Washington Area Commodore User Group Minutes of the Board of Directors Meeting 16 October 1999 Board Meeting Attendance - Jorn Dakin, Mary Ellen Flynn, Geof Goodrum, Bob Mason, Kathy Perrin, Lu Spriggs, Jim Spurlock, Mike ten Kate, and Bill Walsh Minutes - Minutes from the September board meeting were read. Minutes were amended to change "price" to "prize" and "encrption" to "encryption." Minutes were approved as amended. Comments on General Meeting - Good meeting on favorite shareware and freeware. Attendance at General Meeting - Another good turnout with 34 people in attendance. Treasurer's Report/Other Financial Business - September report accepted without amendment. The Board approved a motion to allow Bob Mason to spend up to $60 to purchase a cart to move club equipment on meeting days. The Board voted to keep membership dues for next year at the existing level of $22. Disk Sales - Disk sales came to $66. The Board briefly discussed the option of putting the disks of the month on CD and increasing the time period between offerings. Mike ten Kate noted that this option would most likely cut into the club's profits on disk sales. One option would be to continue monthly disk sales while offering "super collections" with new stuff from time to time. General Discussion - Bob agreed to follow-up with MalekTips (a web-based computer tips site) which has offered to make its tips available for publication in our newsletter in return for a link to the site on our web page. Geof Goodrum noted that he has not received a response to the letter he sent to PatriotNet regarding sponsoring the club's email and web site. Geof said he is looking more closely at the option of having APCUG host these services for us. However, he is also looking at freeserver.com as another option. Geof said he will prepare a comparison chart of the two services for the Board. Production of the Cursor ran into certain problems in October. Kathy and Geof discussed the problem of printing out a clean list of address labels. The deadline for articles for next month's Cursor is Saturday, October 23. We agreed that software reviews should always have top priority for inclusion in the Cursor since they are generally time critical and must be completed and published within a 60 or 90 day window. Mike noted that he is preparing a review of SecondChance from PowerQuest. Geof added that he is preparing a review of WinTV. We do not yet have the review of DataKeeper from PowerQuest which Alex Goodale is working on. Geof said he would contact Alex regarding this review. Lu Spriggs mentioned a new Cursor feature called "Ask Kathy." This Q & A feature in the Cursor will encourage folks to send computer questions to Kathy Perrin. Kathy will draw upon her own knowledge and other club members to prepare a response which will be emailed back to the individual and posted in the Cursor. The Board agreed to formally disband the 8-bit and Amiga SIGs since the interest-level in these SIGs has dwindled and there is no one left to manage them. Bob agreed to take on the responsibility of working with government center staff to arrange for meeting rooms. He said he would coordinate with Alex to find out who his contacts are. Mike ten Kate noted that Microsoft will be holding a Microsoft Office 2000 day at CompUSA this coming Saturday and Sunday. This should be a great opportunity to recruit new members since Microsoft had invited user groups to attend and hand out fliers. Mike said he would cover 12:00 to 2:30 on Saturday. Kathy said she would cover the 2:30 to 5:00 time slot. Bob agreed to prepare the tri-folds for the event and will meet Mike at 12:00 on Saturday to deliver them. Geof noted that we need to start planning for next year's officers election. He added that he does not intent to stand for President again. However, he will manage a new Linux SIG for the club and continue to contribute to the production of the Cursor. Geof said he will put an announcement in next month's Cursor regarding officer elections in January, the need for folks to step forward and volunteer to become officers, and the need for a nominating committee chairman. Future Meetings - Microsoft is scheduled to present at our next meeting. Geof will also brief us on late breaking news from Comdex which he will be attending. December is reserved for our clinic/swap meet. The January meeting will consist of club elections, new user day, and Bill Walsh may demonstrate the use of dual monitors with Windows 98. We discussed the possibility of asking Microsoft to demo Money 2000 and related tax software in February. Mike said he would follow-up with Microsoft on this idea. Meeting adjourned