors were reminded that an Executive Session/Closed meeting followed this regular meeting. Next regular Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for January 28, 2010. Annette Story
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