Venue: Anna Gerber's home
Present: Paul James, Michael Oliver, Anna Gerber, David Leonard, James Iseppi
Opened at 7.46pm
DL said he had booked the Toowong library room for Friday 9th of July, but an earlier date for the next general meeting is desirable. PJ noted that on the current rotating-day system, Monday is the next general meeting day. PJ also concerned that Toowong Library is a suitable venue, based on previous turnout. AG pointed out there was confusion with the date of the last general meeting. Also, there is good parking, and public transport at Toowoong. We should ask members at next GM or on the list if they have problems with the Toowong venue.
ACTION: DL to get next available booking nearest 5 July at 6.30pm
DL asked what is happening with the auditor options. PJ said he had spoken briefly with his cousin, but only enough to ascertain interest. He Still needs to talk with him properly.
There was general agreement that we should commence arrangements with Wendy Hanley's firm ASAP, since there is still no real apparent alternative. In DL's discussion email, the costs of this and record of price negotiation had been presented.
ACTION: PJ to talk with cousin properly
ACTION: DL to contact Hanley, confirm that a letter of appointment does not obligate us (esp. financially) somehow.
ACTION: DL to send letter of appointment to Hanley's firm
ACTION: MO to chase up Andrew Crouch and his contact
PJ reported that he had been talking with the very helpful Ken at WIAQ. The WIA state divisions are being subsumed into the national WIA body, meaning that membership applications have been put on hold. However, the WIAQ has already formally accepted Brismesh as a member. PJ has also contacted the insurance broker of the WIA insurance scheme and has received a policy document (produced). The broker only requires that the fee be paid.
DL said it is important that we push ahead so that other applications which depend on us having PLI will also be able to move. AG said that we haven't seen the official policy disclosure document yet (although some pamphlet was passed around at an earlier meeting).
MOTION: That Brismesh pay the insurance policy, for Select Insurance
Brokers P/L, Policy #10 M5436912 08 on endorsement invoice
dated 20 May 2004, number 10301, in the amount of $217.25.
(Moved: DL; 2nd: AG)
No objections - CARRIED
ACTION: MO and PJ to draw cheque and pay invoice.
PJ again thanked all the people who ponied up the money to join WIA(Q).
AG noted that the Melbourne groups' TIB activity has been down for several months. AG has registered ($5/year) but all is quiet with TIB. AG would like our existing Retail Prices Database 'upgraded' to support the bulk ordering functionality of the TIB system.
AG noted that this would take moderate effort. It would be a nice thing to have, but that unless someone has time and resources to do it, it won't get done.
It was noted that the biggest asset of TIB was its momentum: people who wanted hard-to-get items such as some pigtails knew where to look. DL suggested an alternative to the TIB would be a directory resource for members listing companies known to supply such gear. There was discussion about the degree of endorsement that Brismesh should enter into with commercial suppliers. It was noted that QDG discounts are available to Brismesh members because of the reciprocal membership. The question of membership cards was raised, and then dropped as the only people who know of QDG discount are QDG members.
No action taken on this item.
AG had registered this some months ago. She demonstrated on a laptop: it points to the current brismesh.org website.
PJ asked about the sandwich-board sign thing that DL had emailed them about a while ago. DL said that he had prepared and circulated a postscript file for a printer/signwriter offer, but was waiting for endorsement by the MC. AG recalled that there was simply an URL change needed. There was renewed consensus at the meeting that DL go ahead with accepting the printing offer.
ACTION: DL to contact Conrad Lancaster and accept printing offer, using the prepared image.
PJ asked what was happening with the anonymous payment that MO had received. (i.e. an anonymous membership payment to the association, with no corresponding membership application form or member number).
ACTION: MO to find name of that anonymous payer and contact AG
PJ noted that the membership registry still contains many non-financial members, even after having contacted them directly to obtain membership fees. There was discussion about how to purge old non-financial members under rule 9(3)(c) yet give some leeway to recent applications.
ACTION: DL to email recent non-financial applicants reminding them to pay the membership fees.
ACTION: DL to remove entires for the membership registry of other non-financial members.
MO checked the fee schedule to see if late application fees have diminished (because of pro-rata), but it hasn't yet.
DL said that after the last general meeting, it was suggested to him that Brismesh have a policy with regards to the donations that the association accepts. This started a long discussion, involving concerns such as disposal costs, storage costs, who makes judgements as to what stuff might be used in the future, and who or what can best use donations now. Also discussed were loaned objects, and how ownership and control of objects passed through members.
MOTION: That Brismesh adopt the policy that donations be accepted on
a case-by-case basis, determined by the Management
Committee.
(Moved: AG, 2nd: PJ)
No objections - CARRIED
ACTION: DL to start an assets register for the association
DL has previously circulated some by-laws. The by-laws were drafted to prevent members from being able to act to bring the association into conflict with our carrier licencing exemption status. Other by-laws were suggested regarding emergency directives: these were debated but ultimately dropped because they are too strong, and the powers in the existing rules are sufficient.
MOTION: That the management committee make the following by-law:
1. It is an offence under the by-laws of the association for a member to:(Moved: AG, 2nd: JI)
(a) provide a carriage service to a non-member; or
(b) solicit or accept monetary remuneration for providing a carriage service to a member or members
CARRIED Unanimously
DL previously circulated a privacy policy consistent with national legislation for organisational privacy management.
MOTION: That the management committee adopt the following privacy policy:
(Moved: DL)Brismesh Inc. records private information about members through the membership application process.
This information is required for the association to contact its members, and also to comply with state and federal legislation. Except as otherwise required by law, or by member consent, information collected about members is treated as confidential and is made available only to the association's administrative personnel.
Members must ensure that private information held by Brismesh Inc. about them is accurate and up-to-date.
Members may request access and changes to private information held about them in the association by contacting the Privacy Officer. The Privacy Officer of Brismesh Inc. is the Secretary.
AMMENDMENT:
Replace "required by law," with "required by law,
or our rules".
(Moved JI, 2nd: AG)
AMMENDMENT CARRIED (against: DL)
AMMENDED MOTION: (2nd: AG) - CARRIED unanimously
DL explained that there were activities being organised, or desired to be organised that have specific targets such as letterbox drops of houses on the tops of hills, or even the grid antenna collection days.
There was dicussion that such activities should be encouraged. AG said that activities such as grid antenna days should not have people claiming to represent the association (without some kind of formal endorseement through a general meeting or MC meeting?).
These plans need more thought, need to be formalised and presented before being endorsed. It is still too early for us to go letterbox dropping.
DEFER until better thought out
PJ had circulated a draft press release. There was unanimous agreement that the MC was happy with the content of the PR.
ACTION: AG to run the PR past DSTC's public affairs people.
ACTION: PJ to obtain a list of PR subscribers and send our PR to them.
There was some discussion about appropriateness (how it fits into the objects) and how at this level, the association could not officially endorse a joke email list.
It was noted that since the request, Mark Allen had recently set up a joke mailing list of his own, so this agendum is no longer an issue.
ACTION: AG to contact Mark and explain that a joke list could not be officially sanctioned by the Brismesh Managament Committee
Noted that this is closely related to the Press Release agendum. Advertising is expensive. PJ said the PR mailout plan is to 'brand' Brismesh as a wireless community networking operation, so that future media releases will have some researchable support.
It was discussed that it is better to 'advertise' through nerd channels. JI asked how each of the MC came to learn of Brismesh's existence, and word of mouth was generally agreed to be very efficient. There was brief discussion about talking again with groups such as Humbug, to raise awareness of our association. There were anecdotes of previous problems. DL suggested that some bad encounters in the past were due to the conceptual separation of Brismesh as an activity from Brismesh as a group of people (clique). Having a formal structure now may reduce that.
JI suggested that we need more workshops. AG explained that her experience shows that stuff gets broken, goes missing or gets stolen too often.
Local workshops were raised, DL gave the analogy of tupperware parties. AG said she had investigated the 'node-in-a-box' demonstration unit, which local groups could construct and then take around to neigbours.
DEFERRED
DL stupidly had not brought along the printed application forms of new members m#117 through m#121. PJ said that we need to have received payment from them before we can consider them for membership anyway.
DEFERED
Mark Allen had asked that an official delegation of Brismesh approach the Mt Coot-tha complex. This is related to the activity aggendum: i.e. still too early. There was general consensus that anyone (including Mark Allen or Ian Lister) should be able to enter into informal discussions with Mt Coot-tha people in the meantime.
DEFER until insured.
DL worried that members injuring themselves on an association-arranged activity (like building a site) would put the association at risk. Members cannot (and should not) be able to waive their general rights through a membership agreement. However, AG pointed out that particular activities could have particular warnings and indemnification agreements.
PJ said both email and phone number should be mandatory on the Brismesh database. There was a question about if the current arrangement is working well. This gave rise to the underlying problem which is having too cluttered a view. AG said that Ian Lister is already looking at this problem.
DL's certified node project/concept was also discussed, along with resourcing issues to implement it.
ACTION: AG to arrange developer meeting (of the meshdb sourceforge developers) to discuss what is happening with the brismesh db.
ACTION: PJ to mail the MC list with something about this.
Closed at 10.20pm