Minutes August 2006

Held on Tuesday 15th August, 2006 at
483 Victoria Street, West Melbourne. Meeting opened at 6.15pm.

Present
Chair: Kylie Davies
In Attendance: Jan Smith, Owen Courtis, Tony Calenti, Rob Brittain, Julien Goodwin, John Simpson, Con Validas.

1. Welcomes by chair – Kylie Davies
2. Confirmation of previous minutes The previous June minutes were confirmed.
Proposer: Jan Smith. Seconder: John Simpson.

3. Matters arising

3.1 New phone system has been installed. Thanks to Julien and Rob for setting up the phone system. The system seems to be working OK, but some more clarification of button functionality is required.
3.2 Kylie's Job Network Member progress report. KD has paper work. JNM supervisor wants KD's pay to be increased and that this increase is related to training related work.
3.3 Further progress report on Contract job to sell laptops on Ebay. Job is nearly completed and there are 4 more laptops to sell.
3.4 New Distro. How is it going? Had problems with the new version of cups so we have reverted to the previous 1.3 version. Fat 32 disks were not being recognised and this problem has been fixed. Added dialogue box for onscreen feedback about the network setup (connected or disconnected).

4 Agenda

4.1 Lease renewal in January (letter to be tabled). To be discussed at next meeting.
4.2 CMS video ideas. Committee to discuss possible video projects. It was decided that a WIKI page would be created on our website and ideas could be channelled through that medium.
4.3 Flat LCD monitors. Policy decision as to what we do with these. Consensus is that firstly, the LCD monitors be deployed at the CVI premises to save on power usage. Secondly, that the remaining LCD monitors be provided to clients on a case by case basis. Decision to provide an LCD monitor will be at CVI discretion based on needs, with medical reasons (related to visual impairment) receiving priority treatment. However, there will be a charge (that can be waived in exceptional circumstances) For LCD monitors (15in LCDs - $40.00; 17in LCDs - $60.00)
4.4 P4 PCs. Pricing policy if use these systems for recipients. The meeting members agreed to the following pricing policy: P4 upgrade to cost $120.00. This will provide a 1.2- 1.6 GigHz processor and 256Mb of ram as well as the sound card and cdrom setup. Extras as per current pricing policy.

4.5 Laptops. P3 laptop allocation and pricing policy. The meeting agreed to the following policy:
a. Laptops will be provided to special case clients, at CVI's discretion, with a base charge of $100.00 applying for a P3, 450Mhz system and $120.00 for P3, 600MHz system. Hard drive space varying from 6-10Gig and memory RAM varying from 128- 256MB.
b. If a client already has a desktop computer and also wants a laptop, the request will be considered on a case by case basis as to whether or not approval is given to supply the laptop.
c. CVI will also set aside a quantity of laptops for use by CVI for training and demonstration purposes.
d. The laptops need to be categorised into the $100.00 and $120.00 groups and each laptop needs to have its specifications listed.

4.6 Discuss upgrade administration fee forfeiture for cancellations or failure to pickup. The meeting agreed that the $10.00 upgrade fee for applicants applying for a computer will be non-refundable from this month if the applicant cancels their application or fails to pickup their computer, in order to cover time spent in processing their application, such as, application administration (registering, database, approval, etc) phone calls to client and/or support organisation, and ordering and pickup of upgrade hardware.

4.7 Wage rise for WFD supervisors. The following motion was voted on: That CVI increase WFD supervisors pay by $2.00 an hour. Proposed by Jan Smith and seconded by Owen Courtis. (CWD).
The meeting agreed this motion would take effect from 15th August 2006.

4.8 Donation pickups as paid work. The meeting decided that the same rates as apply to ewaste pickups be applied to donation pickups when the pickup involved more than 8 PC systems, that is, PC boxes plus their corresponding monitors.

4.9 Software freedom day exhibition at Melbourne Town Hall. Possible discussion topics are promotion, stand design, staffing, logistics, T-shirts, give-aways, demonstrations.

The meeting discussed the need to prepare press releases for local papers; the contacting of various groups that would be interested in being exhibitors such as, VLUG, Linux Chicks, MLUG, Indy Media, PHPUG and business groups that provide commercial linux support and jobs in open source software. Computers, probably mainly laptops will be used and we need to explore security issues as well as prepare the computers for the SFD. CVI will accept the two free t-shirts being offered by Sorfware Freedom Day Committee and not order any extra ones. Rob will organise the provision of a large tarpaulin for a banner and KD will advertise for someone to put the word Computerbank in black and white letters on it. Further discussions will occur at the SFD meeting scheduled for Friday the 18th August 2006 starting at 2.00pm at the CVI premises. Interested members should check the SFD WIKI for discussions and progress and input.

4.10 Request for PCs for James' project and also for PNG project.
a. PNG project. Jeren Okka an exchange student from PNG has requested 15-20 PCs for his former school. The meeting agreed that CVI could supply lower end P2s and P3s with 15in monitors and some printers and that the project should go ahead.
b. James Kilpatrick has requested around 50 PCs for an overseas project involving sending computers to an orphanage in Kampala Uganda. The meeting agreed that CVI could supply any excess stock that CVI does not currently need. CVI will respond with the number of PCs we can supply.

5 Reports

5.1 State Coordinators report/WFD Report (KD)
5.2 Treasurers report (KD) no report
5.3 Projects (RB) no report
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 (OC)+
5.9 Technical Coordinators report (JSimpson)

6. Other Business

6.1 Hiring of book-keeper for 5hrs per fortnight. A decision as to whether to proceed or not to hire such a person will be made at the next meeting in September.

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.