May 19, 2009

Davis Community Network (DCN)
APPROVED June 16, 2009

A duly called regular meeting of the
Board of the Davis Community Network was held
Tuesday, MAY 19, 2009
at the City of Davis Training Room
600 A Street.

Members present 9: Tsui Chang, Jim Frame, Brian Gegan, Rick Guidara, Anne Hance, Steve McMahon, Robert Nickerson,
Kimball Sargeant, Bev Sykes,  (14 active members; quorum = 8) also, Sheila Evans

Members absent 5: Russ Hobby, Jan Meizel, Tom Stanionis, Vicki Suter, Richard Yamagata.

1.  Called to order at 5:22:00 pm by President Kimball Sargeant
2.  Agenda approved as distributed
3.  No public comment
4.  Minutes of April 21 Board Meeting approved by consensus

5.  Celebrate Davis! - debrief
     General consensus was that the may 14 event went well although there seemed to be fewer people overall than last year. 
     64 people filled out the DCN questionnaire and Sheila Evans brought the tally to the meeting.
    The board expressed its appreciation for Sheila's efforts at the event especially because she accomplished much of the set-up and most of the take-down by herself.
     DCN needs a new banner.

6.  Telecomm Commission report and discussion
    Steve McMahon reported that he and Kimball had met with City staff person Samantha Wallace who explained to them that the staff report would recommend that funds should go only for the local Davis cable television channels (15, 16 and 17.)  This is disappointing for DCN since it had been hoped that some of the increased Franchise Fees (from Comcast) this year might go to other community media than local cable casting. It was also noted that the Executive Committee had agreed to withdraw DCN's request for funds from this year's Franchise fees until the issue of the conflicts of interest of commission members is clarified. Steve noted that his term as commission chair has ended and a new chair has been elected and seated,
   
7.  Report on "Saving California Communities" DCN participation
Tsui Chang explained that a local group called "Saving California Communities" is a recipient of DCN's resources via the Resource Allocation Committee. The group held a well attended conference in Davis last week and Tsui was there and so able to represent DCN as a co-sponsor. DCN flyers/handouts, brochures and post-its were displayed on the sponsors' table and the DCN logo listed in their program brochure and web page. The organization may be interested in doing e-campaigning on issues and DCN might be able to be helpful.

8.  New initiative? Yolo County Community Foundation 'Virtual Roundtable'
    Kimball introduced the topic and Steve elaborated on a notion that arose at the Executive Committee meeting. This was that DCN might establish a Yolo County Community Foundation Virtual Roundtable (aka a blog), which would be a place where YCCF member nonprofits would post informational pieces on a regular, rotating basis.  It was agreed that the executive director of the YCCF would be invited to an Executive Committee meeting to talk about this and that Jim Frame would contact Vicki Suter and Kari Peterson so that they could judge how the plan might fit with DCN's Nonprofit Digital Literacy Project.

9.  New Board member recruiting - follow-up
    Brian Gegan reported that he has been unwell for several weeks so progress has been slow. However he has been working on board member job descriptions and work with his committee should move faster now.

10.  Committee reports
    Anne Hance reported for Jan Meizel on the recent RAC meeting at which a couple of applications had to be put on hold while the applicants clarified their status: the Davis Astronomy Club needed to clarify its status as an Explorit Science Center program in existence since 1987; the Davis Diamonds applicant was not sure if their organization was actually a nonprofit. Another applicant, Lamp Post Pizza, clearly a retail business, needed to seek other ways of having a website and calendar while its request for a Mailman List could be accomplished by paying the regular fee. The Girl Scouts troop request for SimpleSite, Calendar and Mailman was approved.
    Tsui Chang reported that the Spring Classes had gone well and that many people wanted follow-up sessions. Tsui had some recommendations for the topics for next series of classes.

11.  Announcements
    Rob Nickerson reported that Omsoft has, as agreed, taken over DCN's system administration services. The servers Wheel and Spoke are old and no longer serving DCN well and must be upgraded or replaced. Rob also noted that he has new network capacity installed and that the DCN NOC is now a 1Gb node. Anne asked about the funding for the services and hardware or software purchases. Rob explained that most costs are being covered by DCN's regular monthly payments but that he will communicate with the board if greater expenditures become necessary.

12.  Adjournment was at 6:39 p.m.

Submitted by Anne Hance, Secretary
Anne Hance
rahance@dcn.org


NEXT BOARD MEETING:  June 16, 2009