Board meeting, December 7th, 2004
Attending:
- Bdale Garbee (bdale)
- Benj. Mako Hill (mako) (Vice President)
- Branden Robinson (Overfiend)
- Bruce Perens (BrucePerens) (Did not participate)
- David Graham (cdlu) (Secretary)
- Ian Jackson (IanJackson)
- Jimmy Kaplowitz (Hydroxide) (Treasurer)
- John Goerzen (CosmicRay) (President)
- Martin Schulze (JoeySPY)
Invitees present:
- Drew Scott Daniels (mlots)
- Giacomo Catenazzi (cate)
- MJ Ray (slef)
- Michael Schultheiss (schultmc)
Agenda:
- Opening
- Roll call
- President's update
- Treasurer's report
- Outstanding minutes for November 9th, 2004
- Resolution 2004-11-08.iwj.1: GNUstep as Associated Project
- New project request: OpenC++
- Next meeting
Recorder: David Graham (Secretary)
The following minutes were adopted by the Board of Directors of Software in the Public Interest at its meeting of February 1st, 2005.
Meeting opened at 19:00 UTC on December 7th, 2004 and took place in
#spi on irc.spi-inc.org
President's update
No president's update was presented.
Treasurer's report
The text of the treasurer's report is included as Appendix C.
Discussion
There was general consensus that the Treasurer should use his budget allocation to hire a professional bookkeeper to assist in his duties, and that the current balances of our accounts should be divided up into whose monies they are. Using a guesstimate that everyone can agree too, the distribution of our funds should be more accurately kept for the future.
Further discussion about the structure of the treasurer's report was extensive.
Outstanding minutes for November 9th, 2004
The minutes were amended unanimously to remove a statement in the section on the treasurer's report. The minutes, as amended, were voted on.
| Jimmy Kaplowitz | Yes |
| David Graham | Yes |
| Branden Robinson | Yes |
| John Goerzen | Yes |
| Ian Jackson | Yes |
| Martin Schulze | Yes |
| Bdale Garbee | Yes |
| Benjamin Mako Hill | Yes |
| Bruce Perens | Did not vote |
The minutes for November 9th, 2004 were accepted by a vote of 8 for, none against.
Resolution 2004-11-08.iwj.1: GNUstep as Associated Project
| Jimmy Kaplowitz | Yes |
| David Graham | Yes |
| Branden Robinson | Yes |
| John Goerzen | Yes |
| Ian Jackson | Yes |
| Martin Schulze | Yes |
| Bdale Garbee | Yes |
| Benjamin Mako Hill | Yes |
| Bruce Perens | Did not vote |
Resolution 2004-11-08.iwj.1 was accepted by a vote of 8 for, none against.
New project request: OpenC++
This item was deferred indefinitely, pending any response to our inquiries sent to the OpenC++ project.
The next meeting was set to January 4th, 2005 (John Goerzen)
The meeting ended at 19:36:03 UTC.
Appendix A: Current Board Membership
| Date elected | Name | Role |
|---|---|---|
| [2003-03-11] | John Goerzen | President |
| [2003-03-11] | Benjamin Mako Hill | Vice President |
| [2003-11-29] | David Graham | Secretary |
| [2004-02-20] | Jimmy Kaplowitz | Treasurer |
| [2004-07-29] | Bdale Garbee | |
| [2004-07-29] | Branden Robinson | |
| [2003-11-29] | Ian Jackson | |
| [2003-03-11] | Bruce Perens | |
| [2003-11-29] | Martin "Joey" Schulze |
Appendix B: Approved Resolutions
- Resolution 2004-11-08.iwj.1: GNUstep as Associated Project
Appendix C: Treasurer's Report
All of the account balances and recent mail traffic at the Indianapolis PO box have been mentioned by Branden in the thoroughly detailed snail-mail roundups which he emailed to these lists within the last 24 hours. I will simply consider those messages part of this report instead of repeating them here. This reduces my report to updates on the Providence PO box and on the process of opening a new bank account with the First Internet Bank of Indiana ("FirstIB" or "First IB"). I apologize that this report is sent not much more than 10 hours before the meeting, but it is more thoughtful and planned than any impromptu report I could give during the meeting, and all of you can review it between now and our meeting time.
Providence PO box
Amazingly enough, I haven't received any mail at all at that address for several months. There is one close call worth mentioning, however. On November 24, when routinely checking the box, I found it had been closed the previous day for nonpayment. I don't know what happened, since I made sure to check it every few weeks, with once a month as a bare minimum. (It is certain that the frequency with which I check the box has gone down since it stopped receiving any mail whatsoever, but I was trying to check it often enough to avoid a mishap like this.)
The puzzling thing is that the post office said they tried to contact me via phone before closing the box, but somehow their communication never got through. (I forget, but they may have used email too.) In any case, I paid the $34 for the next six months, for which I will reimburse myself out of the Treasurer's budget, and the box is open again. They assured me that no mail was lost or returned to sender as a result of this lapse, so no further action should be necessary. I have ensured that they now have my cell phone number and Treasurer email address to enable them to contact me in the future.
In order to prevent the box from lapsing again, I have set my computer to email the Treasurer email address (which reaches Branden and me) on April 15, two weeks before the next expiration date of May 1. With that reminder, I should be sure to get to the post office and renew the box, and if I don't then Branden will also have a reminder to nag me.
I will check the box again this week, and I expect to find a copy of a form from our Secretary, David Graham (on which I talk more below).
Opening an account with First IB
There were two forms that had to be completed as part of our FirstIB business account application. One of them (the main application) I partially filled out and sent electronically to Branden, who completed the form. The other form (a corporate resolution form) I partially filled out and sent electronically to David, who completed it and sent paper copies to John Goerzen (our President), Branden, and me. Branden will hand-deliver both of these forms to First IB today (Tuesday December 7). He will include our initial deposit of checks to inaugurate the account, which have a total amount of $10,686.81 according to Branden.
I realize this initial balance is significantly more than our target maximum of $5000 for this account, but more checks built up than we expected due to how long it took for the account paperwork to be completed. We will transfer most of that excess to the American Express Financial Advisors account or use it to pay outstanding reimbursements, unless we can resolve in the near future those concerns that first made us want to limit our balance with First IB. (Those concerns are spelled out in the minutes of our October 5, 2004 meeting.)
Appendix D: Meeting Log
For the meeting log, please see the original minutes in the mailing list archive.