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HAL-PC Board of Directors

Houston Area League of PC Users
Board of Directors

Agenda for Regular Meeting to be held Thursday,
July 28, 2011, at HAL-PC Headquarters, SIG Room A


Unapproved minutes of the July 28, 2011 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 28, 2011
BOARD OF DIRECTORS MEETING
Houston Area League of PC Users, Inc.
4543 Post Oak Place
Houston, Texas 77027

ATTENDEES (15):

Officers:
Annette Story, President
Fernando Bobbio, First Vice-President (SIGs) (absent)
John Furby, Vice-President Programs
open Vice-President Communications
Annette Story, Recording Secretary
DJ Brown Membership, Secretary
Jerald Linsley, Treasurer

Bernard Silverman, Executive Committee
Rick Archibald, Executive Committee
Greg Brewer, Director
Bill Budell, Director (absent)
Marco Ferrufino, Director (absent)
Meredith Foster, Director (absent)
Chris Hanlon, Director
Erika Hanlon, Director
Jay Kraker, Director
Mary Ann Mitscherling, Director
John Molson, Director (absent)
Charles Olsen, Director
Kevin Peck, Director (absent)
Bernard Silverman, Director
Jim Story, Director
Dennis Waltman, Director (absent)
Mike Wilson, Director

0 Guest

I. The meeting was called to order at 7:07pm, Annette Story, President, presiding.

II. The minutes for the regular meeting held on June 23, 2011, were approved as provided.

III. Reports
A. President, Annette Story

  1. Annette Story asked that each member of the Board of Directors (BOD) fill in on the provided form both the telephone number and the email address that will be distributed in contact lists to Board members only.
  2. Annette also requested Board members to sign up to be on a Standing Committee on the committee list traveling around the room. She reminded Board members that they are required to be on at least one Standing Committee. Since some names were already on the list, she asked that members double check to make sure their names were on the correct committees.
  3. The Inventory List of the Downstairs Storage Room was emailed to the Board so Annette commented that many items were broken, like chairs, and needed to be disposed of by recycling or trashing. Everyone was asked to review the list.
  4. Doug Kneupper has been given read access to the Office System database.
  5. There have been complaints from HAL-PC members because of the problems of some membership cards not opening the main suite doors. This is compounded by the lack of Front Desk coverage, especially after 7:00 p.m. Volunteers are needed badly to cover the phones and open the doors when cards don't work. Robert Spotswood will give status of the CCURE System and answer questions later in the meeting.
  6. There is a HAL-PC FACEBOOK. A short discussion ensued about the postings and the hope they would be about HAL-PC. The Executive Committee will talk and address the question with Meredith Foster about what does HAL-PC want concerning its FACEBOOK.


B.First Vice-President (SIGs), Fernando Bobbio, absent.
C.Vice-President Programs, John Furby

  1. John Furby had nothing to report on programs.
  2. John has suggested to the landlord, RM Crowe, that since we have an extra couch and several chairs we could put them out in the atrium/entrance to the building. The landlord didn't mind our putting out things but John is leaving it up to them to decide.
  3. John had someone come and look at our old surplus printers. He was not interested. The Executive Committee made the decision to get rid of the printers. The Houston Recycling Center would not take them from John because they were commercial grade so he took them to Best Buy who put recycle stickers on them. He also took 2 printers to Compucycle.
  4. Concerning writing Tickets (work requests) to The Aldridge Company (TAC), John said if the requestor is not known to TAC, the request will be rejected and authorization requested which will delay the process. Rick Archibald stated that the agreement with TAC was also that they would do no work they would charge for without prior authorization.
  5. At the request of Annette Story, John Furby explained the procedure involving tickets. John said that HAL-PC has a managed services contract with TAC. To ask Aldridge to fix something one sends the request by email to Helpdesksupport@Aldridge.com. Jerald Linsley asked what are we charged to look at our own data or to change or write a new report. The answer from John and Annette was that each request is evaluated by TAC as to whether to charge or not.

D.Vice-President Communications, open position
E.Membership Secretary, D J Brown

  1. D J Brown had no report.

F.Treasurer, Jerald Linsley

  1. Jerald Linsley had written reports he handed out and then reported as follows.
  2. Jerald Linsley talked about the reconciliation of the checking account from April 30, 2009 through July 30, 2011, and the reconciliation of the depository account from June 1 through July 2011. Apparently the depository account has never been reconciled; monies were just deposited through credit card companies, members' online credit card renewals, and batch deposits through HAL-PC's [Headquarters] office. "The problem has been to associate the various deposits with our various types of income, primarily membership dues, HALNet services, and others." Jerald gave examples of problems that were encountered. The depository account deposits need to be added to QUICKBOOKS.
  3. Backups o QUICKBOOKS was reinstituted and a test of backup and restore was accomplished.
  4. QUICKBOOK classes will start for Jerald and the two office staff. Jerald Linsley and Angela Vela will go in August and Lucille Ewell will attend in September.
  5. Annette Story stated that Jerald has been "hard at it" doing all different aspects of the Treasurer's job, has been at the office a lot, and has had a little bit of help from a friend who is a CPA. She thanked him for all members of HAL-PC for his great work. [Applause]
  6. Jerald stated that the Unpaid Bills Report has been cleared of current unpaid bills and represents only long-term bills that now total only $15,000.
  7. Annette reported that there is a problem with the Autorenew procedure in our Office System. TAC has several Tickets on this problem.
  8. Jerald reported that the purchase of new QUICKBOOKS software was done through TechSoup. D J Brown explained that TechSoup collects free and discounted software and sells it to non-profit companies. It was stated that Windows 7 licenses have been purchased for Headquarters and Clear Lake.

IV.Old Business
A.Election of Vice-President Communications

  1. John Furby nominated Christian Hanlon for Vice-Presidemt Communications and it was seconded by Jim Story. Jerald Linsley moved that nominations cease and Christian be elected by acclamation. D J Brown seconded the motion and it passed.

B.Election of Recording Secretary

  1. Rick Archibald nominated Erika Hanlon for Recording Secretary; John Furby seconded. John moved that she be elected by acclamation which was seconded and passed.

C.Election of Membership Secretary

  1. Jim Story nominated D J Brown as Membership Secretary; Jerald Linsley seconded and moved that the nominations cease and D J be elected by acclamation. This was seconded by Mary Ann Mitscherling and passed.

D.Tabled motion to obtain upgrade to the security system for $5,000 until we have adequate facts about what we want to order and multiple bids on that and not necessarily simply fix what we got.

  1. Jerald Linsley made a motion to [take off the] table this motion for purposes of discussion. Greg Brewer seconded and motion passed.
  2. Robert Spotswood was invited to review the status of the CCURE system and other things. Robert Spotswood said that the old system was down and Greg Brewer could give a more current picture. Greg and Doug Kneupper worked on Landslide on Saturday and discovered a non-commit database problem. Doug has a second machine where he has installed Windows NT and is attempting to install version 6.1 of CCURE. There have been problems with the hardware key.
  3. Rick Archibald explained that the CCURE software opens and locks the doors. It is only the server that has been down. The controllers on the wall continue to function for sliding some membership cards.
  4. Robert was asked about the creating of membership cards by Jim Story and he stated that the problem right now is activating the cards not creating them. When asked by Jerald Linsley when this system was originally installed the answer was it was installed on an NT system [2002]. Greg stated that we find that we need to upgrade the Landslide server hardware like more memory, newer CPU, general upgrade of the motherboard.
  5. Greg Brewer made a motion "To authorize up to $300 for the hardware for Landslide." Mary Ann Mitscherling seconded and motion passed with no opposition.
  6. Annette Story asked Robert Spotswood to give a status of our database [project of looking at its security]. Robert needs access to the database that he doesn't have. A discussion followed about how to get the access needed.
  7. Robert explained that the database handles authentication and there are 2 servers: One is on the old mail server which is running over at TAC's IT area and the other is Office. They are tied in many ways that I don't know.
  8. Christian Hanlon asked if something that the Webmaster Meredith Foster is doing that may help with some of our problems. Rick Archibald answered yes.
  9. Robert Spotswood was thanked for his information by applause.

G. Annette Story stated that the next Board of Directors Meeting is scheduled for August 25, 2011, at 7:00pm.

V.New Business
A.Inventory List of Downstairs Storage Room

  1. Annette Story covered this under the President report.

VI.Adjourned at 8:55pm, with an Executive Session to be called after adjournment to approve the minutes of the July 28, 2011, Special Session.

Annette Story
HAL-PC Recording Secretary