Notes for June 16, 2015 (no quorum)

We met at Davis Makerspace building. Rob called the meeting to order at 5:20pm.

Present (5): Mike Adams, Anne Hance, Jan Meizel, Robert Nickerson, Braden Pellett

Absent(7): Bill Buchanan, Sheila Evans, Jim Frame, Teri Greenfield, Shelley Maddex, Steve McMahon, Bill Wagman

No Quorum (Quorum is 7)

Agenda -- accepted 5:21 p.m.

Public comment none

Approval of Minutes from May no changes suggested, not approved for lack of a quorum

Update on MOU and Meeting with the city..

Three of the present board members (Anne, Rob, Mike) related their impressions of the meeting with the new City Manager, and the Deputy City Manager Kelly Stachowicz.

Points made:

• Good to have him meet the broad array of board members and see the community connections.

• Generally listening without making commitments

• He conveyed that at present no Council member had raised DCN as a priority

• the board made clear we  were available to provide expertise on the topic of municipal fiber; the CM seemed to endorse the concept of municipal fiber

• we need an updated copy of DCN by the Numbers very soon (prior to completion of the budgeting process - this week?).

• the CM implied that we needed community support; Mike suggested that we line up community members to provide letters of appreciation

• Kelly stated her understanding of what services DCN provided in addition to the technical part that had been split out - seemed possibly receptive to possibly continuing old agreement until a new one is reached

DCN Umbrella-ship for undothefall.com

Rob was hoping to get the board to provide grant oversight for the art project Undo the Fall which features old Macs recycled into art. RAN reported that it is a project by Larry Dietrich which is separate from his for profit business.

Financial report

Board members present were in agreement that they would appreciate a brief finance report monthly. It was stated that a simple presentation of the current bank account with the amount of revenues and expenditures for the month would be a good, informal place to start. Anne reported that Jim Frame emailed to say that we had received $12,000 from the county.

DCN Fund Raising

Rob reported that we had received a contribution of $50 toward the muni fiber project. He presented text that had been seen for a thank you reply. Mike agreed to work on the content, including the date and amount of the contribution, as well as our non-profit ID.

Rob went to Davis Farmers’ Market and had a booth to raise Muni Fiber awareness. He reported that among those he talked to, 33 people gave names and email addresses for future information and announcements.

Anne suggests that we solicit funds for incidental costs with a jar at the booth.

Mike asked whether it would be valuable to join the Sacramento Nonprofit Resource Center. Anne has experience with the group for Explorit, but is not sure about the value of membership. There are grant research tools and services that bear investigation.

Anne feels we need a group of people, possibly the fundraising committee, actively searching for grants. Jan did grant searches a while back through UCD when the school district went online and got small grants. There had been little success lately, including when DCN partnered with the City and the University to get the Google high speed city grant. Rob agreed to talk to Shelley about her availability in the near future for working with the fundraising committee, which she chairs. It was suggested that if her schedule doesn’t permit her participation perhaps she could refer us to someone else with that skill set.

Rob suggested that board members review the plan laid out in the DavisGig the fundraising document for a fundraising approach - FM, individuals, events.

Jan wants the organization to consider developing a partnership with UCD, City and DCN.

Anne pointed out that fundraising email solicitations legally must come from an entity, like DCN, that is registered with the state, rather than DavisGig.

The board then discussed in general how the project might take shape, with an RFP and pilot project, and raising major funding through a city bond measure and/or use of California’s Infrastructure Bank. From the discussion we agreed that the scope of DCN’s involvement in the project could vary from modest to central.

DavisGIG Update

Rob listed a number of activities completed or in process for DavisGig:

• the website has been redesigned

• The Farmers’ Market outreach has started with more planned

• banners have been made

• a letter to the Enterprise was completed, a Vanguard letter is still needed

• a July 14 presentation at the Davis branch of the Yolo County Library in the Blanchard Room re DavisGig has been scheduled, with Rob scheduled to speak.

For the July 14th presentation Rob would like a second speaker not from DCN, possibly from UCD. Anne and Jan both thought that given the Library audience we might also want the presentation to have a history.

Classes

Rob reported his class on the Internet of Things went well and it was reported that the Internet Security class had been successful.

Committee Reports

Jan reported that there had been one sign-up for website resources, typically slow in the summer.

NEXT BOARD MEETING: July 21. 2015, Location TBA

Adjournment 6:08