Archive:2008-02-10

This is the last meeting of the old Board and the first meeting of the new Board.

=Agenda=

Old Board
Unfinished business and other stuff that the old board wants to discuss with the new board before handing off the organization.

Core Team
How can we get this essential chapter representative body started? Obviously the first step is to start having meetings... presumably the Core Team officially exists once it has had two successful meetings.

Volunteers / work
How are we going to get things done around SFC?

Things that need to get done
Rather than attempting to actually resolve any of these questions/issues, I simply want to make sure that we raise all of the important issues and put them on the new board's radar.
 * Web team - The big project right now is the chapters/contacts database, but other parts of the site need to be improved/maintained as well.
 * How can we get past the Asheesh bottleneck / enable other people to make progress even when Asheesh is busy? We need to better document the internal workings of the website, most things are documented at website documentation but some of the documentation is inadequate, incomplete or missing.
 * Chapter webspace
 * Blog / website content
 * We need to decide to blog or not the Affordable Textbooks post *today*, I'm putting it on the new board's agenda but just mentioning it here
 * Wiki
 * Media / press
 * Managing e-mail inboxes
 * Someday there will be a help-desk-type ticket tracking system e.g. OTRS, until then there are just shared IMAP accounts.
 * Finances / bank account
 * Who will act as treasurer? Currently Nelson + Nelson's mom is taking care of the money.  Since the money has almost never been spent, there isn't much to keep track of.  The new board needs to figure out how funds will be managed in the future.


 * Shipping / store
 * Currently all the t-shirts and everything are sitting in Nelson's apartment. This is not sustainable, and it doesn't really help that much if you just move it all to someone else's apartment.  This is what the Coordinator is for, but what can be done until one is hired?  (Obviously Nelson will ship the stuff that is in his apartment right now, but what about after that?)  Can a chapter take collective responsibility for shipping until a Coordinator saves us, and put it in their school space?


 * FC Labs?
 * Half-ass project that Nicholas LaRacuente is sort of working on... SFC-developed projects such as CU-LATOR should have a place to live, rather than being hidden in a single chapter that could die off.

How to get things done
To-do lists? Project management software?
 * Basecamp until we get something better?
 * Open source software that we can install on freeculture.org? E.g. http://www.projectpier.org/

Coordinator
What's the process for selecting and hiring a Coordinator?
 * Fundraising
 * Legal stuff / red tape
 * Choosing a coordinator

Passing the torch
Any last words of wisdom the old board wants to get off its chest? Welcome to the new board, and good luck!

Chairperson

 * Elect a chairperson per Bylaws Article V, §1.2.1.1. Chairperson.
 * What exactly are the chairperson's duties? Need to flesh them out beyond "The chairperson shall be responsible for: arranging the time and method of meetings of the board, setting the agenda for meetings of the board, and presiding over meetings of the board."

Vice-chairperson
Elect a vice-chairperson per Bylaws Article V, §1.2.1.2. Vice-Chairperson.

Secretary
Who will take minutes?
 * Possibility of combining Secretary and Vice Chairperson

Transparency
How can we make our dealings transparent while also getting things done?
 * Do we want to have semi-public meetings with private portions as well?

Advisory Board
Do we want one, and if so, do we want one now?

=Minutes=