Steering Committee
10/8/2004

I: Next SC Chair
John will start a six month term in December through June 2005
Steve will do November: setting up the conference call, circulating an agenda, moderating the call

II: John's Proposal to NOSI
John is interested in working to:
* bring NOSI into people's minds as a resource they should look to
* align NOSI for justice-y free software movements and be a nexus for some of that work
(the rest is outlined in his proposal)

Basically, John is willing to put in 20 hours a week until we raise money to support him. This may change with time, but his goal is to raise enough money by June 2005 to come on full time.

His forseeable plan is: to try to work connections, build alliances, reinvigorate the discussion list and website, and be more of a nexus for appropriate organizations. Things to contemplate and build from: what would institutional membership mean? What would organizations do as part of NOSI, freegeek, Debian NP

DECISION: His title will be coordinator.

Rich noted that we have a financial sponsor and pursuing our own 501c3 doesn't really make sense just yet.

Much of John's emphasis has been on social justice and open source, in talking about his vision for NOSI. Nonprofit is much broader than just social justice; the vision of NOSI that John is promoting has to be consistent with the long term planning and mission of NOSI, and not limited to working on social justice.

Will there be any deliverables from John's work? Or a workplan? John's priority will be engaging people and building constituency. We need a constituency to represent, and the funding will be the step after building up constituency, in John's view.

Can we get funding for general operating expenses? from individuals? foundations? Funding tends to be easier to get for project expenses.

DECISION: We have the funds to support $80/month in office expenses for John through June, he will come to the Steering Committee if he needs approval for travel funds for specific conferences or anything above and beyond that monthly operating expense. [note: we didn't talk about what happens to the $80/month if John finds that he cannot dedicate as much time as he thought to the coordinator position]

We should announce the position, we have a coordinator for NOSI who is pro-bono, this is what he is going to do. ... John will write up a work plan/job description, but won't be starting for about 30 days. Then he will start on the announcement and on writing up the job description/workplan.

Much of this conversation returned several times over to the fact that we are due for a strategic plan, generally. Arif pointed out that it might make sense to try to budget a face-to-face strategic planning meeting for a 3-5 year plan.

III Primers

Rich said Red Sun had several boxes but "he couldn't really tell us any more than that." He said he would have to check in with his contact there and get back to us.

IV: Budget

We have ~$4800 in the bank, but we owe Steve ~$600 for new cafe equipment and owe the printer some money. Once those expense are paid out we'll have roughly $4000 in the bank.

V: Website & List Moderators
The rough website is at http://www.nosi.net/drupalish -- send me a note when you've made an account and I will give you admin privileges.

List moderators:
NOSI Announce - Arif
NOSI Discuss - Amanda
NOSI Desktop - Rich
NOSI Steering - Arif

VI: New Steering Committee Members
What is the process for replacing NOSI SC members -- Michelle left and John will eventually step down (though not for six months or so)

We'll put some time into talking about what we need from the Steering Committee and from a new member, so that we can make an intelligent list of potential candidates.

Current names that are floating around include: Anders Schneiderman stepped off the SC about a year ago but may be interested in coming back on
Katrin Verclas, who may reconsider her decision to decline

VII: IBM, Reg was busy with the conventions, but should be available to him. Rich is following up. The project under consideration is the Sourcebook, which will be a followup to the primer.

NEXT CALL
Agenda Items for the November Call
* New Steering Committee Members (this will take some time)
* Check in re. announcing the Pro-bono Coordinator position and John's job description.