Free Geek Michiana : Board/Council Minutes 6/30/2009

FREE GEEK Michiana, Inc. - "Helping the Needy Get Nerdy"

Minutes of the Free Geek Michiana Board of Directors and Council Meeting, June 30, 2009

Submitted by Tom Brown, Director.

Present: Michael Cook, Richard Zimmerman, Thomas Brown, Imre, Chuq, Joe, Oliver.

For some reason, we didn't have a reserved room so we met on the second floor of the St. Joseph County library main branch in the newspaper reading section. The meeting began at 6:45 PM.

I. Review 30 Day Plan

We met all our goals for the last 30 days except for the following.

1. Ask Salvation Army church for help. Richard sent Capt. Jody Montgomery and email but hasn't heard from her. I gave Richard Capt. Nick Montgomery's phone number.

2. Count P4 computers and associated peripherals. Phil and I estimated the number of P4s in inventory, but we won't have a final count until they are tested. The testing is in progress and will be complete by July 31.

3. Locate storage for computer lab equipment. The Grace Community Center is interested in partnering on a lab. The Center is a few blocks from Muessel Primary Center on the near northwest side in the poorest neighborhood in South Bend. I will follow up with Rev. Lewis, the director of the Center.

4. Identify what we want to keep. This is an ongoing process. Once we dispose of what we don't want to keep, it should be easy to identify what we want to keep.

5. Contact South Bend Economic Development. I will contact the Mayor's office and Economic Development this week or next.

6. Begin drilling hard drives. Imre made a fixure to hold drives in place while we drill them. If the drill press is no longer available at the warehouse, Imre says we can take the drives to his store and drill them there. He has a drill press at his store.

II. New 30 Day Plan

We will continue to test P4 boxes, deman P2s and recycle until the third week of July. The P2s should be done soon according to Phil. Goodwill/Reconnect was satisfied with the last shipment. Imre and Chuq will schedule more pickups when we have material. We will review our progress the third week of July.

III. FreeBox Classes in July

We have a lot of P3 boxes. I (Tom) proposed that we continue FreeBox classes in July. The consensus is to focus on recycling and testing. If that goes well, we may have time to put together systems for a FreeBox class. We'll know in another week or two.

We emptied the P2 boxes from the AOM (see AOM below) storage building in our previous 30 day plan so there is space to move P3 boxes to AOM at any time.

IV. Sell P3/P4 Boxes at Imre and Chuq's Store

Imre and Chuq are opening a computer resale business and offered to sell systems provided by FGM. The discussion centered on the implications of selling computers via a for-profit third party and its potential effect on our 501c3 application and status thereafter.

Chuq researched references on Google and found a number of relevant articles. The IRS limits the ability of non-profits to sell products through for-profit entities. Such arrangements are called "joint ventures." The IRS is concerned the principal source of revenue for a non-profit cannot be from joint ventures. The IRS is also concerned that goods and services donated to non-profits, specially 501c3 organizations, not result in "private benefit" to members or employees of the organization, their families or businesses.

Mike will contact a non-profit computer company in Michigan which sells computers through a profit making partner. Tom will contact the attorney who volunteered to review our 501c3 application.

V. Treasury Report

Mike reports the books are up to date. He is going backward through the accounts and clearing transactions.

Mike is scanning accounting documents such as deposit slips, receipts, invoices and bank statements and will create flat files or a relational database to store the documents, index them and make them searchable. The stored images will be searchable by GnuCash transaction numbers.

Mike looked at FrontAccounting and OpenKM. He thinks both are better suited to larger organizations (enterprises) although there are features we might need as we grow. Both were suggested by Tony. Mike will likely review both of these further.

• OpenKM - A web based document management system. Basically a db for scanned and electronic documents.
• FrontAccounting - A web based business management and accounting system. Includes point-of-sale, inventory, accounting, customer and supplier management and many other features.