Called to order: 7:15 PM
Attending: Dick Gingras, Andy Woodruff, Lisa Leifels, Bill Saturno, Richard Teasdale, Richard Corzo, Bruce Preston, Jim Scheef, Bert Goff
Minutes of Last Meeting: Accepted
Treasurer report
Balance on hand 8/1/2014 |
$3,403.12
|
INCOME | |
Dues | |
Check/Cash (5x$30+2x$45) | $240.00 |
PayPal | $135.00 |
less PayPal fees | -$5.12 |
Dues Subtotal: | $369.88 |
Total Income | $369.88 |
EXPENSES | |
CT State Registration (annual) | $50.00 |
General Meeting | |
Supplies | $6.29 |
General Meeting Subtotal: | $6.29 |
Newsletter: | |
Postage & Supplies | $41.30 |
Printing | $78.00 |
Newsletter Subtotal: | $119.30 |
Renewal Postcard Postage & Supplies | $8.84 |
Resource Center: | |
Phone & Internet | $71.94 |
Security (4x/yr)/Keys | $74.85 |
Resource Center Subtotal: | $146.79 |
Total Expenses | $331.22 |
Balance on hand 8/31/2014 |
$3,441.78 |
Bank Balance | $3,341.54 |
PayPal Balance | $100.24 |
Confirmed Balance | $3,441.78 |
Announcements
Generic business cards are available to everyone who will at any time be evangelizing DACS which includes everyone on the Board and other active members.
Old Business
Solicit more suggestions for 25th year celebratory events and preparation. – Only 4 months away! Great ideas last month about commemorative DVD of newsletters, videos, Industry timelines of events, DACS milestones, etc. – Bruce will generate industry milestone list. Jim will gather online DACS.DOCs back to 1998. Bill S. will do scanning of old documents. Dick G. will see if Marc still has old PageMaker files. Bert identified via CT secretary of state that our registration was August 1990.
We need to list all of DACS assets and replacement costs. Bert, Jim, Charlie – due end October.
Bert will provide Dick G. with list of various electronic accounts.
Discussion of how to promote DACS, primarily to grow membership
- “Amazon Smile” click-through program for non-profits has been activated.
- PayPal “Donate” button – Bert Goff and Richard C. will implement.
- Microsoft Matching Gifts program – We can get $17/hr for time worked by MS employees, such as leading a SIG.
- See if we can get Tom to start a social media SIG
- Do some of the social media recommendations made at the Sept. GM.
- Increase Meetup activity, including postings by board members
- Non-local membership promotion
- Webinars? Multi-camera recording of meetings, then post-production editing and publish. Do well before John Patrick’s presentation, it would be a good one to release (with his approval of edits, etc. and release approval etc.)
- Joint venture with Candlewood Camera group?
Bert will look into “trip and fall” type insurance for group events etc. Suggest going to an independent agent. Jim believes that our current carrier is the only one offering appropriate plan.
As it stands now CiviCRM integration with our website may not occur until after October and may take several months to accomplish. Jim says that he tried but disqualified the ‘free’ SSL certificate that is offered by Bluehost. He will look into StartSSL. Andy and Drew are interested in joining Jim and Richard C. in the CiviCRM project. Team will set up a ‘sandbox’ environment supporting the WordPress/CiviCRM combination.
Bill Saturno talked about rate card, and focused upon ‘value added’ rather than membership exposures. He came up with several “sponsorship levels”:
- “Friends of DACS” to replace business card – $35/year or $20/year as a member.
- One-Third Page ad in newsletter at $15/month, or annual commit to include banner ad on website, GM slideshow at $150/year.
- Half Page ad in newsletter, web site banner ad, slide-show ad, counter-top sign at greeter’s table – two transferable memberships (only with annual) $20/month, $200 annual.
- Full Page in newsletter, full slide, banner, desktop, 4 transferable (only w/ annual), $40/month, $400 annual.
- Discussion suggested that we not do transferable memberships as that would be difficult to maintain the restricted access to site, SIGs etc. Change “banner ad” to “sponsorship” or “web ad” – reason being it would be hard to do properly if we support mobile devices etc. or have more than one due to screen real-estate restrictions.
New Business
The card content needs to be altered as it shouldn’t have the Ives Manor address, and needs web-site and info@dacs.org on it.
Annual Meeting preparation – Board of Directors terms, candidates. We currently have 9 board members, 5 seats will be up for election, we have one member who will not be running in December.
Public Relations push:
Web site – share links with other sites including SCORE, Hackerspace, Candlewood Camera Club, area libraries, WestConn, John Patrick’s website, other General Meeting presenters’ websites, other user groups, etc.
Press release mailing status – only the Ridgefield, Newtown, and New Milford papers are known to have published our press release. What can be done to encourage more coverage? No suggestions forthcoming.
Meeting adjourned: 9:42PM