LARC Board Meeting – November 3, 2010

The LARC Board meeting was called to order at 7:01 by Jim Walker (N0XDA) at the Clover Building, Boulder County Fairgrounds, and 9595 Nelson Rd, Longmont Colorado.

Officer / Board Attendees:

Committee Chairman Attendees:

Additional Attendees:

Dan Campbell   (WF0T)        

Meeting Discussion

Jim started off the meeting with a general discussion of the duties of the LARC Board and a motion was made, seconded and passed to declare four committee chair positions as members of the board. The club’s bylaws call for a minimum of five (5) members including the four (4) officers and past president. The passing of this measure means that the board now consists of a total of nine (9) members.

Treasurer Report – Mark

In the past month the club has purchased an IRLP computer for the repeater for $827.  Receipts for the month have been $120 in dues renewals. The current balance in the treasury is $5493.55.  

Membership Report – Duane and the Board

There is currently a rough estimate of the current active and ‘dues current’ membership of the club is approximately 35.

A lengthy discussion hinged around this topic concerning the need for a common membership database in order to accurately track our membership in order to be able to grant specific privileges to members only and to keep track of when each membership expires.

We currently have a roster that is available on the LARC Website under the category of Members Only – Club Roster.  This entry has the following link https://sedo.com/search/details/?partnerid=324561&language=us&domain=squider.com&origin=sales_lander_3&utm_medium=Parking&utm_campaign=offerpage    This link is a .csv file that easily populates a spreadsheet for examination.  The second link, labeled ‘Experimental Club Roster Application’ produces a simple list on the screen for examination.

Further discussion identified that Dan Campbell currently owns or knows how they operate and where exactly they reside.  The discussion also revealed that any common database that is adopted by the club, as Dan hands over his role of Treasurer to Mark, will need to be easily maintained by certain key people and also provide an easy way to extract various e-mail lists for different club purposes, along with a means of maintaining membership history over time.

It was agreed that Mark, Dan, Duane and Jerry need to get together offline to address this need.

President Led Discussion

Jim led the discussion of various other concerns during the meeting.

One dealt with reimbursing Bill for his telephone costs incurred by installing the auto-patch system on the club repeater.  By unanimous vote the board agreed to authorize a payment of $300 for phone services through 1 Oct, 2011.

Jim reminded the board that we have access to the Clover building every month on the 2^nd and 4^th Saturdays to use for club activities as needed. One suggestion was that we ask Sebastian to give the board members a short class/demonstration on how to update the LARC Website. Jerry will try to set that up and possibly use one the Saturday time slots for this.

We discussed various ways to create more interest in the club such as contests, points, float in the holiday Parade,

I provided Jim a copy of an equipment list that needs to be updated with specifics.  It would be nice if we could acquire a storage locker at low cost in order to keep the equipment all in one place. A clubhouse would also be nice.  The Doppler system needs to be located and Jim will see if can locate it.

Technical Committee Report – Bill

There seems to be some discrepancy between what software we were getting with the computer and what we actually received.  This is causing some delay but progress is being made.

Jim mentioned the IC6 Kit and we will add that idea to the next general meeting to judge the interest level in possibly doing a solder sniffer session or two to build.

Special Events Update – Mark

We received a nice Thank You note from the city for the work we did on the Halloween Parade and asked us to do the same support for the Holiday Parade coming up in December. That was agreed to by the board.

The Turkey Trot is still on the schedule for Nov 13

CCARC Report – Dan

Dan recently attended a meeting of the CCARC and was able to pass along some information discussed there concerning new digital modes that are coming and there is not a great deal of clarity yet on their adherence to Part 97 of the FCC rules.

Christmas Party

We are still looking for a volunteer and a committee to organize this activity.

LARCFest – Jerry

Jerry has agreed to be the chairman for this activity this year. He will need lots of help as we do the early planning for this activity. Dan promised to send jerry a contact name for the Colorado section. Jim mentioned that Randy Stevens may be able to assist as well.

By-Laws Review

Jerry has been able to scan the original copy of the current document and has it converted to an editable Word document. Each attendee was given a hardcopy of a new draft and asked to review and pass along ideas for updates to Jerry.  Jerry will consolidate and provide a new draft for further review.

Meeting was adjourned by Jim at 8:55 PM