Personal Telco Monthly Meeting for August 25th 2004
When and Where
Urban Grind Coffee 2214 NE Oregon St. (take 22nd Ave. 2 blocks North of Sandy Blvd.)
Wednesday, August 25th 6pm-9pm
Agenda
- 6:00PM - Introduction to Personal Telco for newcomers.
- 6:30PM - New Nodes and other announcements.
- 6:45PM - Elections
- 7:30PM - Business followed directly by informal meet and greet.
Agenda Items
- Raffle Kick-off
NationalSummitAugust2004 report
- October is Education Month - Multiple playdays, "How Do I Use the PTPnet" workshops for users of the PTP nodes, Adopt a Document Drive, more.
Notes from August 25th Meeting, 6:30pm. Scribe: Sam Churchill
Notes
This is the annual meeting to elect Personal Telco leadership.
6:30pm: Darrin Eden took the stage and welcomed everyone. About 50 people in attendence.
- Darrin says that he attended a national conference on Community LANs. I believe the conference was in Chicago (but your scribe could be mistaken). Darrin said that it was instructive and that many people look to PersonalTelco for leadership. Darrin hands off the meeting to Nigel Ballard.
6:35: Nigel Ballard says the Portland is known to have more (free) nodes than anywhere (still). Portland government, Nigel says, is an active participant and has been discussing a City Hall node. Nigel said he couldn't discuss further details but said the city was involved in interesting and exciting wireless developments.
- Nigel asks new members to introduce themselves. Several new people. One guy showed off his new WiFi Toys book that was written by a San Diego WiFi group member. He attended one of their meetings earlier.
- Another attendee is managing a mixed use space in North Portland and is planning a WiFi node in the space which also features gaming, laundry facilities, a coffee shop and other facilities. The address is 3508 North Williams, node 605 (N. Williams and Fremont) - Another person wants to put a node in an apartment building on Sylvan Heights (near the West hills). About 50 units and wooden frame building (good for wifi).
6:45: Darrin takes podium talks about at NW 23rd and Pettygrove (Vivace Coffee Shop).
6:48: Darrin says that PTP needs to elect a secretary and treasurer. Voting should be simple; their are two nominees for the two positions
(1)Secretary - RobertPetersen (2)Treasurer - AaronBaer
The suspense is building....the votes are being picked up...and tallied....
And now...the results......
(1)Secretary - RobertPetersen (2)Treasurer - AaronBaer
6:50: Robert Peterson has taken the stage and reviews some of his objectives. Someone asks about his position on Comcast Nodes. Peterson said "Comcast is evil". (Comcast doesn't allow sharing free service). He finds Comcast "onerous" since may areas in the region are only served by Comcast cable modems (DSL must be within 3 miles of the Central Office).
7:00: Aaron Baer has taken the stage and talks about financing. Says PTP has "about a grand" in dollars and 50 Pentium 450s from the City of Portland, lots of initiatives, grants and things. Talked to Fred Meyer Memorial Trust representative who said that Meyers would be interested in PTP projects. "We can do it", said, Baer.
Aaron says Google Adsense has been started on PTP's Wiki. Don Park explains that AdSense is generating $6-$7/day from 300 or so daily visitors. It can generate $200 or more a month but neither Baer or Peterson wants advertising on the main (html) site, so it will be relegated to the Wiki.
7:05PM: Michael Weinburg, PTP's Community Development Director, is now on stage and offering a raffle. Raffle tickets are $1 with the prizes including free tickets for Any show at the Artists Reperatory Theatre (which is also gettin a PTP node), 3 stickers from Defcon, one day pass to Backspace, the Book of Wifi, WiFi guide, by O'reilly, Building Community Networks by Rob Flickenger, several different tshirts and other items.
7:10pm: Break was declared (15 minutes)
7:25: TomHiggins takes the stage. Announces the inaugral issue of the PTP newsletter. Tom is editor and wants people to write articles on basic how tos and other things for the end user. "September/October is Education Month", says Tom. October 23rd will have an official workshop on the basics. Tom says that DC-503, which specializes on security, will explore new things, devices and software. Last Saturday of the month with be a joint workshop between DC-503 and PTP. The point of contact for dc503 is Musashi who will talk on Denial of Service is planned. Webpage is www.dc503.org.
See TomHiggins if you want to include items in the education agenda.
NationalSummitAugust2004 has more on the summit.
- 7:30: Aaron asks if there is any other business and ajourned the meeting.