September Cai-Vic Minutes 2003
COMPUTERBANK VICTORIAN BRANCH.
Minutes for Branch Committee Meeting.
Date: Thu 18 Sep 03.
Time: 7:25pm to 9:20pm.
Where: 92 Rosslyn Street, West Melbourne, 3003.
Present: Rob Brittain, Kylie Davies (chair), Julien Goodwin,
Tim McDonald (late), Steve Paynter, Lachlan Simpson, Jan Smith,
Con Validas.
Apologies: Vic Koci, Owen Courtis.
Notes:
* Quoted text is from the previous minutes.
* Numbers in curly braces {...} are tape counter references, to
assist with review of items.
1. WELCOMES, INTRODUCTIONS AND APOLOGIES.
2. CONFIRMATION OF PREVIOUS MINUTES.
Minutes accepted.
3. MATTERS ARISING
3.1 Loaner Development Computers.
"Rob is waiting to hear back from the person who is hunting down
Wade." [This item included on agenda to allow progress report, and
because it wasn't closed at previous meeting. - Sec.]
Rob says he will report progress when it happens.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.2 Auction of Surplus Equipment.
"Terry to collate responses [from mailing list]. Items not sold
after 2 weeks will be rolled over onto eBay."
When Kylie last spoke to Terry, he hadn't received a single bid.
There seemed to be confusion about the bidding process.
Action: Someone will post to the CAI-Vic list tonight or tomorrow,
giving people another six or so days to get their final bids in.
Julien will bring in a digital camera on Friday, and we'll try to get
items onto eBay through Julien's account. Kylie will investigate
courier company accounts, and will let us know about it next week.
ITEM ONGOING.
3.3 Progress Reports.
"[Steve says] template nearly completed."
Trial template completed and passed on to Rob. Copy circulated at
meeting. Feedback to be directed to Steve.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.4 Menieres Report.
"Kylie to look at minutes and Menieres report to see what needs
amending." [This item included on agenda to clear up a long-
standing minor discrepancy from a previous minutes. - Sec.]
Kylie has checked her report and previous minutes: the systems were
stand-alone, not networked.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.5 Events Calendar.
"Rob still to put up a calendar of future events and meetings."
The whiteboard idea was dropped. There was a suggestion two
meetings ago of the possibility of someone (unspecified) adding
this functionality to the Zope site. We'll stick with that plan
for now.
It was noted that, in the past, we haven't kept the website events
calendar up-to-date.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.6 Camera.
"Julien may be able to borrow a camera."
Covered in item 3.2.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.7 Internal Systems.
"[Migration of services] will happen when we get decent computers
that don't require custom kernels." [This item included on agenda
to allow progress report, and because it wasn't closed at previous
meeting. - Sec.]
Kylie and Julien felt this item shouldn't have been included on
agenda. It will be discussed under item 4.7. Ongoing.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.8 Prototype Database [was part of "Database Report"].
"No prototype database working yet, but there has been some
progress."
To be discussed in item 4.8.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.9 Installation Documentation [was item 3.20 a) "Systems Changes"].
"Rob is working with David Lavender to update the installation
documentation." [This item included on agenda to allow progress
report. - Sec.]
Rob didn't feel this item should have been included on agenda.
Documentation is ongoing.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.10 Training Manual Rewrite [was item 3.20 c) "Systems Changes"].
"A training manual 'rewrite day' is scheduled for next Wednesday;
an invitation to attend will be posted to the mailing list."
Con and Kylie had a documentation meeting, and allocated all rewrite
jobs amongst themselves. Thanks to Lachlan for help with document-
ation. Lachlan and (tentatively) Cloud have offered to do document-
ation. Ongoing.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.11 Expected Income (I) [was part of "State Coordinator's Report"].
"A grant for $26,400 is expected in the next two weeks."
Still hasn't arrived. Expected tomorrow or Monday at the very
latest. The real estate agent has been advised that rent will be
paid when grant cheque arrives. A special clearance of the cheque
has been arranged.
ITEM ONGOING.
3.12 Expected Income (II) [was part of "State Coordinator's Report"].
"We're also owed $7300 by Kangan for completion of last WFTD project;
an audit of books is required before collecting this."
Kylie said the amount owed was something like $6920, not $7300 as
reported at last meeting. She has clarified with Kangan that an
income and expenditure statement, but not an audit statement, is
required. Kylie will do this over the next two weeks.
ITEM ONGOING.
3.13 GDT Exemption [was part of "Treasurer's Report"].
"[Con reported that] we've applied for Government Debits Tax
exemption from State Revenue Office, back-dated for three years."
[This item included on agenda to allow progress report. - Sec.]
Con will discuss in item 4.2.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.14 New "Desktop Penguin" [was part of "Projects Report"].
"Rob has been looking at Morphix for our new Desktop Penguin; he will
report his findings at the next meeting."
Lachlan rated Morphix as 'average' after an evaluation. Rob had
problems too, and concludes that Morphix is not suitable for
Computerbank Vic at this time.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.15 KMail Problems [was part of "User Support Report"].
"[Con says] KMail is broken, and sometimes wipes user settings and
prevents sending and receiving of mail. Mozilla Mail is being
recommended instead." [This item was included on agenda to elicit
confirmation that Mozilla Mail is now being shipped as a replacement
for KMail. - Sec.]
Kylie wasn't sure why this item was included on agenda, but confirmed
that the decision has been made.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.16 Zope Website Bug [was part of "Documentation Report"].
"The Zope documentation website has been upgraded and a login bug has
been introduced. Dave Fregon may be able to fix within the next
week." [This item included on agenda to allow progress report.
- Sec.]
Kylie wasn't sure why this item was included on agenda.
Jan reported that the bug has been fixed, and that Dave Fregon will
be installing the latest (fixed) Silva version shortly.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.17 Database Screenshots [was part of "Database Report"].
"Screenshots [..] will be available on Owen's website tomorrow; a
note will be posted to the mailing list about this." [This item
included on agenda to allow progress report. - Sec.]
Kylie reported that this happened.
ITEM CLOSED.
3.18 Locking of Patch Rack.
"It was agreed to lock the rack to prevent unauthorised meddling."
[This item included on agenda to allow progress report, and because
it wasn't closed at previous meeting. - Sec.]
This has happened. Julien is now "very happy".
ITEM CLOSED.
4. AGENDA ITEMS.
4.1 State Coordinator's Report (Kylie).
No written report.
Kylie reported that we shipped 22 systems this month, the largest
number all year. The July figure was 13 systems shipped, not 15 as
reported in previous minutes.
The bank balance is "quite slim" at the moment, but the expected
grant payment will rectify things (see item 3.11).
We currently have 40 outstanding applications for systems, and 10
with special issues (training, etc). That's 50 in total.
Donations were received from PowerCor, Peter Harvey & Co, and Red
Cross. Julien said we got some good stuff here - laptops, servers,
memory - as well as the usual low-end gear. Kylie said we have a
long waiting list for laptops, so they won't be going to volunteers.
There was much discussion about laptops and the waiting list.
We were unsuccessful in our application for the $US50,000 Tech
Museum Award; we were given no reason.
The Work For The Dole (WFTD) programme is progressing "very well",
and is probably one of the most well-attended that we've run.
Kylie is going to put in more WFTD Achievement Award applications.
We can nominate in each of three categories: Participant of the
Year, Supervisor of the Year, and Project of the Year.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.2 Treasurer's Report (Con, Nick).
No written report.
Con reported that, on the subject of Government Debits Tax Exemption
(see item 3.13), we were knocked back by the State Revenue Office.
He thinks this is because we're not a registered charity, and is
reluctant to pursue this further. Kylie said our lawyers, Clayton
Utz, have looked into this issue previously, unsuccessfully. We'll
revisit this issue with Clayton Utz, under the Education category
rather than the Relief of Poverty category.
Con put in an application for the National Bank Volunteer Awards
several months ago, and has just received word that we were not
successful.
Auditing is progressing well. Shirley, a volunteer, has been
working hard on this for the last few months. It's almost done.
We also have to do an audit for the WFTD project (?). When that's
done we can book an appointment with a professional auditor, in time
for the Annual General Meeting in November. Thanks to Shirley for
her efforts.
Nick Hobden has been working on the September Business Activity
Statement. It's nearly done.
Con will have to take care of superannuation by next month. (We
have to report back quarterly now.)
South Australian branch of Computerbank hasn't got back to Con yet
regarding GST matters.
Con's written Treasurers Report will be posted to the list.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.3 Projects Report (Rob).
No written report.
Julien has done some work on the network in the last week. Grant
has been working on the new /home server. Rob hasn't heard anything
about databases (but see item 4.8).
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.4 User Support Report (Con).
No written report.
Con says we've had about 15 cases of user support in the month of
August, including several monitor problems, some mail problems, a
couple of printer configurations, some rebuilds for recipients with
old flaky systems, problems with ISPs and modems. Just a normal
month in User Support. Thanks to Kylie, Lachlan, Con, Rob, and
others for their efforts.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.5 Donations Report (Terry).
No written report.
Kylie and Julien spoke about donations in item 4.1.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.6 Documentation Report (Jan).
No written report.
The system is faulty; hopefully upgrade will happen this weekend
(see item 3.16).
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.7 Internal Systems Report (Julien, Grant).
No written report.
Julien reported that, as part of the migration of services, one of
the old servers will be switched off tomorrow. Some services will
not be replaced, eg, Postgres and the internal news server. There
were some problems with the migration of services between servers.
All we're waiting on to complete the migration of services is for
Grant to do the new /home server.
Internal mail is now better than it was before. Mail routing should
now be "nice".
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.8 Database Report (Owen).
Written report received.
Owen reports that a number of modules need to be added, and he will
be working on these this coming week. He'll email the list of
developments, together with an update of the website.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.9 17" Monitors (Kylie).
Kylie reported that we have 17" monitors stored at Kennards and at
Grant's place. Rob disputed the number of 17" monitors at Grant's
place. Rob says we'll move monitors from these locations tomorrow
and through the week.
Greg suggested we make a policy of giving a 17" monitor to all
applicants over the age of 60, as well as continuing to do so for
applicants with visual disabilities. All other recipients get a 15"
monitor, with the option to upgrade to a 17" monitor for $20.
Rob raised the issue of the extra weight of larger monitors for
elderly recipients.
The meeting agreed to trial an upgrade price of $30, with no charge
for elderly and visually impaired recipients. This will of course
be subject to availability of 17" monitors.
There was also discussion of and agreement to the distribution of
large-text PDF versions of our training materials.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.10 Lupus Australia Foundation (Kylie).
Kylie raised the question of Lupus Australia Foundation having
monthly or bi-monthly committee meetings at Computerbank Vic in the
evening.
Also, the OIF (Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation?) would like to
rent our training room for an internet research skills workshop in
October.
After discussion, the meeting approved both these proposals.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.11 Wednesday Volunteering Roster (Kylie).
Computerbank Vic is open to volunteers on Wednesdays, but closed to
the public. Kylie asked for volunteer key-holders to come in to
open the place up for other volunteers. The problem of supervision
of volunteers was discussed.
Lachlan volunteered to come in on Wednesdays, and will be given
keys and a copy of the security policy. Tony Calenti will also get
a set of keys so that he can do training sessions when key-holders
aren't about.
Kylie will post to the list, asking if anyone else wants to volunteer
for Wednesday rostering.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.12 Telstra Message Bank (Kylie).
Kylie wants to trial a phone answering system for a month, as a way
of alerting out-of-hours callers to our opening hours. We would use
Telstra Message Bank for this service, since we can't use ordinary
answering machines on our phone system "without getting a rocket
scientist in". The service is expected to cost around $3.50 per
month, with no fee to check messages locally.
Kylie said last time we had Message Bank on - during a busy period -
we ended up discontinuing the service because it was so heavily used
(too many callers to deal with). This time around we'll leave a
*really* long message on it, alerting callers to our application
procedures, policies, etc, thus reducing the need for us to return
calls so often. This may also discourage callers from leaving
frivolous messages and thus wasting our time.
After discussion, the meeting agreed to a one month trial, to be
reviewed at the next meeting.
ITEM ONGOING.
4.13 Computers to East Timor (Kylie).
The Australian Conservation Foundation has requested three Linux-
based machines for an East Timor project. An answer is needed
quickly. Low-spec machines would be adequate.
The meeting approved the request. Someone (Kylie?) will contact
South Australian branch of Computerbank to see what they've been
doing with East Timor, and perhaps join forces.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.14 Items for Sale (Kylie).
This stuff was discussed in item 3.2.
Rob mentioned that he's sold two of our surplus laser printers for
around $170 each, to assist with our cash flow.
ITEM CLOSED.
4.15 Logo Changes (Con).
Kylie said not many people are happy with the Computerbank 'flower
+ computer monitor' logo. Mark Holloway's alternative logo - the
'digital bird' - was discussed. No consensus was reached. Julien
and Jan volunteered to draw up guidelines for a logo, eg, common
vector format better than bitmap. Submissions for a new logo will
be accepted over next three months or so, and if a good proposal
is received, it will be accepted.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.16 Support Fee - Back to Base (Con).
Current fee is $11 (inc. GST). Con suggested we increase this to
$15 (inc. GST). The meeting approved the new $15 back-to-base
support fee.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.17 Software Distribution Update (Con).
Rob said we currently have "three distributions that aren't follow-
ing the original format that we sat down and talked about." These
are:
1) The "internal box distribution", which is currently running.
After fine-tuning and tar-balling, it will be usable locally.
Rob and Julien discussed software layout and other technical stuff,
at length.
2) Cloud's smaller laptop install, which is intended to fit comfort-
ably on a 1.2 GB hard drive with room to spare, at the expense of
standard Computerbank software packages.
Again, Rob and Julien discussed technical trade-offs and such, at
length.
3) [I don't think Rob got around to mentioning the third distrib-
ution. - Sec.]
Julien has contacted Sun about special StarOffice licences for
Computerbank. Julien or Rob will follow this up.
Kylie's summary of this item is that Julien might be able to help
David Lavender and company to create a Debian distribution that is
"a little bit saner than what we currently use", based on the soft-
ware distribution meeting we had a couple of months ago. No time-
frame was set for this.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.18 Selling Mandrake 9.1 (Con).
The topic was sale of Mandrake 9.1 for $15 (inc. GST) for volun-
teers, and $20 (inc. GST) for non-volunteers.
Con said he has installed this operating system - as a lightweight
ICEWM install - on his home system, and found it to be very good.
He thinks the supermount feature is attractive for newbies. Julien
argued that automounters on PC hardware are "bad news" for careless
floppy disk users. [If drive doesn't detect injudicious media change,
a delayed (cached) write can lose or trash data. - Sec.]. Also,
Julien thinks we can't legally sell Mandrake if the distribution
contains commercial software. Kylie suggests we revisit the issue
later.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
4.19 Complaint Received (Kylie).
Kylie says one of our occasional trainers got some "really really
bad" feedback. The training recipient probably isn't coming back.
His case worker phoned Kylie and said the recipient felt like he'd
been ignored and wasn't welcome. There have been other such problems
reported about this Computerbank volunteer with respect to training
and user support.
There was general agreement that this volunteer shouldn't be involved
with training or user support.
ITEM CLOSED.
4.20 Minutes as Informal Project Management (Steve).
Steve noted a problem with the way meeting agendas and minutes are
currently being done. He said he had assumed in the past that
people were happy to have items remain on the minutes until
formally closed, so that people could track progress. He said
his research showed lots of companies use their minutes this way
- essentially, as informal progress management. Steve mentioned
his past concerns with the informal mechanisms through which such
items are added to and deleted from the minutes (via the agenda),
and how they clutter the minutes across the months. He noted that
the number of complaints during the current meeting, of the type
"Why is this item still on the minutes?", confirmed that others were
now also unhappy with using the minutes in this way.
Steve will discuss with Kylie a different approach to writing up
the meeting agendas and minutes.
ITEM CLOSED.
5. OTHER BUSINESS.
5.1 Volunteer Induction Day (Kylie).
Kylie has discussed with Con the idea of having a Volunteer
Induction Day on Sat 4 Oct. The meeting didn't object to this.
Kylie noted that we no longer have a Volunteer Coordinator.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
5.2 Training Rosters for October (Kylie).
Nobody volunteered to do training on Sat 11 Oct.
Kylie volunteered to do training on Sat 18 Oct.
Nobody volunteered to do training on Sat 25 Oct.
Kylie noted that, as well as trainers, volunteer support people
are required.
Kylie will post to the list for volunteers.
ASSUMING ITEM CLOSED.
6. MEETING CLOSE.
The meeting closed at 9:20pm.
