Team,
Don't forget about the meeting tonight. There are a couple things
that we might officially vote on tonight if we are able to, so come on
down if you can.
There will be Adriatico's pizza as usual. The agenda / minutes can be
found here: http://wiki.hive13.org/June_1,_2010
~Dave
Dave, do you want to launch a Meeting Wave ahead of time with the
first blip expressing some Wave etiquette rules to try out.
Last time Wave was a bit hectic in that we still don't have a
formalized etiquette on how to best communicate remotely with the
people in the meetings.
IIRC from the last meeting these were some suggestions that fell out
of the Wave discussion.
* The top blip is going to be the agenda (The wave owner should
probably mark this as read only once the meeting gets started)
* If you are talking during the meeting then somebody else should fill
in the meeting minutes for you. You should not have to talk and type
at the same time.
* There should be a discussion blip(s) from remote people trying to
participate. People in the meeting who are not talking should read
the activity on the Wave and relay concerns/suggestions.
Anything else?
--Craig
Whoops found this blip in last weeks wave from Dave:
"Sections:
* agenda
* only add items to the end
* minutes
* Minutes
* intended to be a record of conversation, not a conversation itself
* conversation section for all kinds of talk
* remote people add whatever they want here
people that are in person, bring up the wave converation into the in
person conversation "
Also I seem to be wrong about making the first blip read-only. After
a bit of searching it appears that is still listed as a future
feature. And they call it Reply-Only mode. So that won't work for
us. It will have to just be the honor system 
--Craig
The suggestion on Groups with Google Wave is in a video here from Google:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMYM-l8BkIQ&feature=player_embedded
But unfortunately that's basically what we did last meeting.
Interestingly, if everybody was remote this actually would probably
work better than when people are trying to talk to a group of people
and relay what's going on for people who don't have wave. As far as I
can tell there are no suggestions from Google on this aspect.
I just thought I would share their video in case anybody else has
additional suggestions.
--Craig
Yeah, it was just too noisy last week because the Wave "conversation"
was forking from the in-person conversation. It would be better if
everyone was either in person or online, instead of having too groups
that can't hear each other.
We talked about trying to keep the Wave broken up into parts; one part
being the minutes which is like a recording of what is being talked
about in person, and the other part being the Wave conversation where
people can add and edit all they want.
The other thing we mentioned doing was setting up a Ustream or
something so that remote people could hear the in-person conversation,
hopefully keeping people all on the same page.
Another idea that I think is worth looking at is using an etherpad
clone like http://piratepad.net/ to collaborate on the minutes. That
makes it slightly more clear that it's a collaborative document and
not an online meeting. We need to sort of establish which we're going
for - collaborative document editing or online meeting.
~Dave
FWIW, here is the relevant section of the Bylaws:
http://wiki.hive13.org/Bylaws#Remote_Attendance
"
Remote Attendance
1) Members may participate in a meeting through use of conference
telephone, electronic video screen communication, electronic chat, or
other communications equipment so long as all of the following apply:
a) each member participating in the meeting can communicate with all
of the other members concurrently;
b) each member is provided with the means of participating in all
matters under consideration, including the capacity to propose, or to
interpose an objection to, a specific action to be taken by the
corporation; and
c) the Corporation verifies that (i) a person communicating by
telephone, electronic video screen, or other communications equipment
is a member with voting privileges, and (ii) all motions, votes, or
other actions required to be made by a member were actually made by a
member and not by someone who is not entitled to participate as a
member.
2) Votes by the Directors may not be made by proxy. Directors must
attend the meeting of the Board of Directors, either in person or
remotely through teleconference methods arranged with the Board before
the meeting, in order to vote on matters placed before the Board of
Directors.
"
~Dave
I think that it is vital that the wave people can actually HEAR what is happening in the meetings. If you can not hear what is going on, the wave is pretty much a waste of time I think. It turns the meeting into a group IRC room session with all the people actually at the meeting typing on their laptops.
It does tend to become an IRC meeting....Hmmm Personally I would like
to see the business meetings become more of an online meeting (except
for the officers). Mainly because several members can only make it
one day a week but still want to participate. It would be nice for
non-officers be be able to come in during project days and participate
online for business meetings.
Maybe we break it into two parts. 6:30-7:30 online only via Wave.
Then for the physical meeting we take what is in Wave, make it
read-only and that is in person only?
Sounds like those video conferencing phones would be an awesome project to combine with wave, that way wave people can see and hear what is going on.
Jon
Yeah, we may need to get our bandwidth upgraded before we can really
take advantage of this.
This mailing list has been added to the Wave meeting notes for tonight:
https://wave.google.com/wave/waveref/googlewave.com/w+4HOAjtW8A
Hopefully everybody on this mailing list can view/edit those notes....
(No idea if this will really work :/)
Here's the thing. In order for the meeting to count as an official
meeting, it has to satisfy the standard in the Bylaws - which in my
mind will be extremely difficult to do using Wave or anything else
except for possibly live two-way video chat.
Now, if we want to make some kind of Wave Meeting that is online only,
that's fine; it can be any time and follow any structure - it's just
not going to be an official business meeting. This is part of what I
was getting at when I was suggesting that perhaps the meetings needed
to be forked into separated types - one for business, and one for
whatever. Maybe we don't necessarily need to have an official
meeeting every single week with everyone in attendance. The thing is,
if the Wave is not an official meeting, then it's just one more
communication medium in addition to the mailing list, the IRC room,
and the wiki. It's fine to keep adding different media - but I really
don't see Wave being a medium where official meetings can be held.
So, if we want to make the rules more lax so that we can legally say
that our online meetings count as our official meetings, all we have
to do is amend the Bylaws. I am reluctant to do that because I think
it's important to set a high standard for what counts as an official
meeting. I think we benefit from being able to communicate in person,
and making a commitment to be a part of meetings means making a
commitment to being there in person.
And here's another point I've tried to make before, but I'll make it
again. We can have 99% of discussion about the meeting topics take
place before the actual meeting. We should be able to do all the
conversation and problem-solving ahead of time so that the official
business meeting consists of simply officially approving everything
that has already been informally approved. For example, I think most
people are in favor of purchasing more tshirts via Starbuck since
we've discussed it online, but we really should vote on that outlay of
cash and so we just need to have a quorum and vote and it can get
done.
So in my mind, here's the streamlined way that tonight's meeting could go down:
* Meeting officially open
* take attendance
** is a quorum present (y/n)?
** if yes then continue, else adjourn
* should $135 be allocated to buy tshirts? (vote)
* do we have enough information to make a provisional decision
regarding re-signing our lease? (vote)
** if yes (we have enough information), vote on whether to re-sign
under same terms or not. (vote)
** if no (we don note have enough information), issue is forwarded to
Board for final decision
* who will volunteer to file with the Ohio AG?
* who will volunteer to run for officer positions for next year?
* what date should elections be held on - July 6? (vote)
* adjourn
I know I'm as guilty as anyone of putting stuff on the agenda that
doesn't need to be "official business", and I'll try to refrain from
doing that if we choose to go down this path of streamlining the
official meetings. Under this streamlined system, the person running
the meeting would have to be strict about keeping non-business items
from taking the meeting over.
I know that the meetings have been a consistent hobby horse for me. I
think that's because I often perceive these two things: 1) people want
to be involved, but can't come on Tuesday nights, and 2) the meetings
sometimes drag on and people that only come on Tuesday nights don't
feel like it's the best use of their time.
I don't know what the answer is...
~Dave
There is an audio stream of the meeting available at: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/hive13
Yes, I know the sound is kinda quiet, I did some test recordings in Audacity and noticed that it was a bit weak. I have done some poking and I do not see anything I can turn up in volume. (I turned my mic input up all the way, and tweaked the ustream audio in as high as it would go.)
Also, I am currently listening to music, so you can “enjoy” my choice in music until the meeting starts.
Here's a recap of last night's meeting. For all the details, see the
wiki: http://wiki.hive13.org/June_1,_2010
VOTES:
1) $135 for tshirts is approved - if the quote comes in higher, we will re-vote
2) if all else fails, the board will sign a new one-year lease for our
space with the same terms
3) the annual meeting of the organization will be held on July 6th
NEXT ACTIONS:
1) Jason will look into filing our non-profit status with the Ohio AG
2) Jim will send Craig a copy of the electronic originals of our Form
1023 so that Craig can finish our taxes and also register with Google
3) Jason and Paul will coordinate getting the blackboards that were
offered to us down to the space asap
4) someone (this wasn't assigned) will look into whether re-signing
our same lease is the best idea or if we can negotiate better terms
Also, no official officer nominations were declared.
~Dave