Minutes of the Board Meeting at 12:00 noon on 3-26-09 

Cindy, Bobbie, Brad, Steve, Michele, Sharon, Richard, Ted, Maggie, Michael

The next networking meeting is on May 7^th, 2009.  It is at SKYSONG.  With the help of David Alexander from the Virtual Training Center we have a new sponsor.  It is Aries Technology, Inc.  Wayne Quach is the CEO.   Ann and Brad will be the presenters. We will continue with Wildflower ($15.00 charge) and use Webex for this event.

Conference: Cindy Saint sent out her work on background information to plan the virtual conference.  This includes Mission and purpose, History, The Current Environment, Needs Assessments, Date and Theme and a Profitability Model..What type of conference are we looking at?  The board members should email Cindy ideas that what type of conference, how flashy, what are the technical things we need to think about?

Theme:  The Board voted to use the name (theme) eLearning and Conferencing-Green Solutions.  Cindy asked us to think about selling Banner Ads to raise money for the conference. We discussed putting together an RFP for a coordinator, but we will investigate whether we need a coordinator. We will bring this up again at the next board meeting. The past conferences have had a base fee and then a minimum % over the expenses for the coordinator.  -Timeframe-Spring 2010

-Working on a document that summarizes the conference with mission, purpose, etc.

Several questions: 

1. What type of content? (emails with suggestions)

2. Should there be a conference coordinator? (base pay, small % over expenses, up to a certain cap) Hold on decision until we have more information

3. What theme? (voted on E-learning and Conferencing-Green Solutions)

4. One day or two day conference? (one day to begin)

5. GAZel websites-banner ads (group liked, no decision)

Cindy: We need to determine content, engaging the speakers, creating a template to put the content information on.  This would be content that will be on line and live content.  How many live speakers are we looking at?  Is this over two days or one day?  General question include: theme, length of time, date (what needs to happen to the website) Spring, 2010.  The decision if we need a coordinator should be delayed Cindy formally asked the board for a vote.   It passed.

How long.  One hour each day.  Plus break out conferences. 

Alisa:    One day with speakers in the morning and afternoon. 

Steve:  Let’s plan this over a meeting of the conference committee not at this board meeting.  Cindy will send out a time for a conference call to plan the virtual conference. 

Michele:   Steve said Brad, Casey, Cindy, were willing to be trained to use iLinc. Michele said that the use of the TraCorp Webex does not cost extra..Michele is willing to have someone activate the Web ex  (Cindy) and will give her the password. 

Alisa:  Is the only thing that changes the meeting number?  Michele is sending the invitation to Alisa. 

Website development:  Steve: U of A will work with us to redo the website and stay with Drupal.  One of the students will use this for a Master’s Project.  They will have responsibility with the help of the faculty.  They will do an assessment of the Website, the look and feel.  They will make recommendations short term and put together a plan for the long term.  We must let them know what we want. They are looking for a partner to do the graphics.  This would save time and money.  At this point they will do this for free. While they are in school we don’t have to pay them.  If they do it outside of school we have to give them a stipend.  A project manager can work with them over the summer.  The first phase is an assessment of the site.  Content is a second phase.  Now we take what we have and upgrade it so it looks good.  Everything has to be documented.  If it is wrong or we don’t like it we can change it.  Bobbie moved, Richard seconded that Steve interact with the U of A students and a committee from our board.  It was passed.  We are looking at aesthetics and navigation. Make it a functional site a Cindy, Maggie, volunteered to work on that committee.

The meeting was adjourned at 1:20 PM.