Archive:2006-04-09

One of many meetings!

=Board Meeting= Board meeting at 4pm in IRC... feel free to listen in, but only the board is supposed to be talking.

By-laws / succession
Gavin has announced his intention to leave the board at the end of this semester. How are we going to replace him? In general, I propose that when we have a decision which is too important for the board to make, that we should have the chapters vote on it in the same fashion.
 * I propose that each chapter get one vote (perhaps with something complicated like preference voting to make it fairer, but no chapter is more important than any other). This makes more sense than having individual "members" because FreeCulture.org is more of a confederation of local clubs than a national organization with membership, and I see no reason to change that.  We have an official system for recognizing official chapters, but no system for recognizing individual members.
 * One might object that bigger chapters should count for more, but I beg to differ. Since FreeCulture.org's primary purpose (for the forseeable future) is to help new chapters get started, it makes sense to give new/small chapters, which need more help, a slight advantage in deciding who would be best at helping them out.

Summit
How much of the national budget should we burn on this conference? Swarthmore is covering speakers, our club members will cover housing, so nothing to worry about there.
 * Meals - Swarthmore may only be able to pay for a couple of meals over the weekend... should we cover the rest of the meals, or should we leave people to fend for themselves for the remaining meals?
 * Travel - We've told people who are coming from far away that we will subsidize their travel expenses (but not cover them in their entirety). The question is, how much of our budget are we willing to use for this purpose?  All of it?  Where is our money going to come from once this grant runs out?

Fundraising

 * Time to start writing grants!
 * Can we fix this damned t-shirt situation?
 * We can have Holmes bring all of our t-shirts to the summit with him, which solves the "DHB needs to do something with our t-shirts but they're busy" problem. But then what?
 * Where should our t-shirts be sold from and shipped from? CC?
 * Can we print more t-shirts in more sizes, e.g. L and XL? Can it be done in time for the summit?
 * Can we sell things other than t-shirts?

501(c)3
Any progress? Can we make this progress more quickly?

Succession

 * Gavin is leaving the board sometime in May
 * We will need to replace him, either through elections or having the board appoint a new board member to fill his place.
 * Applications for his board position are due April 20th. Please send 250 words about why you want to be a board member to freedom@fc.o.

501(c)3
Fred's pro bono lawyer friend is still theoretically working on it, but there is no ETA.

=General Meeting= At 8pm in IRC... please join us!

Chapter clinic
Does your chapter need help? How can we help you? What problems are you facing?

Jobs
Can we get more people signed up for jobs? Can we fill out existing teams and find people to lead new ones?

Summit

 * Are y'all coming? Have you got transportation sorted out?
 * Workshops! Who wants to run workshops?
 * Lightning talks - Wanna give a 5 minute talk on any subject? Sign up now!

Minutes
Attendance: Sid, Nelson, Andy Scudder, Danijel Orsolic, Natalie Downe, Christina Xu, Eldo Varghese, Elisabeth Strawser-Booth
 * (Who is Natalie Downe?)

Chapters Update

 * Christina Xu at Harvard
 * Setting up their "sharing is daring" artshow for April 27th
 * May have an online remix component to encourage online remixing/sharing
 * Outreach: Guide for setting up artshows?
 * Are trying to become an official org and get funding
 * Abram Stern @ Santa Cruz
 * Leadership is graduating, need new members
 * Outreach team: set up a guide for recruiting ideas?
 * Free-Culture CDR with free software, music, movies
 * Outreach team: Keep track of updates from each school somehow
 * Vikki Finnan @ Hampshire
 * Problems recruiting members
 * Suggestions: movie screenings, food, getting help from bigger/sort-of-related bigger organizations, etc.
 * OpenCourseWare Project
 * Nontraditional course systems: how to OCW?
 * Wiki for discussions stuff, put syllabus/assignments up, student-driven if professors aren't willing, incorporating work/study
 * Infrastructure support for OCWs: where can we get geeks who want to help? MIT?
 * Make sure that the club still has non-geek appeal though (potlucks/parties?)
 * Everyone likes pirates
 * Pete Lamborn Wilson's "Pirate Utopias"

Jobs

 * Meetings email reminder handed from CWilkin to Christina Xu
 * Other jobs?
 * Web design: Brian Rowe of Seattle?
 * Leader of Blog team - David Riordan
 * Blog monkey - Vikki Finnan
 * Mailing lists for Outreach, Press, Blog

Summit

 * Lightning Talks