JavaMUG Board Meeting, Wednesday, February 9, 2005

Time and Location

• 9:24 PM approximately, to 11:00 PM
• JC Penney Meeting room

Attendance

• President: Daniel Brookshier
• Vice-president: Steve Davidson
• Secretary: Lori Wilkins
• Treasurer: Stephanie Smith
• Jean Johnson: Board Member
• Guests: Guests are always welcome to attend the board meeting. No guests chose to attend.

General Business

• Daniel Brookshier, President called the meeting to order around 9:32 p.m.
• Approved January 2005 board meeting minutes & general meeting minutes:
• All five board members present voted unanimously to approve the minutes for January's meetings.
• Special planning meeting for the Board:
• Jim and Lori, Membership Committee members, had previously suggested having a special planning meeting for the board during a weekend. All of the board members were in agreement, either on the Board mailing list or at the February meeting. Saturday, March 5, 9am - 1pm at Nerdbooks was agreed upon unanimously by 4 board members; 1 board member abstained from the vote.
• Sponsors and speakers for upcoming months:
• Stephanie said that Erik Weibust will line up a speaker for March. Stephanie has volunteered to chair the Speakier committee in support of the people who are lining up speakers. She will be the official contact person for scheduling speakers. Erik Weibust is lining up speakers, along with Jean. Erik has requested to be added to the Board mailing list. The Board agreed to that request.
• Budget for future speakers was briefly mentioned. No decisions were made.
• Jean Johnson is the official contact person for sponsors. Stephen Davidson will be the sponsor for March. Ajilon plans to be the sponsor for April and Recursion Software plans to sponsor May.
• A Vision statement for the JavaMug organization had been proposed by the Membership Committee as part of a series of enhancements to the JavaMUG.org website:
• The vision statement is intended to align members, sponsors, and speakers. Daniel had been asked to provide a vision statement for the organization, but declined to do so. He suggested we solicit input from the membership. Lori was selected to take on that task.
• JavaMUG future meeting location:
• A new meeting location must be found and be available for the April meeting. We may be able to meet at J.C. Penney in April, but that is uncertain.
• Stephanie presented several options:
• A parish high school in the Midway Road and Spring Valley Road area close to Brookhaven College, in the old Mobil building.
• A high school cafeteria in the Valley View and Luna Road area.
• Sun Microsystems, if they would confirm, North on the Toll Road
• REI, close to Coit and the George Bush Tollroad
• It was decided to present the options to the membership in an e-mail sometime around February 18, for a vote. Stephanie will be e-mailing the group.
• Jean Johnson is setting up a Yahoo group to facilitate voting on locations.
• Stephanie has found many options for the SIG groups to meet. She has presented those options to the SIG leaders, who have met with her on an individual basis to discuss them. There are many options available to the SIG groups since the need much smaller meeting space.
• Committee members identified, etc. so website can be updated to reflect accurate information:
• Stephanie volunteered to get this information to Randy so it could be updated properly.
• Need to add additional static html info to the website to provide information to potential SPEAKERS, SPONSORS, and MEMBERS. Currently, it is not obvious who a SPEAKER or SPONSOR would contact if they were interested in helping the group. It also isn't clear how much it costs to be a SPONSOR, etc.
• Item was discussed and Lori was tasked with providing "blurbs" of information. Lori is to put it all together with input from Daniel, Jean, and Stephanie. Lori will mail it to the Board Email list for their review and approval prior to giving it to Randy to publish on the website.
• Lori had suggested a contact list for board members, sig leaders, and volunteers, so everyone would know how to get in touch with one another, if need be.
• It was agreed that Jean Johnson would create a Yahoo group for BOARD MEMBERS ONLY that will contain a database with this shared information. Other items will also be stored there for shared access by the board.
• Website hosting – possibility of moving site to a paid for (or donated) ISP location that will permit us to write JSPs, servlets, Perl, etc. and have a database:
• Jim Burke and Lori Wilkins had a weekend meeting of the Membership Committee on Saturday, January 22, and came up with some "grand plans" for website automation and increasing membership.
• The idea proposed to the board involves the need to provide our members, sponsors, and speakers with more than they are currently getting from JavaMUG. Currently, there is no real motivation to be a member. The only thing membership currently gets versus non-membership is the right to vote in elections. That makes membership a pretty hard-sell.
• The membership committee came up with a rough design for a database and website that will support a webpage for each SPEAKER, SPONSOR, and MEMBER. The membership committee believes it has a responsibility to PROMOTE people who help JAVAMUG. If they are a speaker and a book author, we want to publicize and help sell their books, because we want a line of quality speakers lined up at our door. If they are a SPONSOR, we want to display their logos, their products, and send them business or recruits. If they profit, we will profit.
• If you are a member of JavaMUG, we want to provide you with the opportunity to self-advertise and promote yourself. If you are a contractor, we want to help you get more work. If you work for a company and want to change jobs, we want to help you do that. If you are an author, we want to let you display your book cover and promote your book on your page.
• We want to turn this into a win for everyone and give everyone more than they are getting today. To do this, we have to automate, which means we must change to an ISP who will support that.
• The board is currently looking for a viable ISP solution. Lori and Jim of the Membership Committee have been tasked with providing options to the board for review and a decision.
• Code of Ethics: Possibility of adding a Code of Ethics to membership signup was briefly discussed as a future possibility.

Addendum to Board Meeting Minutes

• Finances:
• Income:
• $0.00 income for January or February 2005.
• January expenses:
• $26.43 for Steve's badge, stick-on badges, ice and cups