Personal Telco Monthly Meeting for June 30th 2004

When and Where

Urban Grind Coffee 2214 NE Oregon St. (take 22nd Ave. 2 blocks North of Sandy Blvd.)

Wednesday, June 30th, 6pm-9pm

Agenda

• 6:00PM - Introduction to Personal Telco for newcomers.
• 6:30PM - New Nodes and other Announcements
• 6:45PM - Election Procedures
• 7:00PM - Moderated Discussion on PTP's Future

Election Procedures

Elections for Secretary and Treasurer will be held at the August Monthly Meeting

PROPOSED TIMELINE:

June 30 Monthly Meeting:

• Announce that elections for Secretary and Treasurer will be held at the August 25 Monthly meeting.
• Announce election timeline.
• Begin Nomination period.

July 28 Monthly Meeting:

• Nomination period ends.
• Deadline for being eligible to vote in the August 25 Monthly meeting. You must be a Personal Telco member by July 28.
• Final list of candidates is announced at the end of the meeting.
• Final list of members eligible to vote is announced at the end of the meeting (or publicly posted shortly thereafter).

Sometime in August:

• Candidates respond to a set of questions on the General mailing list. This was a good idea from last year, and is a good precedent to follow.

August 11:

• Members are mailed notification of the August 25 Monthly meeting and ballots. This means we will need a mailing address for all members. (Our bylaws stipulate that members must be notified of the Annual Meeting at least 7 days before it occurs by first-class mail[1], and that "the record date for determining members entititled to notice" is ten business days.[2]. By sending notices via first-class mail on August 11, we meet both deadlines.)

August 25 Monthly Meeting:

• Nominees speak at the meeting.
• Votes are submitted by members (if a member hasn't already submitted his vote by mail).

PROPOSED NOMINATION PROCESS:

• Candidates must be nominated by a member and seconded by another member. Candidates cannot nominate themselves, or second their own nomination. (These two rules are NOT in the bylaws, but that is how the nominations were done last year, and we felt it was a good precedent to follow.)
• Nominations and Seconds can take place in person at the July 28 meeting, or by email on the General mailing list before the July 28 meeting.
• A candidate must be a member before he is nominated and must be a member before July 28.
• Only members can make a nomination or second a nomination.
• Directors are allowed to serve two terms consecutively, so both Aaron and Eugene are eligible to run again[3].

PROPOSED VOTING PROCESS:

• Votes can be cast in person at the August 25 Monthly meeting, or votes can be cast by mail.
• Votes cast by mail must be postmarked by August 25.
• If a member casts more than one vote (by mail AND at the meeting, for example), that member's vote is disqualified and not counted.
• When we send out the ballots on August 11, we need to spell out number of votes necessary for a quorum, and deadline for receiving the vote to be counted[4].

• Where should votes be mailed? Does Personal Telco have a PO Box? MailingAddress

• Be aware that our bylaws allow for Vote by Proxy[5].

PROPOSED VOTE COUNTING PROCESS:

• Ordinarily, the Secretary would count votes, but since we are voting on the Secretary position, we suggest that the President and two members that he appoints should act as vote counters.

OTHER QUESTIONS:

• Do we have a current, complete member list?
• Do we have a mailing address for all members?
• Are we working off the official (most recent?) copy of the Personal Telco bylaws? My copy came from the download section on personaltelco.net[6].

All questions, concerns, comments welcome.

Thanks, TomOfferman

[1] Bylaws: Article II, Section 7 [2] Bylaws: Article II, Section 13 [3] Bylaws: Article III, Section 3.1 [4] Bylaws: Article II, Section 10 [5] Bylaws: Article II, Section 12 [6] http://personaltelco.net/download/nonprofit/

Discussion

We'll begin by breaking the assembly into groups based on interest:

Technology - Hardware, Programming

Awareness - Community Outreach, Media, Propaganda

Finance - Fundraising, Grants, Budgeting

Education - Node building, network use, WiFi tutoring

Each group will select a spokesperson and discuss their focus for about 45 minutes, working towards a brief (3-5 minutes) presentation on their topic. (Focus on where we are, where we should be headed, what the challenges are and how we should overcome them.)

We will then reconvene to hear each group's thoughts. After everyone has presented, we'll have an open forum for questions between groups.

Meeting Notes

Scribe: Sam Churchill:

• 6:30 pm:

Darrin Eden - President , Personal Telco, calls the meeting to order. Darrin explains the mission of PersonalTelco, and the objective of the meeting tonight (to break up into smaller groups and discuss visions of PTPs future. Darrin says the Willamette Week, which had a cover story on Personal Telco a couple weeks ago, may have attracted several new members. Your scribe's loose count indicates perhaps 90 people at tonight's meeting, one of the larger meetings. Hands it off to Aaron Baer for introductions.

• 6:45 pm:

Aaron Baer - Treasurer , asks new people to introduce themselves. About 20 people introduce speak. A range of people from filmmakers, coffee shop owners, ham radio operators and curious people with a variety of backgrounds.

Aaron briefly explains PTP group projects that have been under development during June, including a wireless backbone network involving Tom Higgins node shooting down Belmont and a Hawthorne Street network originating from the International Hostel. The idea, Aaron explains, is to build our own network.

• 7:15 pm:

Darrin hands out membership forms. Explains that the treasure and secretary positions are open. At the July 28th meeting, the nomination period ends. Elections are in August 25th. Must be a member to vote.

How does one become PTP member, asks Darrin? Must be sponsored by existing member, own or operate a gateway (www.personaltelco.net), or be voted in by a majority of owners, or pay a one-time fee of $500.

On August 11th, ballots for voting in new officers will be mailed . Nominees speak at meeting. Directors can serve two conscecutive terms. Darrin hands off to Tom Higgins.

• 7:30 pm:

Tom Higgins has the node report for the month of June.

• 7:30 pm:

World Wide Wor Drive Report. At least four Portland residents participated in the WorldWideWarDrive, held this June. Bernie placed (6th) in the world, with a remarkable 9,658 hot spots recorded. He used a 24db dish in the back of his vehicle, drove to Kelso and south of Portland, etc. Jason McArther was ranked 20th. TomHiggins ranked 96th. A fourth Portlander came in 61st. Kismet and Netstumble are the prefered tools.

• 7:45 pm:

Michael Weintraub, PTP's community development coordinator explained the mission for tonight's meeting; discuss PTPs future. Said the meeting would be broken into four focus groups.

Technologist - Importance of PTP net, fill out our own infrastructure, have always required phone company. A lot involves mapping and research, identifying locations that would be good for towers, opportunities for volunteers. Cantenna research (under $10).

Awareness - Bridge gap between geeks and non-geeks, teen community centers, flyering, general awareness of what needs to be done, community network built for them is not well publicized. Publicity on kboo, public access TV,

Finance - Issues; need one year plan, with budget, scope of accomplishments over a one year period, to grant makers, large business and small, community organizations. Where do we want to be a year from now. What do we want to do, how much will it cost. A citywide network requires money, involvement and organization.

Education - Issues; getting the word out. A July 17th workshop on setting up a node (playday),is planned for July.

• 7:45 pm - 8:30 pm

Discussion groups talk amoungst themselves.

• 8:30pm - 8:45pm

Discussion group leaders report to the group about topics brought up in the focus groups. Didn't get good notes on the details. Sorry.

• 8:50pm:

Darrin ajourns meeting.