The meeting was called to order at 7:07pm by the DACS President, Dave Green.
In attendance were board members Richard Corzo, Bert Goff (Secretary & Treasurer), Dave Green (President), Jim Scheef, and Andy Woodruff. Dick Gingras was not present. The minutes were taken by Richard Teasdale.
(Names in italics denote responsibilities for actions.)
- The Minutes of the 12/7/2016 Board Meeting were accepted.
Reports
- The Treasurer’s report for December was discussed. Bert reported that dues receipts for the year 2016 were significantly less than in 2015, however expenses were also less than the prior year, making for a net loss in 2016 of under $200. (Bert noted that two December dues receipts were accidentally omitted and so an amended report will be issued.) The initial response to the Resource Center Capital Campaign has been encouraging.
- Membership committee:
- Jim reported 90 paid-up members (including 1 new), and 8 in-grace, for a total of 98. (The Membership report will also be amended.)
- 31 people attended the January 3 General Meeting, 10 of whom were visitors, including several first-time visitors.
- Press Coverage:
- Dave reported that press releases for the January general meeting were sent out on December 22. One recipient (Hamlet Hub) acknowledged the release.
- Website:
- Richard reported that another instance of compromised files was detected by Wordfence. The compromised files were restored by Annette.
- Jim reported that he will install a new release of CiviCRM in the near future.
- Access to the DACS website is still blocked from WCSU’s campus network by McAfee Site Advisor, due to the recent hacking. Two requests for review have been filed with McAfee by WCSU, without result.
Old Business
- Programs:
- David Fischer will speak at the February general meeting on the subject of “5 Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website”. Richard will write the Preview, and Andy will write the Review.
- Dave will speak to the manager of Best Buy about a possible speaker for the topic of Wearable Devices.
- Two potential topics were suggested by Steve Harkness at the January general meeting: (1) drones, and (2) a new hackerspace planned for New Milford. It was agreed that both of these would be good general meeting topics, if suitable speakers can be found. Bert will follow up on either or both.
- Renovation of the Resource Center (RC):
- It was agreed that it would be desirable to approach businesses as well as individuals for donations. Jim and Bert were appointed to a committee for that purpose.
- Andy reported on the status of his dealings with Meadow Ridge for acquiring a donation of used carpet.
- Jim announced his retirement from the DACS Board of Directors. He pointed out the need for a second person to have in-depth knowledge of CiviCRM.
- Potential new directors were discussed. Andy pointed out that people who live far away can attend meetings via Skype and therefore should not be discounted for that reason alone.
- Slack: Experience with Slack was discussed further. Richard reported that the Linux workshop is not interested in using it.
- Richard Teasdale has volunteered to continue Jim’s work on a survey of the membership to determine the level of interest in a NAS workshop, using the SurveyMonkey account created by Jim. Other options for eliciting feedback from the membership were discussed. The desirability of a survey about a single topic i.e. NAS, was questioned. Richard T will initiate a discussion with board members via Slack to determine if and how to proceed.
New Business
- Snacks for general meetings:
- Richard (drinks) and Lisa (snacks) will make the arrangements in February.
- It was agreed that non-board members should have the opportunity to provide snacks.
- Parking options at the Resource Center were discussed.
The meeting was adjourned at 8:40 pm.