Called to Order: 7:20PM
Attending: Dick Gingras, Richard Corzo, Jim Scheef, Lisa Leifels, Cathy Quaranta, Bert Groff, Bill Saturno, Andy Woodruff, Bruce Preston
Guest: Tom Zarecki
Minutes of Last Meeting: Accepted
Treasurer Report
Balance on hand 12/1/2014 |
$3,475.75
|
INCOME | |
Check/Cash | $375.00 |
PayPal | $30.00 |
less PayPal fees | -$0.96 |
Total Income | $404.04 |
EXPENSES | |
APCUG Annual Fee | $50.00 |
Insurance | -$113.00 |
Newsletter Postage & Supplies | $42.70 |
Newsletter Printing | $78.00 |
Renewal Postcard Postage & Supplies | $11.22 |
Resource Center Phone/Internet | $72.03 |
Total Expenses | $140.95 |
Balance on hand 12/31/2014 |
$3,738.84 |
Bank Balance | $3,654.09 |
PayPal Balance | $84.75 |
Confirmed Balance | $3,738.84 |
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Membership report – Chas Bovaird
General Meetings
Nov. 4 – Secure Digital Communications – Bruce Preston
Dec. 2 – 3D Printing – Julia Truchsess
Jan. 6 – Job Outlook – John Barry
Nov | Dec | Jan | |
31 | 34 | 51 | Seat count |
28 | 23 | 22 | members signed-in |
3 | 11 | 26 | visitors signed-in |
0 | 0 | 3 | presenter staff |
Membership stats
Nov | Dec | Jan | |
115 | 113 | 109 | Paid members |
111 | 104 | 105 | with e-mail addresses |
1 | 1 | 11 | new members |
DACS.DOC
Nov | Dec | Jan | |
75 | 75 | 75 | printed |
12 | 12 | 16 | page count |
41 | 41 | 41 | mailed members |
5 | 5 | 5 | mailed other |
14 | 14 | 14 | mailed library |
Old Business
- Membership committee
- When we distribute press releases electronically we need CiviCRM configured to report that it has been opened. The process of distribution must be made a ‘turn-key’ process so that it may be launched with minimal need for Richard or Jim. Jim and Richard will implement once conversion from Drupal to WordPress is finished. Richard Teasdale will need to continue current process.
- CiviCRM to WordPress integration – Jim and Richard will work on it at SIG meeting, Jan. 7th.
- How many paid members do we now have? 114
Dick will generate definition of roles and activities of the membership committee (not of individuals that of the committee.) - Dick wants to expand our Civi mailing list to include 1,600 additional recipients from Access database for GM and other announcements. He needs to know the data columns available in Civi so that he can generate the comparable data from the Access database. Jim said he would provide.
- Marketing committee status
- Committee should include all the talent we need for an effective promotion each month to compose and distribute meeting event posters. Annette for ‘custom’ graphics, Allan for access to clip-art subscription. Create promotional material such as new pamphlets, look for ways to identify how to promote DACS and our activities, evangelize at various merchant meet-ups and similar venues, capitalize on using social media, and send compelling press releases to print and non-print media, coordinate 25th anniversary activities
- Dick needs definition of the roles and activities of this committee. (Again, not individuals, the committee.)
- Considering different location(s) for meetings – Western Connecticut facilities, especially if we can do joint events. If so, then absolutely must give advance notice of the site change. We will try several times before we commit to frequenting a different location. Note: Hospital has reserved room across the hall for the period during which the auditorium is being remodeled.
- Should send targeted e-mails after special events.
- 25th recognition activities
- Need PSA (Public Service Announcements) for DACS. Tom Z. says that students at Western could help write them and the Western radio station would broadcast them.
- SCORE relationship –
- DACS is co-sponsoring their Feb – March Small Business Series at the Danbury Library.
- DACS is organizing workshops with Microsoft and SCORE on using Microsoft Office
- Discussed promoting and participating in Microsoft workshop series at Microsoft store
- Discussed participating in Danbury Chamber of Commerce’s Merchant Mixture events.
- Program committee
- Upcoming events
- February – Video Streaming – Tom Joiner – Andy has already submitted preview
- March – Orienteering – Ed Hicks – Preview: Tom Z
- April – TBD
- May – John Patrick – change meeting time to 6:30 as per his request – approved. Must publicize extensively.
- Can we see if for each presentation
- The presenter can help us publicize the event as we did for our GM yesterday
- If the topic may lead to formation of a new work shop or series of workshops
- Discussed the new meeting format and ways to improve it.
- Many participated in “Networking” after the presentation.
- Adjourning to the hospital café rather than Chili’s was well received perhaps 20 did so.
- Upcoming events
- Web site status
- SSL certificate – Jim to check with Bluehost to see if a self-signed certificate be assigned to just one subdomain.
- Bert reports that PayPal non-profit discount is in place
- Bert reports that there was no Amazon Smile activity yet.
- Bert update on new insurance policy – although they had negotiated lower premium, liability portion went up considerably negating much of the expected reduction in premium. He will follow up to see why it didn’t match his quote etc.
New Business
- Extensive dues increase discussion – as with many other organizations the cost of printing and distributing a hard copy newsletter is draining our treasury. It was decided that we need to increase membership dues to $40 with $20 premium for hard copy newsletter. Voted and approved.
- Informal conversations with prospective members indicates that the term SIG is jargon that means nothing to many people. We are going to change terminology to “monthly workshop” for recurring events, or just ‘special workshop’ for one-time events. This will take place immediately.
- Comparatively brief discussion as to use of “tag lines” on documents, electronic or printed. The discussion is to be continued via the forum under the Marketing Committee.
- The topic of communication overload was discussed. There are way too many copies of messages being sent back and forth with copies to people who need not be copied. As in the past there is also ‘topic creep’ such that a thread of messages may go off on a tangent and it becomes harder to find as the subject line no longer is pertinent. Dick will distribute the structure of the distribution lists and make sure that lists do not nest, etc.. Board and committee members are asked to please be considerate as to which distribution list is used or just address to a specific individual as appropriate. Reply to the group should be used judiciously. Another problem is that the ‘From:” on receiving message addressed to the group inconsistently does not show the originator – sometimes it is just “on behalf of” and others it is silent. Please sign your messages within the body of the message.
Meeting adjourned at 10:00 PM with many open items untouched due to running out of time.