May 20, 2008

Davis Community Network (DCN)
Approved Aug 19, 2008

A duly called regular meeting of the
Board of the Davis Community Network was held
Tuesday, May 20, 2008,at 5:15 PM
in the City of Davis Training Room
600 A Street.

Members Present (9): Tsui Chang, Jim Frame, Brian Gegan, Rick Guidara, Anne
Hance, Steve McMahon, Kimball Sargeant, Vicki Suter, Bev Sykes,

Members absent (5): Russ Hobby, Jan Meizel, Robert Nickerson, Tom Stanionis, Richard Yamagata

Also Present Rian Graves, Kari Peterson

1. Called to order at 5:25:00 pm by President Kimball Sargeant
2. Agenda approved as distributed
3. No public comment
4. We approved the minutes of 04/15/08 meeting by consensus

5. GSM Project: fund-development Update (Kari)
Kari reported that the GSM (Graduate School of Management) Team is working on the creation of a Fund Development plan for DCN. They are halfway through their assignment period and will be presenting an interim report very soon.

6. Celebrate Davis - debrief
Rian reported that this year's booth was even better than last year. The 4 question survey was filled out by people who wanted a computer screen mitt (the reward) and the new brochure was very useful. Having candy helped too.

7. Non-profit Internet Toolkit Pilot Project (Vicki)
Vicki reminded the board that there are six nonprofits participating in the project and DCN is one of them. The others are: California Bicycle Museum, Yolo County Food Bank, STEAC, Tree Davis, Yolo Community Foundation.
All have been interviewed to explain the project, the time commitment requirements and the need for approval by their boards.
The project will be 'kicked off' by a meeting of all participating groups on May 27 and will continue through November 2008.
Details were provided to the board on a 4-page handout.
As a participating group, DCN is required to select tools to test and the board chose Google Calendar for internal scheduling and an electronic newsletter for communication with stake-holders.
There was some serious discussion about the planned focus on "non-dcn created" tools for use by the groups. Some board members were uncertain about the wisdom of taking on the responsibility of advising and assisting in the use of commercial (but free) tools over which we (as recommenders and trainers) have no control. The project will be making the DCN tools (Simple Sites, Community Web Calendar, and E-mail List servers) available too and ultimately it was agreed that the board approved of the direction.
The pilot will culminate in a "DCN Nonprofit Community Technology Fair" on October 29, 2008. The location is not yet decided but if the decision is to use City of Davis facilities then Rick will assist with the arrangements.

8. DCN rebranding project update (Kari)
Kari reminded the board that the branding process has been proceeding for a number of months and has so far resulted in a new logo, and new words describing DCN's work, visions and goals. The website is being revamped and such things as letterheads, templates for fliers, business cards, name tags, t-shirts etc. are under consideration.
A number of people have been working very hard on all of this 'renewal' but one person in particular who has no official ties to DCN has been working especially hard. This is Scott Alumbaugh. Everyone agreed that recognition of his work is needed.

Kimball moved to "thank Scott with an official letter and an invitation to lunch." The motion was seconded by Steve and passed unanimously.

9. Committee reports
RAC: Anne reported that Explorit Science Center's executive director, Lou Ziskind, attended the recent RAC meeting to support Explorit's application for a Plone site. Explorit was invited to apply some months ago (plone sites are currently only provided by invitation or special request.) The request has been approved by the RAC and Explorit is moving forward to create its program and operation materials in the Plone environment while leaving science content material in the existing shell.
Web Team: Steve reported a Yolo County elections office database look-up tool that will enable voters to find out if their mail-in ballots have been received by the County.
Steve also made a formal disclosure of his company's work with the Davis School District. The company, Reid-McMahon is doing the visual design and skinning of the District web site that Steve, as a DCN volunteer, has put into a Plone environment hosted on a DCN server.

10. Announcements
Steve will be a presenter at the upcoming "2008 NetSquared Conference (N2Y3) " at Cisco Systems' Vineyard Conference Center in San Jose, California on May 27 and 28. His topic will be "Using Plone to Build a Community Network." Kari will attend and assist.

14. Adjournment 6:45 PM.

NEXT BOARD MEETING: June 18, 2008

Submitted by Anne Hance, Secretary