Minutes of the Board of Directors for the USGenWeb Census Project Meeting held April 7, 2003 via Internet using mIRC beginning at 9:35 PM EDT and ending at 11:13 PM EDT. Present: Wayne Duncan Sue Soden Ellen Horner Connie Burkett Linda Talbott Sandy Onbey A quorum being set, the meeting was called to order by Wayne Duncan. Officer, board, or standing committee reports: None Special orders addressed: None Minutes of the March 3, 2003 meeting as sent electronically have been received by all present and there being no discussion or corrections are accepted as sent. Old Business: SERVICE/WORD MARK: Wayne Duncan told us that he had sent a letter to the person attempting to register the GENEWEB service mark. He does have a receipt of delivery, but no response yet. Sandy suggested that if we don't hear from them within the next week...a follow-up letter needs to be sent. It was agreed that if Wayne has not gotten a response by 14th, he will send follow-up letter. Correspondence will be posted to the cp-board email list DOMAIN REGISTRATIONS: Wayne Duncan told us that the domain registrations have been paid for another year and that he was ready to add a second year to them. Sandy requested a copy of the receipt to be included in the minutes of the CP Board of Directors. ANNUAL REPORT to the STATE OF MICHIGAN: While the report is due to Michigan by Mary 31st, Ron Eason is the one that handles this as he is our representative in that state. There is no information that we have that needs to be sent to Ron for these reports. CP ELECTIONS FOR 2003-2004 TERM: Wayne Duncan told us that the election process is being handled as it has been in the past. The voter list has been verified and he is working on the e-mail to notify everyone. He will then set up the election page. At that time it can be decided if it is to be placed on the same site as last year or put on the CP site. This should be done by the end of the week. MULTIPLE ASSIGNMENTS: Linda Talbott brought up that many times she had seen transcribers assigned several census years and never completing anything. She wondered if a policy about that has ever been discussed. Wayne said that we did make it a matter of policy at one time to make volunteers choose one transcription to start with and then we "reserved" the other choices contingent on their completing their first assignment. Connie added that even less than one transcription (like just several EDs)for an assignment, when the county is large-such as the 1930s. Sue mentioned that she is doing a check of all the web pages against the master database right now. I'm sending the discrepancies to the state coordinator and this should help multiple assignments in different states as well. New Business: DONATED RESOURCES: After a lengthy discussion in the State Coordinators meeting the subject was also discussed further by the Board of Directors in order to resolve the issue of continuing the donated resources section of our project. It was decided that in spite of the fact that we have run into some volunteers who have abused the service by NOT returning the resources they have been entrusted with in order to complete their assignment, we will continue the service. In keeping with the policies of the USGW Census Project we will use only the original resources since the copyright notice displayed on them makes it illegal to copy without expressive written consent from the originator of the work. It should be made clear to those that donate materials that there is always the possibility that the person requesting the donated resource may not return it and they would therefore lose their material. A suggestion was made to obtain name, address, phone number information from the requestor in order to contact the volunteer. Also periodic notes requesting an update on assignment and reminder that resource will need to be returned when finished so it will be available for other transcribers. MOTION #2003-1 Distribution of Donated Resources: A motion was made by Sue Soden to distribute only the original CDs donated For our Census Project. The use of duplicates will not be permitted due to the copyright laws involving this process. The motion was seconded by Linda Talbott and was passed by unanimous vote of the members of the Board of Directors present (6 yes votes and 1 no-vote due to member not present). "ADOPT-A-SHIP" We discussed Linda Talbott’s idea about "adopt a ship". Connie suggested she compose an email to the Census list would be about the best way. Many of the current transcribers might like to "adopt a ship". Wayne Duncan said that perhaps asking a "seasoned sailor" might help. He has only been retired less than two years from the navy and still has some contacts on active duty. He also said that the Chief of Naval Information can provide a list of all the old hull numbers Linda said that she was thinking of putting a link up on her personal website in honor of Memorial Day. The main idea of the project is just to adopt a ship and transcribe it. The ships don't have huge amounts of people and take very little time. CONVERSION PROGRAM: Sue Soden wanted to tell us that Phil Beshear has consented to help us with an excel conversion to text package for the file managers Sue said that while Connie has developed great spreadsheet templates for the transcribers the problem is that it takes a lot of time to process those files into text files for the ftp. That's what Phil is going to help out with. SILENT BOARD MEMBERS: After discussing the topic, it was decided to make the CP-Assistant Coordinators ex-officio members of the Board of Directors. It was felt that they should be privy to what's going on with the CP-Board because what they do within the CP is vital to the project. There is nothing in the Bylaws (or ACT-162) to prohibit this that we could determine. These ex-officio members would be able to see and hear but not able to speak. Should any discussions or voting take place which may be sensitive, then we (voting members of BOD) can close the meeting at any time using the standard RROR process. An invitation to our next meeting will be made and they will Subbed to the e-mail lists. Should the next CP-Board deem it necessary, they Will be free to change this operating policy. Wayne said that he would contact Ron Eason. The meeting was adjourned by Wayne Duncan at 11:13PM EDT to reconvene on May 5, 2003 at 9:00 PM Items for next Board Meeting: 1. Update on Service/Work Mark Status 2. Election Process 3. Any further word on conversion program.