Monthly Meeting - 2008-12-09

Public meeting minutes for Tuesday, December 9th 2008 at 6:30pm
Location: 1820 Pandora Street
Previous: Monthly Meeting - 2008-11-04 | Next: Monthly Meeting - 2009-01-13

Attendance

12-Megan, Bernie, Adam, Luke, Alex, Sim, Etie, Eric, Len, Graham, Simon, Steven

ROLES

• Consensus briefer: ???
• Facilitator: Adam
• Regulator: ???
• Scribe: Megan
• Minutes checker: ???

Old Business

Nothing to report

Reports

• Staff Report:

-Staff have been busy with internal staff reviews, -Holding interviews for Build Coordinator position, should be finished by Friday -Drop offs dry spell, having trouble giving volunteers tasks, focusing on cleaning -Ryan's leaving January 15th

• Financial Report:

Revenue: mostly from printed circuit boards + store 9500 scrap (circuit board + wire) 14300 store revenue, record month

Expenses: stable month 9800 wages 500-600 shipping costs

Total difference: 1400

-last month we were short 3 paycheque month, we made that back +

Assests in the bank: 35,000

-generally we're doing well, -#'s above don't include grant funds

New Business

• Holidays:

Free Geek will be closed Monday the 22nd through to Saturday the 27th + New Years day

DECISION: These holidays will be paid for staff: 4 days, 6.5 hrs a day, 12 hr, 5 people= 1600-1800 -Financially we are doing well we can afford it

-Will this be yearly occurrence?

DECISION: We will decide later in the year whether or not we can afford it next year, the decision will be made by September at the latest

• Sean Hill: Expense Credit Card

-expenses regularly paid in an adhoc manner -truck rental needed for our pickups truck rental (we've been using staff credit cards) -should we apply for a business credit card? -benefits: credit rating, tracking our funds better cons: some risk, debt system: can be mitigated by establishing limits

-directors need to apply for the card in writing -discussion around hiring someone part-time to deal with our book keeping, -we need to bring someone in to look at our books!

DECISION: to make getting credit card contingent on whether or not we hire a weekly person to go over our books, we have the funds to do this (2 days a week casual staff)

DECISION: to strike a meeting to commit to producing a document surrounding the policy/procedures of using the credit card [in the new year]

-ongoing suggestion to have an accountant come in quarterly or twice a year to check out our books

COMMIT: Sean Hill will call a meeting early in January (530pm @ the hackery on the day of the next gm) to discuss these issues and finalize a policy that will be been written over the mailing list

COMMIT: Megan to try to find an accountant

Last Minute Items

• Volunteer Renumeration

-One of our Volunteer's worked for 2 weeks while Adam was on vacation, he was paid with a 30 inch lcd monitor, this monitor broke quickly, the volunteer is asking for renumeration

DECISION: We will give this volunteer a laptop in exchange for the monitor

DECISION: In the future we will pay contract wages to a person in the situation, to avoid any shady area

Addendum (from mailing list)

As I remember it, the decision was to go ahead with the credit card
contingent on:

 A) Creating a written policy regarding use of the card.

 B) Obtaining the services of an accountant to audit our books.

 C) Retaining a qualified bookkeeper to do the ongoing accounting.
     (Consensus was that it was okay for Sean to carry on with this
for now until
      such a person could be found, ie: get the card as soon as
      A&B so long as C is being worked on)

(All the information was there, but the conditions were
not really clearly stated)


Thanks again,


-- 
sim