From: sjackson@tic.com (Steve Jackson)
Subject: Minutes of October Meeting
Originator: riddle@aahsa.tic.com
X-Submissions: eff-austin@tic.com
Organization: none
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 17:02:46 GMT

As approve at the November meeting.

MINUTES OF EFF-AUSTIN DIRECTORS' MEETING - OCTOBER 13, 1992
    Prepared by Steve Jackson.
    Held at the SJ Games office. Called to order at 8:15 pm, following
a directors-only session to discuss board appointments. Board members
present: John Quarterman (presiding), Smoot Carl-Mitchell, Steve
Jackson, Ed Cavazos. Observing: Dick Anderson, Dave Smith, Jon Lebkowsky.
 
        The minutes of the last meeting were approved without corrections.
It was noted that a separate copy of the minutes should be sent to
Cliff Figallo (fig@eff.org).
 
REPORT ON EXECUTIVE SESSION
 
OFFICERS' REPORTS
   PRESIDENT - There has been no word from Matt Lawrence; Matt's mail
on tic.com hasn't been picked up. Will call Donna McLaughlin and ask
her to find a volunteer for EFF-Austin Librarian.
   VP - Has been working with a new Travis County Bar Association
committee on "Computers and the Law." They also have a new BBS called
"Alias." The number is 335-5502.
   SECRETARY - Promises to remember to label everything as preliminary
until it is approved. Will call Bruce Sterling and inquire about a
press release about our incorporation, as well as about the rumor that
William Gibson is coming to town. Will call and talk to Matt Lawrence.
   TREASURER - We have a bank account and approximately $667. We do
not yet have a Texas CPA. Will call Joan Giglione, who has volunteered
to help us.
 
BOARD APPOINTMENTS
        The Board, in its closed session, nominated several local
activists for the Advisory Board. Three (Jon Lebkowsky, Dave Smith
and Dick Anderson) were present, and accepted the positions.
 
CYBERTEX
   Still dormant, pending receipt of proposals from potential organizers.
 
COMMITTEE AND OTHER REPORTS
    BBS Committee: Dave Smith (chair), Donna McLaughlin, Loyd Blankenship.
(Earl Cooley is interested.)  The committee is working on (1) networking
austin.eff to local boards. Tom Parish is helping. (2) distributing 
EFF-Austin text files to local boards. (3) setting up a specific BBS
as the flagship of the EFF-Austin network. Dave has a volunteer and will
ask for a specific written proposal.
        Infodisk Committee: Dave Smith (chair), Ed Cavazos. Yes, this is
a committee. Dave and Ed have sold a lot of disks (nobody was sure
how many) and plan to do another "edition" soon. They will send copies
to This!Group in San Francisco, and ask about the CD-ROM that This!Group
has been discussing.
    Network Committee: Smoot (chair), jsq. Question raised at the network
meeting: Should we institute the domain "austin.eff.org" for tic.com?
Answer: No, in order to avoid confusion between the organization EFF
and the business TIC, until EFF-Austin gets its own node on the net.
Smoot and jsq share the lesson learned this week: Never move your office.
The interruptions to mail should now be over, though. Also, Jim Thompson
of Tadpole Technologies has offered to loan us a Tadpole SparcBook with
very fast modem for any general meeting. The board accepted, with
enthusiastic thanks. Need for the Tadpole will be discussed on a
meeting-by-meeting basis; jsq will liase with Jim Thompson and take care
of the system if Jim is not at the particular meeting.
    Newsletter Committee: Dave Smith. An issue is out. Overall, it is
excellent. Questions about content were discussed. It was agreed that
coverage of computer cases which raise civil liberties questions is
important, but coverage of random busts of codez-kids is neither important
nor desirable. It was agreed that we can find a better name for that
section of the newsletter than "Computer Underground," especially since
there is only one CuD and we don't want to be seen as imitators. Dave
has set some editorial guidelines and will distribute them to the
mailing list.
    Police Liaison Committee - Dick Anderson (chair), Bruce Sterling, 
Smoot Carl-Mitchell. The Committee has an appointment next week to 
visit the local Secret Service office, give them a copy of Bruce's book,
invite them to his talk this month, and offer to act as a resource if
they need our help. Appointments will be set up for similar meetings
with the Austin chief of police and the Travis Count D.A.
        Volunteer Coordinator: Donna McLaughlin. Donna was not present. The
Board commended her for the excellent job she did, above and beyond
the call of duty, at ArmadilloCon. It was agreed that the Volunteer
Coordinator should never be saddled with the entire responsibility for
an event, but should simply be assisting a designated organizer. It was
suggested that one particular volunteer slot to be filled for any 
event is table-sitter and seller of Infodisks and memberships.
 
PROGRAM PLANNING
    Ad-hoc committees for each upcoming meeting:
    October meeting: Bruce Sterling will speak on "The Hacker
Crackdown." Organizer: Susan Cisco, who sent an excellent written
report (the Board thanks her!). This event was originally set for
November but moved for logistical reasons, to 7:30 pm, Thursday,
October 29. It will be at the Al Kiva Room of the UT Education Building.
We are buying 80 books from Bantam to resell to support EFF-Austin, and
Bruce will sign all copies sold; Ed and Dave will deal with this, and
SJ will loan his company's card imprinter. There will be no charge to
attend. We probably want the SparcBook there.
        November Members' Meeting: Ed and Jon will organize this - possibly
at MCC. This will be an opportunity for EFF-Austin members to hear
personal reports from the officers and committee chairs, to ask
questions, and generally to get in the faces of the Secret Committee
of Central Texas Wannabee Net Gods. Also to play with the SparcBook.
        December Cyberdawg: Tracy LaQuey Parker will sign copies of her
new book. Willard Uncaphur and Jon Lebkowsky have volunteered to
organize this. No site or date yet; Europa Books has been suggested.
(This event was formerly planned for November.)
    January: Ed Cavazos is organizing, not a panel, but a workshop
on legal issues affecting sysops. Mike Godwin has been invited to come
down and participate. The event will be publicized to the legal
community as well as Central Texas sysops.
   Dave Smith has started a "cookbook" for EFF-Austin meeting planners,
and will distribute it to the mailing list for comment.
 
COMMUNICATION WITH MEMBERS
        The need for better meeting planning was discussed. The Board
agreed (without vote) that each meeting should have a reasonable
budget, "reasonable" being defined as in the $50-$100 range, for
refreshments or special publicity. The Board voted to reimburse TIC
for the $60 spent for refreshments at the MCC meeting (MCC requires
groups using their meeting room to pay for a snack buffet).
   The Board discussed the austin.eff newsgroup. From the perspective
of the Board, things are going well. The Board invited Prentiss Riddle,
the moderator, to communicate his own assessment of the group. It was
noted that the Freenet discussion, which took a lot of bandwidth last month, is getting its own discussion area separate from austin.eff.
   Information packet for members. No progress; still waiting on a
mailing list to send it to. We'll consider appropriate contents at
the next meeting; in the meantime, it will be discussed asynchronously
on tic.com.
  Mailing list: Ed reports that he and Donna have made progress and
should have the work finished before the next meeting.
   On Board training for electronic mail, jsq recommends that this be
done on an individual basis, and repeated his offer to provide advice
and help.
   A FAQ file now exists on the tic.com file server, along with many
other EFF-Austin files.
   Monica Stephens has volunteered to be our resource when anyone in the
group needs a flyer or other advertisement. Please contact her at least
a couple of days before the finished work is needed (longer is better).
Text files should be provided on MS-DOS disk, preferably in ASCII;
work will be done in Ventura Publisher.
 
LOCAL ACTIVITY SINCE LAST MEETING
   Jon Lebkowsky's 9-27 Cyberarts meeting filled the house at High Time.
This was originally planned independently of EFF-Austin, but High Time 
misunderstood and announced it as an EFF-Austin event, and Jon and Ed
noticed too late to avoid trying to make any correction at the time -
so some participants thought that it was EFF-Austin.
   The meeting drew a lot of comment, all of it good. Feeling that this
meeting demonstrated the need for a committee on the arts, the Board
created this committee and asked Jon Lebkowsky to chair it. The committee
will come back next meeting with recommendations for activities, and
a report on the Third Annual Convention on Cyberspace, planned for
May of 1993.
   We had between 40 and 50 attendees at the 9-28 panel on networks,
hosted by John Quarterman and Smoot Carl-Mitchell at MCC. Anna Couey,
an artist from San Francisco, was also present and spoke briefly
on the net as a medium for the arts. This meeting was notable because
all three of the presenters made active Internet connections and 
demonstrated applications online via an overhead screen viewer. Anna
connected to the WELL and let the audience participate in online
interactive art! Thanks to MCC for the excellent facility.
        At ArmadilloCon (Oct. 9-11), Mike Godwin visited from Cambridge.
He, Steve Jackson and Bruce Sterling presented a panel on the current
state of electronic freedoms. We had a table with a literature display,
and distributed huge quantities of pamphlets and newsletters. The table
had two computers set up; one let people manipulate a color
360-degree image of Bruce Sterling's head - e.g., play with Bruce's head.
The other had a front-end display program set up to display the files
from the Infodisk. Thanks to Donna McLaughlin for organizing the table,
and Ed Cavazos, Paco Nathan and Tom Parish for setting up the computers.
We made a lot of money at the table, largely due to Bruce's generous
donation of ten copies of THE HACKER CRACKDOWN. The Board thanks
Bruce sincerely.
        One of the copies of THE HACKER CRACKDOWN was earmarked specifically
as the EFF-Austin library copy. Now that we have a collection, we need
a librarian.
 
NEW BUSINESS . . . WE REALLY DID SOME THIS TIME
   Public Net Access: EFF-Austin is in favor of net access for anyone
who wants it. It has come to the attention of the Board that several
groups are working on access projects. The Board would welcome written
proposals from any such groups seeking EFF-Austin participation.
   Road Dawgs: It's been suggested that we take the Cyberdawgs on the road
and sponsor events in other cities, starting with Houston. The Board
decided that primary responsibility for any such event would need to
rest with local organizers, but again, a proposal would be welcomed.
Ed will check into HoHoCon, set for December in Houston, and make a
recommendation as to whether EFF-Austin should have an official presence.
   School Mentoring: Dick Anderson presented information on various
projects involving net access in schools. The Board created an Education
Committee (chaired by Dick; Smoot also a member) to collect more information and offer a proposal for EFF-Austin participation. It was
noted that we have several members at Leander High who are already trying
hard to get their school online. In general, how can we help the schools?
   DIR: This is a state agency interested in EFF input. Jon L. will get
back in contact with them.
   Interactive University: Copies of Dick Cutler's proposal were
distributed to everyone present for discussion next month.
   John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment: This event has
come and gone. Will it happen again next year?
 
COMMUNICATION W/CAMBRIDGE
        The general concern of the Board, that our communications with the
"parent organization" are very poor, was boiled down to several specifics.
        The Board discussed the problem that our minutes have not been
considered satisfactory input for Cambridge's newsletters. As a result,
our activities have largely been ignored. Asked about this, Rita Rouvalis
in Cambridge wrote "Yes, I'm getting the minutes, but Robert's Rules
of Order do not make for good articles!  I mean, I *could* fill in the
details, but I'm not sure you'd like where my imagination would lead me."
A later letter apologized if feelings had been hurt but characterized
the minutes as "cryptic." The Board disagrees. It was suggested that we
should write a specific little article for Rita every month, even if it
is only the "Committees" and "Local Activities" part of the minutes
sent as a separate message.
        Mike Godwin was in town for ArmadilloCon, and during the convention
asked Ed to set up a meeting. Ed contacted the other Board members
present at the con, but then never heard from Mike again, and no
meeting was held. This caused some dismay.
        Several messages to Cliff Figallo had gone without response. SJ
called to ask if our e-mail was ever received. It was received; Cliff
replied, and apparently it bounced. SJ requested, and got, fax copies of
two letters from Cliff. Ed will check with Cliff on the by-laws question,
to which no reply has yet been received.
        Cliff's letter mentioned that Cambridge is now working on a Chapter
Agreement, to be finished by Oct. 16. Some of the points that he 
discussed reflect yet another change in Cambridge's position vis-a-vis
chapters. New issues include dues structures (our system will no 
longer be satisfactory to Cambridge) and tighter adherence to policies
expressed by National. We have not seen the entire Agreement yet.
        The Board discussed, at great length, the advantages and 
disadvantages of EFF affiliation to local chapters, and the advantages 
and disadvantages to Cambridge of chartering local groups. John Quarter-
man will write a letter to Cliff, discussing these points and inviting him
to Austin to meet with the Board and discuss our concerns. This would
be in addition to Susan's letter inviting him to introduce Bruce at the
book-signing.
        The letter will also specifically suggest that the Chapter 
Agreement should be released to EFF-Austin and the prospective
NY and SF groups, for comment *before* it becomes official policy.
        It was agreed that our greatest concern is not any
particular issue, but the general lack of communication - and,
more, *consistent* communication - with National. The energy of the
group is being sapped by constant re-evaluations of its status
and purpose.
 
CHARTER, BYLAWS, INCORPORATION
   At the network meeting, the question was raised: What dues would we
charge for institutional membership? The question was tabled due to
the news from Cambridge that our existing dues structure is not
consistent with their current proposed membership agreement.
 
ADMINISTRIVIA AND ADJOURNMENT
        Roll was called. Matt Lawrence's absence was not excused, since he
had not contacted anyone on the Board since last month.
        The next meeting will be November 10 at 6:30 (directors only, to
discuss appointments) and 7:30 (general meeting), at SJ Games, with
adjournment hopefully set for 10:30 pm.
        The meeting was adjourned at 11:20.



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