Free Geek Michiana : Board Minutes 4/28/2009
FREE GEEK Michiana, Inc. - "Helping the Needy Get Nerdy"
The meeting was called to order by chairman Thomas Brown in the Molloy Room in the basement of the St. Joseph County Public Library main branch downtown South Bend at 6:32 PM, Tuesday, April 28.
Board members present: Thomas Brown,Chairman and Acting Treasurer; Michael Cook, Secretary; Richard Zimmerman.
Volunteers present: Tony, Troy, Imre, Dale, Mark.
The minutes of the previous meeting were posted on the mailing list so the reading of the minutes was dispensed with. The minutes were approved with no objections.
No officer reports were offered.
We need to be out of our current location by June or July. Troy presented his findings as to costs of some of the items we might need at a new location. Troy, Mike, and Imre agreed to form a committee to work on a spreadsheet of items and facilities with associated costs, to be used to write an application for a capacity grant.
Mike Cook volunteered to take over the duties of the Treasurer. There were no nominations for a replacement to fill the position of Treasurer permanently. There were also no nominations for additional board members.
No report was given.
Tom said that he had found an attorney who would review our application pro bono. However according to the attorney there is currently a 5-8 month backlog at the IRS for 501(C)(3) applications to even get provisional approval.
After discussion it was decided by acclimation to use Joomla for our web site rather than Drupal since we seem to have more people with greater familiarity with Joomla.
It was decided after discussion to hold meetings 2 times per month, 10-12 on a Saturday at the main branch library and 6:30-8:30 on a Wednesday at the River Park branch. Specific dates will be set depending on the availability of the meeting rooms.
The freebox classes will be held at the same times and locations as the FGMLUG meetings but on different weeks. Specific dates will be set depending on the availability of the meeting rooms. Mark volunteered to call people on the waiting list to take classes.
Troy stated that they got a lot done but were in danger of running out of gaylords if we were unable to send out material for recycle. Tom stated that the warehouse is looking neater than ever before.
Tom asked if FGM should participate in Down Town South Bend's Ecofest 2009.. The board determined by consensus that Ecofest is too close to the date we have to move from the warehouse and we should decline the invitation this year.
Imre and Kevin volunteered to train in grant writing with Ruby Bower. In exchange, Free Geek volunteers will set up her computer with OpenOffice and create a presentation for her.
The next meeting will be held the last Tuesday of May, 5-26-2009, at 6:30PM. Tom will reserve the Molloy Room in the Main Branch library for 6:00 to 9:00 PM.
The meeting was adjourned at about 9:15 PM.
Page last updated: Thu May 14 08:52:42 2009