Minutes for May 19, 2015

by Mike Adams — last modified Mar 18, 2015 10:59 AM

DCN and DavisGig  Fiscal Relationship, Fundraising, Muni Fiber Promotion, Classes at Explorit

We met at Davis Makerspace building. Rob called the meeting to order at 5:16pm.

Present (11): Mike Adams, Bill Buchanan, Sheila Evans, Jim Frame, Teri Greenfield, Anne Hance, Steve McMahon, Jan Meizel, Robert Nickerson, Braden Pellett, Bill Wagman

Absent(1): Shelley Maddex

Public comment

No public!

Approve minutes from March, Agenda

minutes approved, agenda approved after addition of Fundraising item added by Anne.

MOU Update

Jim has not yet contacted staff member Kelly Stachowicz (KS), Deputy City Manager to discuss the status of the DCN MOU, but plans to do so soon **Action**. Kelly has been contacted and has no objection to our scheduling a meeting with the new city manager. Anne suggested a Friday lunch time if possible.

DCN Capacity to Assist the Muni Fiber Project - Rob

Rob suggested that we schedule a third meeting with Sarah Worley of the City’s Innovation Office. In the first meeting she suggested that we could build momentum towards one or more community meetings (which should be videotaped for later viewing) about municipal fiber, and research sample RFPs for a possible fiber feasibility study. He also said that he was in the process of scheduling a meeting with Christine Crawford of the Yolo LAFCO **Action**.

Rob appealed to the board for assistance on the Muni Fiber project, and agreed to posting a list of tasks that needed work **Action**. He suggested two tasks, preparation of outreach materials and manning a farmers’ market information booth. He also reported that a logo for DavisGig (distributed earlier by email), and a discussion followed about how the designer might be compensated (according to several board members - Jim, Steve - direct labor contributions to a non-profit are not tax deductible).

Anne asked for simple description of the fiber project and its benefits, and BW suggested that the withdrawal of one of the innovation projects might be confusing to the public.

Rob reported that he made a presentation to the Progressive Business Exchange and that he would make his presentation available, and referred as well to the language in the fundraising memo that was drafted and the DavisGig worksite.

Jan feels that education is needed to help people make the connections as to what fiber will do, given that many approached phone and computer technologies as magic (e.g, “Why do we need fiber, I don’t need wires to use my phone?”).

BB suggested that we direct our outreach to folks with different levels of sophistication, not making all materials too simplistic, potentially alienating the technically sophisticated who might become involved in the project.

>>Steve moved that we create a mechanism (possibly a general ledger account) into which donations can be accepted for the purpose of advocating for and developing a municipal fiber network. APPROVED

Steve volunteered to draft an agreement between DCN and DavisGig, and explore a possible web form/paypal structure to accept segregated donations to the muni fiber project. **Action**

Rob suggested that we all consider connecting with the organizations that we belong to, possibly doing presentations on the project. It was suggested that a demo of gigabit performance might be something that could be done at the UCD campus.

Fundraising Discussion, RN,AH

Anne reported that there are several local fundraising opportunities that had been missed, among them the Big Day of Giving, Soroptimist grants and Davis Community Cooperative grants.

Jan agreed as a member of fundraising committee to keep a list of possible grants and their application deadlines.

Teri offered that having a “launch date” for the project could provide attention/motivation.

Steve suggested that we target an early fall date for organizing support - and felt that some document overview of need and project intent, a white paper, would be a useful component.

Rob pointed out that DavisGig had documents that could be used in the creation of a white paper.

Upcoming classes, Sheila, board

Sheila reported that Dewight Kramer was about to do a class on Internet Security at Explorit. She added that the Explorit staff had made the process of presenting the class quite smooth.

After a discussion of how the class had been advertised it was offered that the social web site Next Door would be another way to advertise in the future.

Rob will be doing a class at the Makerspace on May 28th, “The Internet of Things”.  Teri has offered to videotape future classes.

Committee reports, Jan/Anne

There were no pending requests for website assistance. Jan reported that the availability of web assistance would be promoted in the fall.

Next meeting location/announcements

The next meeting will be Tuesday, June 16, location TBA.

Adjourned at 6:15pm