Laura: Free Kittens

• It seems like our target audience perceives a free computer like a free kitten. It might be nice, but it takes a lot of stress and money to maintain it.
• Our focus should be on education, so we decided to set up the upstairs room as a classroom so we can teach classes. Laura will set up the room and Randy will bring a projector for a dry run.

Dave: Volunteer demographics tracking

• We need to track volunteer demographics. We need to know the income of the recipients and the volunteers, release of liability, description of their responsibility, and a description of EXACTLY what machine they will get for their 15 hours.
• Too much time is wasted on cherry picking.
• Laura will create the form as soon as Randy and Dave send her the information.

Randy: PC request from the reservation

• We aren’t responding correctly. Whenever we receive an email, it needs to be responded to and copied to everyone.

Randy: Warehouse Manger

• There are 3-4 people who want the job. We’re waiting for Pete to come back. Kyle will put an ad in Craigslist for a warehouse manager and for computer sales.

Randy: Salt Lake City School District- Intern program

• The school district provides interns who give us 40 hours and we give them a computer.
• They want to provide 30 interns. Can we do it? Ten in the program at a time: five for the first half of Saturday and five the second half.

Randy: New policy for volunteer redemption machines

• Volunteers are no longer allowed to cherry pick. We tell them up front, EXACTLY what they get. Part of that will be covered in the form.

Randy: Ebay Items

• Richard offered to help with the listings.

Randy: Warehouse Heater pilot lights?

• Heater, lights and roof: still three leaks. We are responsible to get the pilot light on.

Randy: Ergsoc.org web site

• The initial landing page should be the About Us page, not the blog. We’ll link to the others from that one. Laura will have Mike correct that issue.

Dave: Board member volunteers

• Dave is looking for people to volunteer for board members. We need new people. Think broader.

Randy: Christmas/Holliday Challenge

• Are we all willing to give away two computers this year?

New forms/documentation: Randy

• Bill of sale transferring liability for proper recycling: We have a form now, but we need to make sure everything that goes out has this form signed. It is mandatory on anything with a serial number. We need consistency on this.
• Eligibility for Microsoft Mar COA machines: We have the MS COAs in. They are charitable COAs, so they only go out to people of lower income level self reported is alright. We need a form still. The more we can document, the less issues we’ll have.
• Volunteer acceptance/release: How do we word it so that volunteers actually work and not cherry pick all day? Should we limit it to one computer a month? Maybe we should have volunteer commitment levels. We don’t want to discourage volunteers. Maybe we should have a way for volunteers to level up. People love it when it’s like a game.
• Inventory/reserve- Randy: The inventory list is maintained on the drop box. Randy suggested that we keep an eBay price list. We need to have a base of machines just sitting ready. We’re for selling all we can, but we need to have some machines in reserve. We should be tracking the volunteer income. We could use the point of sale software to track it.
• Machines set up for people should be marked. We have a drop box folder for 503c letters. The spreadsheet hasn’t been updated since we lost Dave full time. We need a want/build list and hopefully that will grow into an inventory list. We need a visual reference. Tracking outbound is really important. We need to add a computer into inventory only when it’s working and ready to be sent out.
• Status of ebay sales, walk in sales, and funds collected in the last few months: Craig created a spreadsheet of what we were selling on eBay, but we can’t tell what was sold. We need much more detail on what gets sold on walk ins.

UTOS- Dave

Next weekend Dave can be there all three days, but he really needs help on Friday afternoon. We’ll close the warehouse on Saturday to accommodate that. We are having an opportunity drawing for two computers in exchange for a donation. KiloPenny keychain is going to have to wait until next year, but we should work on it and incorporate it into our website. We need to encourage people to donate.

Policy for adding new board members:

3G board member: Give Get or Get Off. Giving time is a pretty valuable resource as well. We need to vote on new members in a closed meeting. It’s for a term of two years. And you and re-up for two more years and then you have to take a year off. The 3G concept is more useful when we have too many people who want to be on the board.

E-Waste meeting at the capitol wasn’t very inspiring.

The manufacturers might step up, but Pete isn’t very hopeful. California is the only state that is doing it right.

Money- Randy

• Randy has just been depositing money into the bank, but he’s working blind right now. He has no way to access that. We need petty cash and we need to track things.
• Status of Fundraising/Grants- Has Malia applied for grants yet? It’s a lot of effort at the start. She needs some more info to finish the grant writing. She is doing a lot more than just writing grants. She is making progress, but she is feeling a bit overwhelmed. For many grants, you don’t just send in a letter.

Landlord: or lack of one – Pete

• Gas leak? Supposedly fixed, but the pilot lights need to be relit.
• Front of warehouse: new cement? The dock is unusable. Pete is going to get cement contractors to get bids on getting it fixed.
• Lights? They are our responsibility to replace the light bulbs. The difficulty is getting the bulbs and changing them because they are so high. Pete is going to talk to Feldt lighting.

Interns:

• Salt Lake City School District: Are we going to host again this year? Lars says he wants to do it again. They are meeting with him on Oct 6th. The district pays them yo be here for 40 hours and then we give them a computer at the end. It worked really well last year.
• UVU- Spanish program: Are we going to host again this year? Dave doesn’t remember exactly who sent the students down. They just showed up one day. Sometimes they have to do community service time. Dave is going to check his email to see who he has to contact that.

Monitors:

Randy might be able to get a truck for us for the monitors.

Executive director: what went wrong, why, what we’ve learned, and what we need to do/not do when we hire the next one.

• The primary mission communicated to previous director was to move inventory. As a result the primary mission of ERGS suffered. The next director needs to balance the two issues. One side supports the other, so we need both. The previous director didn’t want to be supervised. The next director needs to realize that they work for the board. Our processes need to be followed. DBANing the machines is important. The previous director wasn’t very familiar with the processes. We need to be more committed to training the new director. We have a lot of stuff that needs to be sold, but we also need to serve the community. Should we split those job tasks?
• Dave as ED? He is feeling just a little burned out right now and can’t do it all.
• We haven’t gotten any response to the ED posting. We need someone to get the grant writing done. That is the most important.
• We need consistency with pickups, open doors, and selling. We need a warehouse manager as well, but we can’t afford it right now.

Warehouse cohabitation:

Things are a little better with Richard.

Electricity Usage:

Be cognizant of the electricity use. Don’t leave stuff DBANing over the weekend.

Housekeeping:

Randy would like to see an upcoming events spot on the blog. Also he needs to be able to change the wiki. Additionally Randy got new locks for the doors.

Retail Space:

We also need a retail space once we get a budget for it.

Our participation in the conference means the warehouse will be closed this weekend, but if your at the conference be sure to stop by our table!

Attended: Pete Ashdown, Randy Everett, Dave Turnbull, Kyle Waters, Craig Shepard, Laura Moncur, Matt Reeve and Richard Thompson

It has been a year since we first appointed officers, so it’s time to reinstate them. Although Matt Reinbold will remain on the board until he leaves town, Laura is taking over the position of Secretary. Kyle will remain in the board as a trusted member, but Randy will take over the Treasurer position. Matt Reeve is joining the board.

Craig Shepard is our new Executive Director. He has lots of experience with eBay so he’ll be helping the donation side of ERGS.

The clutch on the truck is broken. Replacement is $1100. We looked at new trucks priced at $2000. Craig is going to research these new trucks to see if it’s worth the extra money for them. If they aren’t better, we’ll fix the one we have. Craig is contacting Utah Dave to see if he is willing to donate his truck for our pick ups. Craig will also put the truck on eBay for $1000 to see if we get any bites.

We sold four computers on walk-ins and two on eBay.

We are dbanning our free hard drives and marking them, so when we sell them, the data is wiped. Randy would like to have an automated way to log the wipes.

We also need a release of liability for everything that goes out the door so we won’t get in trouble if these monitors/computers end up in a landfill. We need manual serial number tracking. We need an inventory tracking system. Randy will look into that software.

Monitor storage: Metech charges 18 cents a pound to recycle monitors. We are about full. Craig will contact Metech to negotiate with them to take the monitors for free in exchange for the green boards. Depending on the recycled reimbursement for green boards, it might be better to not use Metech. Storm Castle is offering more for recycling and they are approved.

We are talking to the legislature to get the laws changed, but the bill died in committee because the manufacturers fought it. Kyle is going to continue working on that.

We are giving the monitors away. Craig is going to put an ad on Craigslist announcing this.

Craig needs some boxes to send out computers. Dave will talk to his dad to see if he can get some donations.

There is a gas leak under the stairs. The paving is falling apart. The lights are out. Pete is going to talk to the landowner about these issues.

The Make Group is going to come and disassemble some printers this Wednesday.

Need a clear division between the games, Rich’s stuff and ERGS. We need colored tape or paint to delineate between the groups. We also need to open up the blocked doors. We need a 7 foot corridor. Rich will paint the boundary of his area. Pete will talk to Chris about his areas. Rich is also looking at tool chests to make sure their tools don’t walk off. Randy will talk to Snap On.

Craig will be organizing our things to help with flow. Rich, Chris and Pete need to draw the lines and we’ll follow them. Pete will add Rich to the board list.

Shelving is a concern. The food shelter might donate their old shelves. Kyle is going to talk to his work about donating their old cubicle calls.

Do we have a set schedule? 8-5 M-F Dave will give Craig access to the schedule.

Pete will call a sign maker this week.

The board agreed to offer a grant writer 10% of any grant money they get for ERGS. Advertise on Craigslist for grant writers.

Laura will give Craig access to the blog.

Next Board Meeting is Saturday 09-25-10 at 10 am