March 18, 2008

Davis Community Network (DCN)
DRAFT UNTIL APPROVED

A duly called regular meeting of the
Board of the Davis Community Network was held
Tuesday, March 18,  2008
at the City of Davis Training Room
600 A Street.

Present (10 members): Tsui Chang, Jim Frame, Brian Gegan, Rian Graves (AmeriCorps Vista), Rick Guidara, Anne Hance, Russ Hobby, Steve McMahon, Jan Meizel, Kimball Sargeant, Bev Sykes

Absent: Robert Nickerson, Tom Stanionis, Vicki Suter, Richard Yamagata and consultant Kari Peterson

1.  The meeting was called to order at 5:16 pm by President Kimball Sargeant
2.  Agenda was approved as distributed
3.  Minutes of Feb. 19, 2008 Board Meeting were approved by consensus
4.  No public comment

5.  Telecommunications Commission report (Jim Frame)
    Jim gave an overview of his planned presentation to the Commission about DCN's services to the City, School District and Community. He will be circulating a document to the DCN board asking for members' feedback in order to flesh out details.

6.  DCN CTC-VISTA application report (Kimball)
    Kimball reported that the recent application for a second Americorps Vista Volunteer has been denied. This leaves DCN with some challenges as we continue to develop the projects that Rian Graves, our current Vista person, has been working on during the past year with Vicki Suter and Kari Peterson. The projects are a Volunteer Management Program and a Nonprofit Internet Toolkit Program.

    Rather than now applying for a volunteer through the main Americorps program Kimball stressed that all our efforts should be focused on finding and hiring an executive director.

    Brian Gegan expressed interest in working on this.

    Budgeting for the salary expense is a hurdle and Anne offered to find out if United Way funds are available for a nonprofit such as ours.

7.  DCN Spring class schedule
    Tsui and Steve provided information about the currently scheduled classes that have just been advertised via DCNews. All are on Thursdays.
March 20 - Mailman;   March 27 - SimpleSites;   April 10 - Calendar;   April 14 - Blogging for Beginners.
    Russ Hobby expressed interest in doing a video class and he and Tsui will work together on adding this to the schedule.

8.      Strategic discussions - new (and old) Bd member thoughts on DCN directions.
    This agenda item arose out of a suggestion from Anne and the discussion did not exactly follow the 'title' as on the agenda. Instead Anne introduced the item by remarking that in order for board members to function effectively they needed to be doing things with and for DCN that fit their interests, experience and expertise.   She then called on people around the table to say what they might work on. Every board member is duty bound to be an ambassador for the organization but in addition the following offers were made:
    Bev is interested in social networking. Her upcoming blog class is an example of how she can bring that interest to benefit DCN's work in the community.
    Russ is interested in improving communications between DCN and UCD. In addition he will bring his expertise in video to enrich DCN's class offerings.
    Brian would like to help with the budget and other financial matters so he and Jim will communicate about this.  Brian will also work with Kimball on the executive director issue. Brian stressed his time constraints and it was agreed that most communication and work will happen by email.
    Jan is working with Kari to develop an up-to-date and revised MOU with Omsoft. She is also on the lookout for foundation grants for nonprofits that DCN might apply for. She then asked if DCN would be willing to spotlight the Schools Foundation website when it is online. The answer was 'yes.'
    Jim will communicate with Brian on the issue of DCN budgets and finances.
    Tsui will continue with her work in the community - particularly with the schools and PTAs where she is extremely active on DCN's behalf.
    Steve, describing himself metaphorically as DCN's plumber, will continue his work of managing the Internet tools/resources that DCN makes available to area nonprofits.
    Kimball will focus his energies on the executive director issue and will work with Brian on this.
    Rick will continue to be an ambassador for DCN.
    Anne will be alert for funding opportunities and will find out about United Way

    Anne ended the discussion by stressing very strongly that in all the things that people have said they hope to do they will need to be pro-active. Without an executive director DCN has no one to keep all the threads together to make sure that people are following through. Without a pro-active stance things will not happen.

9.      Committee reports
    No Web Team report
    For the RAC Anne reported an effort by the committee to contact all project leaders (1996 through 2008) to discover what projects are still active and who is now involved in keeping them active.
    It was noted that TechOps needs to meet - there are some important issues to address.

10.     Announcements
    Anne reported on some heartwarming, wholehearted verbal support for Omsoft being expressed on a local discussion list.


11.   Meeting adjourned  at 6:19 pm.

Submitted by Anne Hance, Secretary

Next meeting: April 15, 2008