Minutes 10/10/98

LIFT-OFF MEETING THE MAD HATTER PUB, WATERLOO
2:00PM SATURDAY 10TH OCTOBER 1998

Present: 1. Jonathan Baker-Bates, 2. Peter & Dan Hawkins, 3. Steve Dicks, 4. Satnam Loyal, 5. Ian Westbrook, 6. Andy Genovese, 7. David Barton, 8. Daniel Lapthorn,

Apologies: 1. David Cantrell, 2. Fraser Brysdon, 3. Martin Eager, 4. Andrew James, 5. Alan Truelove, 6. Richard Dallaway,

Absent: 1. Eewei Chen, 2. John Thombs


AGENDA

Item 1: Beer

Drunk as proposed (with food).

Item 2: Election of Officers
Treasurer:Peter Hawkins
Deputy Treasurer:Ian Westbrook
Secretary:Jonathan Baker-Bates
Signatories:Ian Westbrook, Jonathan Baker-Bates
Technical Liaison:Jonathan Baker-Bates, Steve Dicks, Daniel Hawkins

Item 3: Selection of ISP

VIVD Concepts Limited (http://www.vivid-concepts.co.uk/)

Item 4: Selection of Operating System

Linux - Red Hat 5.1 (Boxed Set version)

Item 5. Adoption of Rules

The following amendments were made:

Change I. 5 - "Payment of any moneys to the Club or its nominated persons signifies membership." to: "Payment of the appropriate membership fee to the Club or its nominated persons signifies membership.

Change III. 2 "30 days" to "60 days" to bring this in line with minimum time limit for payment of annual subscription in Article I. 19 (and/or notice period given from ISP in the event of closure).

Delete I. 20 ("No new members shall be admitted during the first Club Year."), but membership is still limited to 15 as in I. 1. If we have more than 15 people wanting to pay by the time we go live, then this will be handled on a first-come-first served basis (sorry, Dave).

Add II. 6 - "New members shall be elected by vote, either by a quorum at a real-world meeting, or by simple majority vote on the List. In the latter case, the method of voting shall be the same as II. 1. Reasonable time must be given to existing members to ask prospective members any questions before voting begins."

All other proposed rules agreed.

Item 6: Money.

We agreed that since we do not know the final cost of the project, nor the final number of members at launch, we would ask for a sum to cover an estimate of expenses based on a membership of 10, plus an amount to form a "kitty" to cover sundry setup costs and future unforeseen expenditure. Any surplus could then be divided equally and refunded to members.

We also agreed that the Club should register for VAT. This does not affect non-Vat registered members in any way, but will allow any registered members to claim tax on payments.

After some discussion, the amount per head was given as £450.00 plus VAT (£528.75 including VAT).

The name of the bank account was decided as "The Hatters Club." Peter Hawkins (Treasurer) filled out the relevant account application forms, duly countersigned by Jonathan and Ian (Secretary, Deputy Secretary and Signatories). All members present wrote cheques to "The Hatters Club" for the VAT-inclusive amount and handed them to Peter Hawkins.

This gives us £3600.00 so far for an estimated minimum cost of £4000.00. Given that at least five others have also recently promised money, it is likely that we will generate a significant surplus.

Item 7: Stats:

All agreed that rule I 12. Was sufficient, and that Analog would be the software agreed to do this.

Item 8: What now?

See Action points.

Item 9: AOB

Hardware: Alan Lapthorn said that we would be able to make use of a special discount available to non-profit organizations from Dell Computers of approximately 30%.

Default Domain: Agreed to register either a hatters.org.uk (first choice because Nominet is easier to deal with than the NIC) or hatters.org (second choice), or a suitable permutation of mad-hatters.org.uk, .org, etc. if unavailable. Daniel Hawkins can action this registration.

Secure Shell: Agreed to run this rather than standard rlogin/rsh, unless this unduly inconvenienced members.

DNS: We agreed it shouldn’t be necessary to have primary and secondary DNS on the same machine. A free secondary DNS would be relatively easy to arrange (perhaps on a "swap" agreement).

Action Points:

1. Anyone wishing to pay must now send a cheque payable to "The Hatters Club" to Peter Hawkins at the address he will post on the List. It’s first-come-first served, so don’t delay!

2. Alan will research the Dell deal and provide details on the List.

3. Jonathan will contact VIVD for details of their deal including options and prices, main contract stipulations, etc. Will also ask if they can match the Dell deal on the agreed hardware spec, in particular if they are willing to offer a service warrantee.

4. Jonathan will also look into the best way of getting hold of the commercial Red Hat Boxed Set distribution.

5. Delivery of the equipment will be made to Steve Dicks (Technical Liaison). The Technical Liaison (Three Amigos) to meet to install and configure the system at a convenient location (it may be possible to do some of this on Alan’s office network in central London).

[ends]


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Last modified: 08/01/2000