Draft Minutes from the June 2000 ICNA Annual Meeting

June 14, 2000
Intelenet Office, Indianapolis

Attendance: Darcie Webster, Intelenet/IN-map.net; Jim Wellbourne, Access LaPorte; Terry McCain, Boone County Community Network; Mary Grogan, LakeNet ; Pam Weaver, Indianapolis Online; Katie Frederick, United Way Community Tech Link-Delaware County; Jane Holman, Waynet; Mike Ney, Indianapolis Online; Tim Steidel, Hometown.net

• Meeting was called to order by Board President Terry McCain shortly after 10 AM.
• Financial Report: financial summary was distributed. Current account balance: $44,011.97. The only outstanding items should be the tax return preparation costs and reimbursements from Annual Meeting costs (travel and lunches).There are no otrher outstanding debts as far as we know.
• Operational Update:
  • icna-m list is now under ICNA control again--had been maintained by Access Indiana and now Terry has been doing list duties. Katie Frederick sent out an email mailing to all the contacts listed on the contacts page in early June informing them of the ICNA meeting, yearly dues information, and reminding them about the icna-m list.
  • icna.net site is also now under ICNA control again--Terry has password and ID and has been updating site. Jim W. volunteered to help with the site.
  • ICNA discussion board is new this year. Was created so that board could conduct online board meetings. It is located on the Boone County Community Network site and maintained by Terry McCain. There are sections for the ICNA board and for ICNA member networks
  • Currently 9 members of ICNA. Members include: Access LaPorte County, Access Bartholomew County; Boone County, Crawford County, Indianapolis Online, LakeNet, SCICAN, United Way Community Tech Link-Delaware County, Waynet., Hometown.net
• Board of Directors
  • The terms of Terry McCain, Jim Welbourne, and Mary Grogan expire this year (they had been elected to two year terms in 1998). They were all reappointed for another 2 year term.
  • Jane Holman, Mike Ney, Darcie Webster were appointed to the board as new members for 2 year terms.
  • Officers for next year: Terry McCain-President, Jim Welbourne-Vice President, Katie Frederick-Secretary.
• Meeting was then adjourned for brainstorming/work session.

Brainstorming Session/Work Session

• The group went around the table and each person gave a brief update on their community network's activities.
  • Access LaPorte: there is one paid half-time person (funded through memberships) and the rest are volunteers, high school students help work on pages, basically on break-even finaancially with only expense being paid position.
  • LakeNet: 1/2 time coordinator is staff person from Library, have 90+ organizations involved.
  • BCCN: all volunteer, received a $50,000 Gift IV grant from Lilly last fall, working with local schools to have students work with nonprofit and government organizations to develop content as class projects.
  • Community Tech Link (formerly ECICNet): there was a problem between former ISP and community network, and community network moved to another ISP. A local company took over ECIC Net domain and Katie was hired by United Way to work strictly with nonprofits on technology issues (goal is to manage technology resources). The United Way received a Gift IV grant from Lilly Endowment for this project.
  • Indianapolis Online: organization is entirely volunteer, not content creator now but maintain most comprehensive set of links relating to community, the site is now hosted by ISP in exchange for sites IO brought to them at first of year due to Y2K problems on IO server.
  • Waynet: 12 member board, Jane is 1/2 paid position, 130 members (have to be member to have a link on site), link to profit and nonprofit organizations, has been partnering with local radio station to provide news for site, have discussion list, using ATOMZ.com for search engine.
  • Mike Ney: spent much of last year as Y2K coordinator at IUPUI and Columbus campus
  • Hometown.net: hosts 25 sites, does daily email mailing to subscribers.
  • Darcie: gave update on IN-map.net activities, have been concentrating on EPIC project in orange county, visiting counties to let them know about IN-map.net's services for placing county government information on web for free.
• A lively discussion followed on several topics:
  • Mission and board policy:
    • Mike Ney will review board policy handbook. This was originally developed when ICNA was to have a paid executive director. Board felt it should be revised to reflect that ICNA is a volunteer driven organization.
    • The group discussed and approved a new mission statement: "The mission of ICNA is to develop, maintain, and promote community networks in Indiana"
  • Discussion board: how can this be used effectively and how can we have more participation?
    • Board members will begin discussion on an issue throughout the next year - suggested topics for those areas:
      • Tim S./Hometown.net-Chamber relationships
      • Jim W.-Tools of the trade
      • Mary G.-Promotion
      • Terry M.-Community Foundation relationships
      • Darcie W.-Government
      • Mike N.-Communities
      • Jane H.-Discussion boards
      • Pam W.-Development of new community networks
      • Katie F-Nonprofits
    • Discussion followed as to whom could post information in community network section. Currently only community networks that have paid dues have passwords and IDs to post.
  • Due: discussion of dues was tabled until a later date. What will ICNA do with the membership dues? What is the purpose? Promotional items? (Pens, pencils, mouse pads) Marketing advise?
• Meeting adjourned at 2PM.

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