Board Members Present: Lucille Harper, James Modena, Len Huber, Martin Huntley, Earle Hancock, Algot Runeman
Lucille Called the meeting to order at 11:00 A.M.
Financial: Current bank balance approx. $4000.00 with bills we owe
of about $1000.00. Apple owes us $1000.000 and IBM also owes us
$1000.00. Tree House also owes us money. Jim feels we should get taxes
done professionally. We had around $42,000.00 of income this fiscal year.
Motion - (Jim) MassCUE should hire a professional accountant to prepare
our tax returns. (Algot seconds) Our "income" and tax exempt status
require a professional perspective which Jim feels a volunteer
treasurer cannot provide. General positive discussion. No dissent
Passed 6/0
A. Membership Survey - determine the needs of
membership. Specifically want SIG information and Public Domain
awareness and "How can we reach your colleagues?" Martin feels we need
to have more info. to and from members, but is the survey the best way?
Rather, he suggests a regular board report in onCUE with
request for responses and suggestions from the members. Question
raised: Is MassCUE doing what you want for your membership?
Len moves to revise the membership questionnaire to include these
topics (design to be determined) 1. Are you satisfied with MassCUE? 2.
SIG information. 3. Suggested public domain software 4. How well known
is MassCUE among your colleagues?
Passed 6/0
B. MassCUE Advisory Council discussion tabled to July meeting.
C. Retreat retrospective Alan suggested
Wednesday/Thursday but board prefers Thursday/Friday though approves of
the location and basic time of year. Len feels we need a more formal
evaluation of the retreat. The retreat content was skimpy. Martin feels
that we need to promote full participation by all those who attend.
Earle suggests that there be a real social event there. Thursday there
should be a speaker to set the tone of the retreat. Then dinner and a
short after dinner activity to initiate the retreat involvement
followed by a contained social activity using the facilities in a way
that would allow those who wanted to sleep to do so. Jim wanted to have
the retreat be specifically an organization improvement meeting.
Martin proposed: 1. 15 to 30 minute speech 2. small group follow up 3. supper 4. social 5. Friday carry forward the theme.
Combined suggestions: 1. Two activities Thursday one light and one
effective because the first activity might be in conflict with the
check-in of some participants. Have the light activity then supper then
the "required" session and then the social event. 2. Friday have an
organized activity schedule and some short breaks in between. Have a
longer day to allow more activity up to about 2:00 P.M. Move board
meeting to a later hour and have board stay in area for supper to avoid
the issue of traffic (who should pay for food?) 3. Have a formal
evaluation based on an evaluation sheet of no more than one page and no
more than 10 items. As an incentive to fill out maybe there should be a
raffle from all sheets submitted. This suggestion was also made with
reference to the conferences.
D. AppleFest
Alan wanted to assess whether the gains from our participation
warranted the cost of tables, print materials. There was a general
consensus that the broad exposure was a good reason to participate
again. We may not have gotten too many on-the-spot memberships, but
many people carried our information away with them. Algot suggested
that rather than handing out membership forms and a full issue of onCUE we produce a special show version of onCUE that would allow us to cut printing costs.
E. Earle promises to do a letterhead. (We actually skipped to item 7
under new business here, but to keep the minutes clear, the rest of the
old business will be summarized here first)
F. Telephone tree - table.
G. Mail in ballot good idea for next election. Len wants to be on election committee.
H. Raffle at conference - table
I. Bulk mail permit has been paid for at the Framingham P.O. J. MassCUE
member presentations of commercial products working understanding.
J. Martin moved that we use the following new statement: "Leaders of
MassCUE events must be sensitive to issues of conflict of interest.
Members must disclose a commercial interest in any presentation to a
MassCUE meeting."
Passed 6/0
Anne Kenyon's position in the elementary SIG came up as a sticky
example. Martin pointed out that the SIG is still informal so the issue
is perhaps moot. Only at the time of formal recognition will the issue
need final judgment.
K. Incentive policies for conference attendance tabled. L. Planning meeting for pilot technologies tabled.
Algot requested board to give initial input to a recommended
practices list. The next step after board will be to have list
suggestions from coordinators' SIG. Coordinators' SIG dinner was very
expensive, but was covered by vendors. There was a cost of around
$18.00 a person. Apple picked up the cost of the dinner. Separate SIG
dinners OK but need to be organized by themselves not by board. Charlie
Schiller suggested that there might be no community of interest with a
combined SIG dinner since the group would not have had other meetings.
Someone suggested that a MassCUE leader dinner might be a sensible
alternative. It would allow SIG leaders to meet and discuss their
common needs with the board.
The board will [next] meet at Lucille's house at 10 A.M. The general member portion of the next meeting is 1:00 P.M. Directions: Take the Mass Pike to the Auburn exit..You will exit onto route 395. (There will be signs to route 20 and route 146.) Follow route 395 south to route 20. Go east on route 20 to route 146. Follow route 146 south for 9 miles to the Purgatory Chasm exit. Turn left at the end of the exit ramp. After you drive between two ponds, take your first left (Golthwaite Road). The second left of Golthwaite Road is Carpenter Road. The third house (counting the corner house) is 47. It is an ivory cape.
4. Western site for conference. No solid leads yet. Need a volunteer from a willing site. Suggestions (from us): Freedman, Hampshire; Springfield; Holyoke; Wilbraham, Dawn; Fitzgerald (Len will ask); Westfield (Charlie will ask); Sturbridge; Charleton-Dudley.
5. Algot gave brief report of public domain library with list of the year's requests (attached). Lucille suggested that the public domain catalog be part of a new member packet that should get sent to all new members when they sign up.
6. Lucille requested an update at the next meeting about the grant writing committee.
7. Charlie Schiller was present at the meeting and the board discussed the issue of publications. onCUE is the newsletter of MassCUE. Charlie feels that MassCUE Reports should be a more formal publication where we could put major research articles and put it out with the proceedings of each conference which should be abstracts of the presentations. Charlie recommended that the selection/writing of presentations occur in three rounds.1. 1-3 line proposal 2. paragraph description 3. abstract article of a full typewritten page with objectives and procedures outlined with small bio. Algot pointed out that you would need significant lead time to prepare a real proceedings. Martin suggested that the proceedings might become too large and be too expensive to produce. From a philosophical perspective, is a formal journal appropriate for MassCUE at this time? Has a need for the outlet been established? Maybe the conference proceedings is a good half step toward a journal format. Charlie then proposed the abstract be done in two rounds started with a single paragraph in the proposal and then the abstract written with clear guidelines provided by us. Martin suggested a max of 250 words to keep printing costs down. Produce a MassCUE Reports proceedings which is useful to members but not journal level. Available at cost to those who do not attend the conference. In the past it has been sent to all members. Earle pointed out that serious articles may be just as appropriate for onCUE as for MassCUE Reports. If MassCUE Reports is really a conference proceedings then there is no need to add articles to it. Put the formal research papers in onCUE. The formal nature of articles equals length which equals cost.(Lunch break - Super natural foods catered by Leslie. Thank you very much from all of us.) Martin thinks that MassCUE Reports should be an enriched conference proceedings, but that extra articles are a financial issue and we currently cannot afford it. Charlie feels that if we have a page limit, that formal articles could be added up to that size. Martin and Jim feel that the articles should go into onCUE. Lucille suggested holding the journal idea on the shelf until a greater need for it exists. Martin questioned whether a journal outlet for our members' research papers already exists. If so, we should not compete with it. If none exists then we need to think about providing the service of a journal to our members. Len thought MassCUE Reports/proceedings should include a MassCUE editorial or six month overview. Then MassCUE Reports would become a true record of the activities of MassCUE and specifically its conferences over the years, where we've been in the past six months written from the president's perspective. Include a summary of the previous keynote address. Earle wondered if both publications are fighting each other for resources, then it becomes counter productive. Maybe Charlie should become an editor of a regular component of onCUE. Action was tabled (6/0) to July 23rd. hoping Charlie can join us.
Meeting adjourned at 2:51 P.M.
Alan called the night after the meeting and added the following comments for our consideration at the next meeting. Night before conference, have SIG meetings from 3-5 then use these people to help set up conference. Have dinner with a speaker. Maybe we should have only one conference a year. With AppleFest and other competing conferences in the spring (our retreat, too) it will be easier to attract numbers of vendors in the fall. We need to plan our events already in place (leadership conference, retreat, (maybe workshops at AppleFest). It may require tighter finance if we cut down to one conference (currently money makers). Consider electing board rather than officers. Once board is elected, then the board would choose its officers. This would fall in line with other similar organizations. Need bylaw change.