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HAL-PC Board of Directors

Unapproved minutes of the July 22, 2010 regular Board of Directors Meeting.
Any corrections, changes, additions to these minutes will be provided following approval of the minutes by the Board.

HOUSTON AREA LEAGUE OF PC USERS
MINUTES OF July 22, 2010
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
Houston Area League of PC Users, Inc.
4543 Post Oak Place
Houston, Texas 77027

ATTENDEES (18):

Officers:
John Furby, President
Rick Archibald, First Vice President (SIGs)
Sibley Cooley, Vice President Programs
Robert Spotswood, Vice President Communications
Annette Story, Recording Secretary
(vacant) Membership Secretary
(vacant) Treasurer

Directors:
(vacant) Executive Committee
Jim Ward, Executive Committee
Greg Brewer, Director
Bill Budell, Director (absent)
D J Brown, Director
Marco Ferrufino, Director
Meredith Foster, Director
Kojo Idrissa, Director
Jay Kraker, Director (absent)
Jerald Linsley, Director
Claudia Ludwig, Director (absent)
Mary Ann Mitscherling, Director
John Molson, Director (absent)
Charles Olsen, Director
Kevin Peck, Director
Bernard Silverman, Director
Jim Story, Director
Mike Wilson, Director

3 HAL-PC members

I. The meeting was called to order at 7:05pm, John Furby presiding.
Newly elected Board Members that missed the June 24, 2010 meeting filled out "Conflict of Interest Statement" and "Write-In Candidate Acceptance Statement for Annual Election of June 19, 2010," when applicable.

II. Motion to approve the minutes, with corrections as noted, of the regular meeting held on June 24, 2010 was made by Jim Story, seconded by Jerald Linsley, and passed.

III.Reports

As prearranged, Rick Archibald stated that Jay Kraker currently in New York was now on Rick's cell speaker phone. It was confirmed by Jay Kraker and John Furby.

President, John Furby

  1. John Furby stated that the storeroom in the building space of interest to the Japanese American Society of Houston (JASH) was mostly cleared out. We are hoping the break room (kitchen) will be open to the public. We may be paying rent on it.
  2. John's summary of activity included several spam attacks traced to Montenegro, Zaire, and Nigeria-like messages; a lot of customer calls; the cleaning up (sorting through) of the office storeroom continuing; checking of power and phone connections; the HAL-PC Magazine archives are being moved.
  3. The Aldridge Company (TAC) Managed Services contract has started.
  4. A meeting with RM Crowe, our landlord, on lease negotiations for the reduction in square footage for the Headquarters facility is scheduled for tomorrow. This follows internal HAL-PC meetings with Gary Loh who is a pro-bono real estate expert who has been and is a great help.
  5. The "back room" contents are being identified as "junk" or "good." There are hard drives, software that has never been used. HAL-PC has a surplus of printers that do not work.
  6. A number of co-lo equipment was identified, one of which was active though the company had not been billed for a long time. After identification a collection of back payments has begun.
  7. John began a summary of happenings this past year by saying, "This past year has been interesting. We started out with a difficult situation." Subjects included were AT&T on time payments of current bills and paying negotiated amounts on HAL's large unpaid balance which is in on going negotiations. [John Fury interspersed a wide range of happenings at HAL-PPC as he covered current business at the meeting that is difficult to include in these minutes. Hopefully John will be able to write a history of his past year as he has said he wants to do.]
  8. John stated that it has been suggested that we move the motion concerning the Front Desk Volunteers to the Executive Session.
  9. Director Mary Ann Mitscherling asked with all these things does that mean we have positive cash flow. John said, "No, I said we have reduced our expenses."
  10. Director Sibley Cooley, asked about the CPA that the Board authorized to hire and the fact that we needed to file for an extension. Rick Archibald stated that we do not have to file the extension yet.
  11. Director Annette Story reported on the finances. In summary, the $2,000 retainer for the CPA has been written but will be given to Jaime McElravy, CPA, after the agreed changes to his Engagement Letter. Five thousand dollars was transferred from our Wells Fargo investment account because we have a short-term risk of not having enough funds because the recent outage delayed our daily income from automatic renewals for a short time. The "Daily Forecast" was passed out to the Directors, which showed the financial status. John Furby stated that Mary Ann Mitscherling, Past President, did a lot of work on looking at our banks and the bank she picked has been very helpful and offers good service. Annette stated that the Expenses and Revenues were pretty close.
  12. Director Rick Archibald explained how we use a Depository account and a Checking account. He moves deposits (income) once a day. The goal is to move funds eventually leaving as much as $5,000 so that could have more flexibility on how to grow the funds. The Daily forecast report is a working planning tool. Although expenditures took a spike, it is upfront expense to help us with eventuially reducing expenses like our TAC agreement for Managed Services.
  13. More volunteers are needed to help with the on going moving into the reduced space of the HAL facility.

First Vice President (SIGs), Rick Archibald

  1. Rick Archibald stated that the 2 statistics report emailed to each Board Member included the June 1 report that did have a clerical error showed up in the email only figure.
  2. New Board Member Jay Kraker is interested in Marketing. Marketing and Publicity mean growth to HAL-PC. "We have cut most of the expenses we can cut. Now we need to increase our revenues."
  3. Rick said that we continue to be open to renting out the rooms like we did to the ACWS CPS's about a month ago for a special presentation on Smart Phones for which HAL supplied some technical expentise also. If anyone knows anybody interested, the size of the rooms are 48 in B, 60 in A and 24 in C.
  4. There is a new SIG and leader for SAP users group.
  5. It has not been verified yet but this Saturday at the Linux SIG at 2:00 p.m. there is planned a meeting at which someone from Aldridge will discuss the email being provided through our Managed Services contract.
  6. Rick said that Director Mike Wilson has been working on News which has not been working for some time. He is working on local feeds but plans on using GIGANews. Once up and running we will see if it grows because most ISPs are abanding the News so HAL may have a niche.

VP Programs Sibley Cooley

  1. Sibley Cooley stated, "I have plenty of programs that we could have. I just need to know how many you [the Board of Directors] want... We could have 1 a month.
  2. Sibley asked those who came to the election presentation to give their opinion of the speaker, what his qualifications were, and the potential he represented. John Furby said I thought he was dynamite. I liked what he said. He was wll qualified and knows his stuff." [The presentation was entitled "Cyber Wars." The speaker was Retired officer Stat] Rick Archibald said he was well qualified but coordination of marketing and publicity needs coordinating since only 4 people attended. Sibley stated the coordination will be better next time.
  3. Director DJ Brown asked if it would be possible to stream the program. It was stated that that it can be done. When to have the next General Meeting was discussed. Annette Story suggested that we aim toward a September or October date that would give us some lead time.

Vice President Communications, Robert Spotswood

  1. Robert Spotswood stated that he didn't have much additional to report since is last and John Furby and Rick Archibald had covered most everything. "About the only thing I can add is that I submitted this month's DSL price changes to Doug [Kneupper], Lucille [Ewell], and Angie [Vela] so we are working on that with about 2 more months to go.
  2. Robert siad he had seen and email and logged in to test the interface of Aldridge that is webmail based on squirrel mail.

No ad hoc committee reports.

A break was requested.

IV. Old Business

After 13 minutes, John Furby called the meeting back to order. John stated that we have a good board here. We need to elect a President for the next 11 months. "It has been an exciting time but I am very happy to turn it over."

1. The motion to elect officers was taken from the table. John Furby stated that we are entertaining nominations for President. After lengthy discussions about nominations for President, Mary Ann Mitscherling nominated Sibley Cooley. The nomination was seconded. Jim Story nominated Bill Budell. It was seconded by Annette Story. John Furby asked if it should be a secret ballot. Jim Story moved that we do it open. It was seconded and passed. John asked all in favor of Sibley Cooley, count of 12. Then Bill Budell, count of 2. Sibley Cooley was elected President. Sibley took the gavel and thanked the Directors.
Greg Brewer made a motion that we give John Furby a round of applause for a job well done. [Loud applause.]

The nominations for First Vice-President we open. Annette Story nominated Rick Archibals, seconded by John Furby. Jerald Linsley moved that nominations cease and elect Rick by acclimation. It was seconded and passed.

VP Communications was next and Rick Archibald nominated Jay Kraker and it was seconded by Jim Story. Sibley asked if there were any other nominations. John Furby moved that nominations be closed and seconded by Kojo Idrissa. Motion passed. Jay Kraker is VP Communications.

Mary Ann Mitscherling nominated Sibley Cooley, seconded by Kojo Idrissa. Sibley asked all in favor--it passed.

Jim Story nominated Annette Story for Recording Secretary. A second was heard. Jerald Linsley moved that the nominations cease and Annette be elected by acclimination. John Furby seconded. The motion passed.

Rick Arbhibald nominated DJ Brown as Membership Secretary, seconded by Jim Story. No others were nominated. Rick moved that nominations be closed and DJ be elected by acclimation, seconded by Greg Brewer. Motion passed.

Treasurer was up next. Rick Archibald moved that we table this position until later, seconded by Jim Story. Motion passed.

2. The tabled motion to hold elections of 2 directors to serve as members of the Executive Committee was taken from the table. Rick nominated Robert Spotswood, seconded by Greg Brewer. Jerald Lincley nominated John Furby, seconded by Kojo Idrissa. Both were elected to serve as members of the Executive Committee.

V.New Business

Sibley Cooley stated that since it was so late he suggested we take up the remaining of the business of the Executive Session be at a later date. Jim Story moved that the next Board Meeting begin at 6:30 PM to allow time for the Executive Session at the end. The motion was seconded by Jim Ward and passed.

Jim Ward moved to adjourn and Jim Story seconded. The motion passed.

Next regular Board of Directors meeting is scheduled for August 26, 2010.

Annette Story
HAL-PC Recording Secretary