December 2006 minutes

Held on Thursday 7th December, 2006 at
483 Victoria Street, West Melbourne.

Meeting opened at 6.20pm.

Present
Chair: Kylie Davies
In Attendance: Jan Smith, Tony Calenti, John Simpson, Con Validas, Rob Brittain

1. Welcomes by chair – Kylie Davies

2. Confirmation of previous minutes The previous October minutes were confirmed. Proposer: Rob Brittain. Seconder: John Simpson.

3. Matters arising

3.1 Final report on Contract job to sell laptops on Ebay. This will cover sales achieved, prices and pros and cons of methodology. Laptop sales raised about $1600.00, but CVI is still owed $370.00 from Cloud. Kylie to approach Cloud about making weekly or fortnightly payments over a period, until outstanding amount is paid off. KD will also ask Cloud to print out his Ebay invoices outlining the monetary transactions that took place. The committee agreed that next time someone is hired to sell equipment on Ebay a different approach will need to be taken. On this past occasion even though an Ebay selling policy was in place it was not followed. Next time someone will need to strictly enforce the Ebay selling guidelines.

3.2 Report on CMS video ideas. Kylie will send an email to the mailing list re screen capture tools needed to create instructional videos. Kylie's email re the Libre software was posted on 12-10-06. Many people thought the SFD video made by CMS was not that good, but some people thought it was a good first effort.

3.3 Progress report on selling gaming computers in shop especially for Christmas. Has John researched prices to be charged and cost to produce the Gaming PC.

Work continues on the game PCs with the aim for a completed PC early in the new year which will have the CVI distro plus a 3D video card, 256-512 Ram and 3D games.

4. Agenda

4.1 WFD funding – implications if funding is not increased. Hiring of sales/tech volunteer supervisor now in doubt as well as possible retrenchments of WFD supervisors.

WFD funding will not be increased in 2007. CVI has lost 2 days a week fo WFD staff. CVI has a WFD shortfall of $2000.00 due to overspending on current program for wages and associated costs. The CVI WFD program will be limited to 15 persons maximum by Kangan in 2007. However, the WFD program will roll over to 2007. Kylie will investigate other CWCs (community work coordinators) to see if there are other projects CVI can get involved in.

4.2 Skills Enhancement Initiative (SEI). 13 week Centrelink funding has run out. Given possible WFD funding decrease can we afford to continue this position?

SEI has run out and the extra 5hrs/wk it supported will now cease.

4.3 Owens departure and the database. CVI needs to get hold of the DB's administrator password for development to continue. The implications of Owens departure raises questions of intellectual property rights, who should have passwords, breaches of privacy laws and possible legal problems. CVI needs to develop a policy to avoid ending up in court. This matter will be listed for discussion at the next meeting. In the mean time people should think about the policy CVI needs to implement to avoid the problems mentioned.

At the present time the DB is a problem and we need someone to help us to move to another system. Perhaps the freegeek DB or the OODB. Alastair will be asked to look into this.  The main problem is the ability to transfer the data from the current DB across to the new DB. This will all be revisited early in the new year.

4.4 End of year festivities and closure times. Suggestions for what to do welcome. BBQ for WFD in the park will probably happen but what about Volunteers/committee? WFD BBQ will be held in the park at the end of Dryburgh St opposite the North Melbourne swimming pool on Thursday 14th December, starting at 1.00pm.

The Vol/Committee end of year function will be held on Wednesday evening, 13th October, at the Victoria Market Suzuki outdoor food market, starting at 5.30pm. Closing and Opening times for the Christmas New year period are as follows:

Closures: WFD closed after the 14th December (last day for WFD for 2006). The last day for CVI will be Saturday 16th December (a show me how day).

Resumption: WFD will begin again on the 4th January 2007. CVI will officially open to the public on Thursday 4th January 2007.

4.5 Flyer/Poster to promote our new distribution model. This poster is nearly ready and after some more modifications it will be posted to the WebSite for downloading and distribution. Everyone is free to download and distribute the flyer and everyone is encouraged to do so.

4.6 Request by Cloud for a laptop in exchange for selling more laptops on ebay. This request will be revisited when Cloud has repaid money owing from the ebay sales.

4.7 New E-waste opportunities. Kylie and Greg have been investigating pulling apart monitors and extracting the copper within. 4Kg was obtained from a 4* 15'' monitors which is significant given current copper prices of around $8.00 / Kg. KD will do an economic analysis of stripping monitors and will report this at the next meeting. Another e-waste recycler is being investigated (Surplus Recycling Solutions).

5 Reports

5.1 State Coordinators report/WFD Report (KD)

434 PCs were supplied to clients in 2006 and more PCs, laptops, were sold on Ebay.

5.2 Treasurers report (JS & KD).
5.3 Projects (RB) The new CVI distro testing guide has been prepared and Barry will report on this.
5.4 User Support (JSimpson)
5.5 Donations report (RB) no report
5.6 Documentation and websites report (JSmith)
5.7 Internal systems report (JG)
5.8 Database report (??)
5.9 Technical Coordinators report (Jsimpson)

6. Other Business

None.

7. On Hold

7.1 Awareness documentation, Business cards and new CVI logo (all)

7.2 DGR (Jan). Jan has volunteered to review and restart (revisit) the DGR issue in collaboration with our advisor Simon Bowden.

7.3 Surplus Shop/Ebay seller Policy Documents (Kylie). Some tips – starting to happen.

7.4 Tony to develop grievances procedure policy.

Meeting closed at 8.03pm