Called to order: 7:08
Attending: Dick Gingras, Cathy Quaranta, Bert Goff, Lisa Leifels, Richard Corzo, Jim Scheef
Guests: Tom Zarecki, Bruce Preston
Minutes of Last Meeting: Approved
Treasurer Report
Balance on hand 1/1/2015 |
$3738.84
|
INCOME | |
Check/Cash | $405.00 |
PayPal | $225.00 |
less PayPal fees | -$7.05 |
Dues Subtotal | $622.95 |
Total Income | $622.95 |
EXPENSES | |
Insurance | $676.00 |
Newsletter Postage & Supplies | $0 |
Newsletter Printing | $0 |
Newsletter Subtotal | $0 |
Renewal Postcard Postage & Supplies | $0 |
Resource Center Phone/Internet | $0 |
Total Expenses | $676.00 |
Balance on hand 101/30/2014 |
$3,685.79 |
Bank Balance | $3583.09 |
PayPal Balance | $102.70 |
Confirmed Balance | $3,685.79 |
Opening Comments
- New workshop series planned for April on using MS Office suite being developed by joint effort from Microsoft, SCORE, and DACS that will later evolve into an ongoing “DACS Only” workshop series. Dick would like these to evolve into DACS workshop presented independently by DACS.
- Lisa and Dick participated in an Advertising and Social Media class (MKT 315) with Tom Zarecki. Tom set this up as an exercise for the entire class of 28 students to serve as an Ad agency for DACS and two other non-profit organizations. Lisa and I are very excited at the reception we got and the excellent questions the students asked. We are looking forward to a follow-up meeting in a few weeks and their recommendations near the end of the semester.
Old Business
- Membership committee
- Richard C. worked over weekend and got CiviCRM now working properly, including recording of bounced e-mails due to bad addresses.
- Sign-in at GM: Guests fill in Google form, members just check sheet.
- Distributed press releases. Richard C. set up Richard Teasdale so he can do mailings and reports.
- Need to finish backup process.
- Need to get SSL certificate installed on Bluehost.
- Discussion as to whether there is a need to bump Bluehost service to “Pro” level. Taken off-line.
- Marketing committee status
- Dick requests members to briefly comment on definition of the Roles and activities of this committee
- Committee met and discussed pre-GM planning, ‘tag line’ study, look at Meetup data for such things as “What are you interested in?”
- Program committee
- Dick requests members to briefly comment on definition of the Roles and activities of this committee
- GM – Ed Hicks – Orienteering – Tom Zarecki review (?)
- Upcoming events
- Mar: GM – Mike Brooks – Starting a Small Business in your spare time
- Apr GM – Tom Zarecki – Tips & Tricks for Using Social Media – Facebook, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Meetup, Twitter, Instagram
- May GM: John Patrick – State of Internet and Health
- Can we see if for each presentation
- The presenter can help us publicize the event as we did for our January GM
- If the topic may lead to formation of a new work shop or series of workshops
- Web site status
- SSL certificate – Jim will get Bluehost to install our certificate.
- Amazon Smile status – no activity seen by Bert
- Insurance status – Bert reports we are now covered by The Hartford, better coverage for less.
New Business
- New addition to DACS Board because of vacancy created by Bruce Preston’s resignation.
- I nominate Tom Zarecki because of his expertise in marketing, social media, and the many contributions he has already made on behalf of DACS. Moved, seconded. Approved by Board unanimously..
- New Recording Secretary needed. Need not be a board member. – still open
- Communication overload alternatives – eliminating duplicate, triplicate emails. If someone is on multiple mailing lists, as most of us are, we will all get a copy from each mailing list Possible solutions –
- DACS Forum – it is perceived to be easier to use than SharePoint and already exists on our website.
- SharePoint – we have it but no one knows how to use it well enough to teach it.
- Facebook private page – exists but no one knew it was possible. Why start yet another methodology?
- To be effective, we need somebody to train everyone how to use whatever tool we choose. Maybe a desktop share with practice session preceded by a YouTube overview. Whatever we choose will need to be setup and organized. No one stepped forward to organize this.
- Tag line discussion, contest? Marketing Committee is working on it.
- New Ways and Means committee to determine how to increase revenue – This topic will be discussed at next Board meeting
- WHY –
- Clean up, paint, discard accumulated junk we don’t need, replace non-functional furniture and equipment with something that works for us and makes our home presentable to prospective members and guests (see item 4 in Ongoing Discussions)
- Design and print new pamphlets and flyers
- WHY –
- Purchase DACS promotional items for resale or for raffle (tie in to DACS 25th)
- Have the reserve we need to make things happen
- HOW –
- Sponsors from people or organizations that may benefit from a targeted audience (see item 3 in ongoing discussions below)
- Recruiters – job placement
- Web Designers
- Developers
- Manufacturers and national retailers
- Organization such as banks and others that have set-asides for supporting local (501c3) groups such as DACS, local businesses, etc.
- Reselling “value added” items such as thumb drives with DACS content, DACS branded items such as hats, mugs, jerseys, and license plate frames that can be sold at GMs, workshops, and fairs.
- Sponsors from people or organizations that may benefit from a targeted audience (see item 3 in ongoing discussions below)
- Dues increase (done)
Ongoing Discussions – Everyone was asked to be prepared to discuss these at out next Board meeting
- General discussion on How do we increase membership and attendance and what role should each of us play to accomplish this?
- Solicit more suggestions for 25th year celebratory events and preparation. – We are already celebrating! – … or are we? Great ideas about commemorative DVD of newsletters, videos, Industry timelines of events, DACS milestones, etc. – We just need to make it happen!
- Brainstorm further and discuss how we can best use this occasion to promote DACS and attract new members.
- Should we form a “DACS Quarter Century” sub-committee?
- DACS Sponsors – If you look at many other non-profit organizations in the area you will notice that many of them list sponsors on their websites and mailings. In addition to financial assistance and services they provide, it also establishes more credibleness to the organizations.
- Discuss how to attract sponsors and how they can help us. What is our USP?
- Possible sponsors are Danbury Savings Bank, Union Savings Bank, Score, etc.
- Current sponsors Microsoft store, Apple store
- Discuss best way to display this
- We still need to list all of DACS assets and replacement costs. Charlie and Bert have already itemized all our physical assets at the Resource Center. We only need to Verify or reestablish $$ value (if any!):
- Who is available to do this? Bert, Jim,_Charlie,_____________
- February? Let’s settle on a date: ________________________
- Determine best way to donate or discard items we don’t need. Publish in a special mailing?
- CiviCRM WordPress integration:
- Drew Kwashnak is managing the project and attempting to get the Civi Dev Team (virtual) meeting date
- Drew has set up a “sandbox” on BlueHost consisting of CiviCRM/WordPress. Transfer a subset of the current CiviCRM membership data to test and determine how to integrate with dacs.org.