Subject: UCC General Meeting Minutes Date: Fri, 22 Nov 1996 18:35:00 +0800 X-Venue: loft@cameron-hall.gu.uwa.edu.au X-Present: [JEB] (James Bromberger - Pres.), [DJL] (David Luyer - Vice President), [DGC] (David Chinnery - Treas.), [NTU] (Nick Bannon - Secretary), [SD:] (Sophie Divliaev - OCM), [BBB] (Barnaby Brown - OCM), [SAF] (Simon Fryer - HWO), [TDH] (David Manchester - HWO), [JPB] (Jean-Paul Blaquiere - HWO), [PGW] (Peter Wilsmore), [MTL] (Mark Tearle), [AJW] (Andrew Williams), [ECF] (John West), [BCF] (Glenn Butcher), [MJH] (Mikolaj Habryn), [ANL] (Antony Lord), [CJP] (Christopher Phillips), [JRC] (Jeanette Phillips), Warrick Mitchell, [ROD] (Rod Swift), [DGB] (David Basden), Chris Grubb, Rick Grigsby, Leighton Heynes, Yeroen Meyer, Varnakulasingam Shanjeet. Errors-To: secretary@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au, ucc@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au President's Welcome: "Good evening and welcome to this General Meeting of the University Computer Club". The full text will soon be linked to _here_. Shenton Park: As of the start of next year, we will be charged by the square metre for storage space at Shenton Park. We therefore need to cut down dramatically our usage of space there. O-Day: 21st February 1997. Like last year, there will be a big leaflet packing job to do. We no doubt use something similar if not identical to this year's leaflet. T-Shirts: There's around 20 left, currently. Stickers: We could produce some bumper stickers about the club - ideas? Pelican: We need to write or recycle a suitable blurb to go into the O-Day edition of the Pelican, soon. Treasurer's Report: Positive. The club had around $2100 at last count. Term deposit: $1500 of this has been placed in a UniCredit term deposit account that will roll over every three months, to cover any network traffic bill. If need be, we can withdraw it on short notice, the only penalty being that the interest on the final period being reduced to that of a normal savings account. (1.x% vs 5% or so) O-Day: Drinks: [AJW] reminds us about the Coke password scheme - "join the UCC and get a free drink". The login script to do this is still there from last year, though we need to generate a new list of passwords. [ANL] tells us about a plan to put the Faculty Societies and related clubs (eg us) together in a block, with stalls on either side of a "road" going between them. To be in this, we should hassle the Guild Activities Officer. [SD:] volunteers to oversee O-Day organisation. We should demonstrate some kewl stuff at the stand - perhaps something VR-related? [AJW] notes that some games (Quake? Magic Carpet?) can do "Magic Eye" 3D graphics. A multi-player Quake/etc setup would be fun. It shouldn't be so big as to overshadow or squeeze out everything else. [JEB] suggests we apply for two stands. Membership card: Should we have one, this year? We can organise various discounts from places for people with a card. Using just a sticker on another card, eg a student card, like the CSSC may not be the way to go - student cards already get festooned with them. Discounts at Valhalla may be good. [YAK] volunteers to check out the possibility of getting discounts from Mother's Foods. [ANL]: Night club discounts are easy to get. The can be done en masse with other clubs, one just needs to make and merge a membership list for them. [ANL]: We need to notify the Guild Activities Officer early about power requirements, etc. We can ask for a particular type of stall, or area to be placed in, even if we aren't likely to get any particular one. We should have a leaflet handed out to every member, which lists the monthly events planned for the year. A meeting to discuss what's to be done is needed. Shenton Park: From next year, we will be charged $25/square metre/year. If we were to keep our current space usage, this would mean $500-$700 per year - achievable, but we have better things to spend our money on. It would be nice to keep _some_ space - perhaps 4 square metres or so. The Powerhouse Museum offered to take the Altair and Ben, however the Altair may be long departed and/or partially cannibalised for switches. The University will _help_ with the financial cost of moving stuff out. It needs to be gone by Christmas Day. Saturday, November 30th looks good. [JEB] will organise this with the Guild. We'll use this time to move out everything _except_ Ben, and whatever we want to keep there. [YAK]: We should take many photos and photocopy any plans, etc, of Ben. Propaganda Officer: We need someone to, on a semi-organised basis, organise the promotion of the club about the Uni. The would involve getting and keeping posters up on noticeboards, and writing snippets for the Silver Guilder and the Pelican. The deadline for the O-Day edition of the Pelican is the 16th of December. ACTION: Warrick Mitchell volunteers to oversee and delegate this. UCC Cleanup: The clubroom MUST be cleaned up, and large amounts of stuff thrown out, whilst we have the large bin to take advantage of. Rubbish about the room has improved a little, but is still too plentiful. USE THE BINS! [SD:]: We should have fewer soft-drink-can towers... [DGC]: Don't leave soft-drink spills - clean them up quickly. [SD:] got some "terminal wipes" suitable for wiping screens, cases, etc. The contents of the shelves need to be sorted through rather than merely shuffled about. Much of it can go. We need to, in general, use space more efficiently. That which can be stacked, should be. When hardware identifies a piece of equipment we can throw out, a useful procedure to make sure it actually gets done could be to advertise it on the Web, and perhaps wa.general, with a time limit. If no-one has said they want it by then, it can be chucked. We should have a "Free to a Good Home" day - perhaps the weekend after the Shenton Park clearup - Saturday the 7th or Sunday the 8th of December. Everything we don't want to keep from Shenton Park or the clubroom, but others may want, can be brought to Shenton Park, and gotten rid of, one way or the other. An ad can be placed in Saturday's and/or Tuesday's West. UCC Newsletter/Magazine: We should have one, online or on paper, which details what's happening about the club. [DGC]: Bring it out just after the mid-year exams. [AJW]: Bring it out around 3 months after the O-Day leaflet. Online meetings: [TDH] suggests we have a meeting in IRC or on Flame, perhaps one evening a week. Topics of discussion would be similar to a Committee meeting, but members who can't make it to those could join in here and keep up to date. Seems popular... [DGC] suggests that wheel meetings could be handled like this. ACTION: [BBB] to organise such a meeting. OLGA: [YAK] has a beta-sponsorship-request letter to send out. He'll polish it off tonight. Bringing it up again should be easy - the update script(s) should simply work automagically. [DGC]: We need to find definite funding _before_ restarting it. The cost is hard to gauge. Back in 1994 (before the population of the 'Net _really_ started to explode), Nevada was willing T1's with OLGA traffic. Poor moray is unlikely to be able to handle that sort of load. Doing this properly calls for enough sponsorship to handle large amounts of traffic, and new hardware. The current suggested rate of sponsorship is $100/month/sponsor - several (five?) sponsors will be required. ACTION: [YAK] will co-ordinate the sorting out of something, tonight. Projects: Framegrabber: See [ECF] (hardware) and [MJH] (software). Digitiser: See [DGB]. Radio: We could connect a better set of speakers to it. We don't really want the radio blaring too much. On the other hand, "dispense annoying noise" has been a plan for quite a while. Coke machine: One of its fans is still broken. Repair doesn't seem possible. ACTION: [SAF] will investigate getting it replaced. Snack machine: Extensive work on it has resulted in getting it to function as that most complex of devices - a "shelf". The Guild is _still_ not using the ones sitting in Agriculture - they are theoretically meant to be given to faculties to use. ACTION: [JEB] to try Eagle Vending again. ACTION: [SD:] and [PGW] to to contact the Guild about using one of theirs, again. [PGW] had heard that they might be available. PDP-11: Should we take the one that's been offered to us? "Yes." "No." "Yes." "_No_." "Yes." "_NO_!" "Yes." Robot: The last one is more or less defunct, in South Australia. Automated Coke delivery could be _fun_. ACTION: [JPB] to co-ordinate getting a new robot team going. Replacement Rover: [TDH] and [ECF] will try getting a 386 together, with the PCBridge software in a boot-ROM. BeBox: Still needs a few bits. [MTL] will get hold of the software. It can run BeOS or Linux. ACTION: [PGW], [MTL], [NTU] to get it running. Make sure people know what projects are going on - eg bring them up at Committee meetings. Events Calendar: [ECF]'s idea of having someone to organise an event each month has been popular. This is the current list ; Month TLA Mail address Name --------------------------------------------------------------------------- November 1996: [ROD] rod@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Rod Swift December 1996: [SD:] sophie@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Sophie Divliaev January 1997: [BCF] knight@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Glenn Butcher February 1997: [SD:] sophie@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Sophie Divliaev March 1997: [AJW] andrew@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Andrew Williams April 1997: [YAK] yakk@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Ian McKellar May 1997: [DGB] davidb@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au David Basden June 1997: [JPB] japester@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Jean-Paul Blaquiere July 1997: [BBB] barnes@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Barnaby Brown August 1997: [TDH] mustang@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au David Manchester September 1997: [ECF] john@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au John West October 1997: [MTL] mtearle@ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au Mark Tearle The people in this list oversee each month, and can brainstorm out the details together, and with anyone else they may press into service. The next event should be advertised in the MOTD. ACTION: [NTU] and [BBB] to ensure this. November's outing will be a triple movie showing including Star Trek: First Contact. A Zone 3 Midnight-To-Dawn session sometime in December or January sounds promising. Membership Cost Structure: If we lower the cost of first time membership, we may get more people. [SD:]: We already have the problem that many people join, but hardly ever return. We could make memberships (external memberships only?) half-yearly. This would spread the membership income a bit over the year. However, some may only join for half the year and drift away during that time, which would be a pity. It would also cause hassle about updating memberships twice a year instead of once. We can discuss this further at the O-Day meeting. 2nd Phone Line: Flame is working with the second phone line. It should be put back into the BBS listing, which is kept by 1990 Multiline. ACTION: [AJW] to organise sponsorship of the line. How much use will it get? It's worth noting that BBS and Fidonet use has plummeted since the explosion of the Internet and IAPs. "Minties!" Club apathy: "I don't care about that." The eternal fight against apathy is still being waged, and lots of assistance from everyone is needed to fend it off. If someone takes over a project and find they can't put as much time as they thought into it, or needs more help, etc, feel free to come to the Committee to see what can be arranged. Secure web area: There is meant to be a set of web pages accessible only by UCC members, but this has been broken for some time. To be fixed. Password serving: This, in general has been somewhat less than robust. We need to come up with a longer term fix to this. Posters: There's large areas of blank space about the room - perhaps we should get posters for it, or fractal mosaics, etc... ACTION: Rick to try and get us some. Membership levels: We have a sum total of 205 members! [JEB]: "Thanks for turning up." Pizza: Let us fetch some. Meeting closed: 8:18pm