Minutes for February 21, 2017

Members: Mike Adams, Sheila Evans, Jim Frame, Teri Greenfield, Anne Hance, Jan Meizel, Steve McMahon, Robert Nickerson, Bill Wagman, Tsui Chang (on leave)

Rob called us to order at 5:15pm at Davis Makerspace

Attendance

Present: Mike, Jim, Sheila, Rob, Steve, Bill, Teri
Absent: Anne, Jan

Agenda approved by acclamation 

Public comment

No comments

Approve minutes from January

Sheila moved, Bill seconded
Unanimously approved

Resignation of Teri Greenfield

Sheila moved acceptance of Teri's resignation from the board
Rob seconded
Unanimously approved, with great thanks

Board membership nomination of Matthews Williams

Jim moved we add Matt to the board, Rob seconded
Unanimously approved

Matt was immediately seated and joined discussion

2017 Office Slate, Upcoming Board terms

The nomination committee offers the following officer slate:

Mike, President
Steve, Vice President
Rob, Secretary
Bill, Treasury

Slate unanimously approved

Mike assumed the chair, thanked Rob

(Membership renewal postponed to March)

2017 Organization strategies

Mike offered a “Setting DCN Goals and Priorities” draft for discussion

Structural

Getting new board members

Mike suggested republishing plea in newspaper

Should we have a membership (not a bylaws membership, more friends/supporters than governance).

Nice to allow them to identify with the organization. Idea is to broaden the pool of participants.

Bill noted that some with dcn.org email accounts may already feel they are members.

Programatic

Mike suggested job one is advocacy/education for fiber network.

Mike noted that Rob has mentioned the possibility of getting a software package to track interest. Would also help mobilize. Perhaps role out in conjunction with conclusion of feasibility study.

Organizational/operational

We're receiving donations; we may be building lists. We have people using resources and attending classes. How do we track this information? Mike noted that he's particularly interested in working on this. There are CRMs that are not as unapproachable as Salesforce.

Financial

Big Day Of Giving is becoming a bigger part of financial picture. We've been dependent on money from City of Davis and Yolo County (Clerk/Recorder). Building donations would increase balance.

We could use some work in advance to pick up matching contribution sources, possibly businesses like realtors. We can host that on our own site.

Rob suggested we might want a Davis Chamber of Commerce organizational membership and that this could facilitate building business connections. Governmental Relations committee might be a good starting point.

DavisGig topics that might be worth working on

Matt noted that there may be possibilities for working with PG&E. They have requirements to have a more adaptable grid as power generation becomes more spread. Fiber connectivity to each house could facilitate a smart local grid. Would PG&E be interested in partnering? There are regulatory gotchas that could make it harder than might be expected, but still worth pursuing.We should talk to some of the public power advocates about this.

Board communications

A shared Google drive?

Miscellaneous connected items

Bill noted that Bill B's old board-membership recruiting op-ed will need revision. Bill (W) will tackle this.

Rob noted that we can create/use committees as necessary. For example, there are DavisGig folks already interested in talking about the technical side.

DCN Financial Report

Sheila gave us a financial report. We also have a detailed set of accounts from the bookkeeper. Money is in from the county, but not yet the city.

Rob reported that he's still working on equipment relocation from the network room in the DMA building.

The statement of the accounts should move us a step further in automating the connection the bookkeeping to the financial reports.

Committee reports

Rob reported for DavisGig that he did an online seminar on the mechanisms used by Ammon for open access. He also met with the an agent regarding the tracking/surveying software Rob's been discussing. We're wondering if this might be a good expenditure for DavisGig.

Fundraising: Mike reported on progress on going through the hoops for BDoG.

Next meeting location/announcements

NEXT BOARD MEETING: March 21, 2017 

Adjourned at 6:10pm