Meeting Minutes of the Board of Directors for the USGenWeb Census 
Project

Meeting held July 12, 2004 via Internet using mIRC beginning at 8:51 PM 
EST and ending at 9:49 PM EST.

Present:
    Connie Burkett
    Ron Eason
    Ellen Horner
    Sandy Onbey
    April Phillips
    Veda Mendoza
    Linda Talbott

With all newly elected members present and the quorum being set, 
Interim President, Ellen Horner, called the meeting to order at 9:02 
PM.

Officer, board, or standing committee reports: None

Special orders addressed: None

Minutes of the June 1, 2004 meeting as sent electronically have been 
received by all present and there being no discussion or corrections 
are accepted as sent.

Old Business:

ELECTION OF OFFICERS FOR 2004-2005 TERM…

Nominations were opened for the office of President.  Connie Burkett 
nominated Ron Eason.  Sandy Onbey and Veda Mendoza seconded the 
nomination.  Ron Eason accepted the nomination.  A vote was called and 
resulted in 6 aye votes and 1 no-vote.  Ron Eason was duly elected as 
President for the ensuing year.

Interim President Ellen Horner offered to relinquish the gavel for the 
remainder of the meeting, but was told to carry on by the newly elected 
President, Ron Eason.

Nominations were opened for the office of Vice-President.  April 
Phillips nominated Ellen Horner.  Connie Burkett and Sandy Onbey 
seconded the nomination.  Ellen Horner accepted the nomination.  A vote 
was called and resulted in 6 aye votes and 1 no-vote.  Ellen Horner was 
duly elected as Vice-President for the ensuing year.

Nominations were opened for the office of Secretary/Treasurer.  Veda 
Mendoza nominated Linda Talbott and was seconded by April Phillips.  
Linda Talbott declined the nomination.   Sandy Onbey nominated Veda 
Mendoza and April seconded Sandy’s nomination.  Veda stated that she 
must decline the Secretary’s position this term.  Veda Mendoza 
nominated Sandy Onbey.  April Phillips seconded the nomination and 
Sandy accepted the nomination.  A vote was called and resulted in 6 aye 
votes and 1 no-vote.  Sandy Onbey was duly elected as 
Secretary/Treasurer for the ensuing year.

Nominations were opened for the office of Membership Secretary.  Sandy 
Onbey nominated Linda Talbot and Veda Mendoza seconded the nomination, 
but Linda declined for this term.  Veda then nominated herself and 
Sandy Onbey, April Phillips and Ron Eason seconded the nomination.  
Veda Mendoza accepted the nomination.  A vote was called and resulted 
in 6 aye votes and 1 no-vote.  Veda Mendoza was duly elected as 
Membership Secretary for the ensuing year.

Congratulations were extended to all the new 2004-2005 term Board of 
Directors as well as to Connie Burkett as our new Project Coordinator.

DISCLAIMER:

Vice-President Ellen Horner mentioned that while we had discussed, 
agreed and approved that a disclaimer to be added to our home page some 
time ago, we had not yet decided on the terminology.  This is something 
that requires attention in the very near future.  Several commented on 
another disclaimer that they had seen and suggested using it as a 
model.  Sandy and Veda volunteered to work as a committee on the 
disclaimer and report to the Board as soon as they decided on a 
direction…if possible, before the next monthly Board meeting. 

MEETING DAYS/TIME…

The meetings of the Board of Directors will remain on the first Tuesday 
of the month through the month of September and will then revert back 
to the Second Monday of the month.

The State Coordinators meeting is on the first Monday of the month 
except when it is a holiday.

New Business:

AfterNet:

Vice-President, Ellen Horner asked Connie to give us a summary of the 
AfterNet problem last month.  Connie told us that the AfterNet IRC 
server sustained a rather large denial of service attack last week. 
They were off-line for several days and regrouped rather quickly to 
manage to get back on-line.  She told us that this should not be a big 
problem for us since we only use their service one or two times a 
month, but for those that use it everyday she was sure that it was a 
big hassle.  April mentioned that it was the first time she had seen 
something of the magnitude in 8 years of IRC experience.  Connie said 
that IRC still doesn't know (and may never know) who or what group of 
hackers caused the problem.

USGenNet Changing Servers:

Vice-President Ellen Horner asked if anyone was not aware of USGenNet 
changing servers or if they had any questions.

Connie Burkett, Project Coordinator, added: For those who didn't make 
the earlier meeting, here's the new server information:
Dedicated Server Plan from "The Planet"
Server: 2.8 GHz dual Xeon microprocessor
Primary, secondary, and third Hard Disk Drives: 73 GB SCSI (each)
RAM: 2048 MB RAM
Bandwidth: 2000 GB
There will be 24/7/365 onsite personnel for reboots and assistance with 
server problems.
Plus their personnel monitor all the servers and will let us know when 
there is a problem with USGenNet's server.
The transfer from our old server to the new server should be 
transparent to us and to the Researchers. It might take a month or two 
for the entire transfer to occur, and when the final plug is pulled on 
the old server we should notice the much improved bandwidth 
immediately.

When Vice-President Ellen Horner asked if USGenNet would need monetary 
assistance, Connie Burkett replied, " They will have enough to carry 
through the transition. They will start their pledge drive in September 
and I hope by then the new server will be in use for a while."

President Ron Eason commented that he thought it was going to be a 
great blessing to everyone to have improved capabilities at reduced 
costs.  (We all agreed.)

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned by Vice-
President Ellen Horner at 9:46 PM EST to reconvene on August 3rd, 2004 
at 9:00 PM EST

Items for next Board Meeting:

1. Status of approval of "Disclaimer" terminology

2. Status of the move to our new server

3. Linking