The meeting was called to order at 7:01pm by the DACS President, Dave Green.
In attendance were board members Richard Corzo, Dick Gingras, Bert Goff (Secretary & Treasurer), Dave Green (President), Jim Scheef, and Andy Woodruff. Cathy Quaranta and Tom Zarecki were not present. The minutes were taken by Richard Teasdale.
(Names in italics denote responsibilities for actions.)
- The Minutes of the 6/1/2016 Board Meeting were accepted.
Reports
- The Treasurer’s report for June was discussed. Bert reported that while dues receipts in June were down, expenses for the month were also less than usual.
- Membership committee: Jim reported 93 current members (including 5 new), and 14 in-grace, for a total of 107.
- Marketing committee: No report.
- Press Coverage:
- Dave reported that the press release for the July general meeting was distributed last month. A written procedure has been developed for sending of the release.
- The board agreed that all possible efforts should be made to promote John Patrick’s elections presentation in October.
- Website:
- Richard reported that this morning, Wordfence, a WordPress add-on that monitors the DACS website, had detected modified files. The corrupted files were restored from a backup by Annette van Ommeren.
- The monthly e-mailing of the newsletter will in future always be done by Richard.
- The issue of who should perform updates to the website was discussed, since WordPress makes it possible for people other than the webmasters to process content updates. Also discussed was whether to edit copy for the online publication platforms used by DACS (website, Meetup). It was agreed that workshop leaders would be asked to update the website themselves, without having their posts edited by the Copy Editor (some are already doing this). General meeting previews and reviews will continue to be posted by the webmasters, after editing. Other updates (President’s Column, Board Meeting Minutes, etc.) will be made by their authors after being copy edited. Workshop-related updates to Meetup will be made by the workshop leaders directly, without requiring an edit process. All copy for the newsletter will continue to be edited as now.
- Subject to technical approval by Richard, Jim, and Annette, Dave authorized purchase of the premium version of Wordfence, for $50/year, to enable enhanced security protection of the DACS website.
Old Business
- Programs
- Richard reported no response from Gene Barlow to his inquiry about a presentation on Acronis True Image backups.
- John Patrick has agreed to talk about elections (technology) in October. Andy is in communication with him to make arrangements. The board empowered Andy to negotiate those arrangements with John. In particular, it was hoped that John will be willing to present at the regular meeting time, instead of at 6:30.
- Bert reported that the DACS member who may be able to present about intellectual property is receptive to doing so in the fall.
- Richard will contact John Adams, who spoke about Wi-fi Security in January, to invite him back to speak on another topic (possibly backup & recovery).
- Other potential program topics discussed included Google, Microsoft Sharepoint, another astronomy presentation (Jim will investigate), and a 1-hour AskDACS session.
- Renovation of the Resource Center (RC)
- Dave reported that he and Dick met with the building manager of Ives Manor on June 2, and discussed with her the possible presence of mold in the RC. Dave sent her a photo of the suspect area with a view to its examination by a city official, but he has had no response.
- The board again discussed various aspects of the renovation required.
- Jim will contact the building manager regarding how to dispose of the carpeting after its removal from the RC.
- Dick will research high reflective paint to make the wall usable as a projection screen.
New Business
- Snacks for general meetings –
- Cathy (drinks) and Bert (snacks) will make the arrangements in August.
- Jim reported that Frontier has installed a new modem for the internet service at the RC and fixed a wiring problem.
- Attendance at workshop meetings by members of other clubs was discussed.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:13pm.