|
Maca
Board Meeting Minutes |
||
|
01-09-03 |
||
|
Kennedy Senior Center, Natick, Mass |
||
|
Minutes Prepared by Mark Kaprielian, Clerk |
||
|
Scheduled: 7:30 PM |
Opened: 7:40 PM |
Closed: 9:40 PM |
|
Board Members |
|
Arrive |
Depart |
Guests Present |
|
|
Pres |
Harvey Reed |
Present |
7:30 |
|
|
|
V.P. |
Steve Frymer |
|
|
|
|
|
Treas. |
Bob Messenger |
Present |
7:10 |
|
|
|
Clerk |
Mark Kaprielian |
Present |
7:30 |
|
|
|
|
Stephen Dann |
Present |
7:30 |
|
|
|
|
Frank Del Bonis |
Present |
7:30 |
|
|
|
|
Larry Eldridge |
Present |
8:40 |
|
|
|
|
Tony Gavelis |
Present |
7:30 |
9:05 |
|
|
|
Gus Gosselin |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Robert King |
Present |
7:30 |
|
|
|
|
Peter Lee |
Present |
|
|
|
|
|
Tim Oliveri |
Present |
|
|
|
|
|
Maryann Reilly |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Note: All vote tallies are shown as For Against Abstention, e.g. 5 2 1 |
|||||
Table of Contents
A. Introductory Remarks
Harvey Reed
B. Introduction of Guests
Harvey Reed
C. Review of Agenda
Harvey Reed
D. Approval of Minutes
Harvey Reed
E. Treasurers Report
Bob Messenger
A. Archivist Mark
Kaprielian
B. Budget Coordinator Bob
Messenger
C. Club Coordinator
Robert King
D. Data Processing
Coordinator Mark Kaprielian
E. LMCF Coordinator Gus
Gosselin
F. Investment Coordinator
Gus Gosselin
G. Membership Coordinator
Gus Gosselin
H. Parliamentarian Mark
Kaprielian
I. Prison Chess Coordinator
Steve Frymer
J. Promotion Coordinator
Frank Del Bonis
K. Publications
Coordinator Robert King
L. Scholastic Coordinator
Tony Gavelis
N. Volunteer Coordinator
Harvey Reed
O. Web Master Mark
Kaprielian
A. Budget Committee Bob
Messenger
B. Investment Committee
Gus Gosselin
C. Bylaws Committee Mark
Kaprielian
IV. Topics
for Discussion and possible Action
A. Selection of Election
Commissioner Reed
V. Other
Topics that may arise during the meeting
Theme for this month is to gear up for elections, nominations. Do we each know one or two good people to nominate for next year? We also must make sure that CH cost structure work continues, at least so there can be a positive impact for next year.
All present introduced them selves.
No items were added to the agenda.
|
Motion_2003-01-01 Reed, Kaprielian 2nd To approve the Minutes of the Dec-12-2002 meeting as recorded Passed: 5 1 - 3 |
The Treasurer handed out copies of his monthly report and reviewed the past months activities. Copies of the information will be posted on the web site.
The Archivist had nothing to report.
The Budget Coordinator had nothing to report
The Club Coordinator had nothing to report.
The Data Processing Coordinator handed out a hard copy of the summary that will be posted to the web. There are currently 930 members.
The LMCF Coordinator submitted no report.
The Investment Coordinator submitted no report.
The Membership Coordinator submitted no report.
The Archivist had nothing to report.
The Prison Chess Coordinator had nothing to report.
The Promotion Coordinator handed out a copy of promotional quotes, which will be sent for posting.
The Publications Coordinator reported that the CH Editor agreed to have his fee reduced to $500 for a 48 page quarterly produced magazine.
The Scholastic Coordinator distributed his report by email prior to the meeting and it will be posted to the site.
The Tournament Coordinator submitted no report.
The Volunteer Coordinator reported that an ad for volunteers was placed in the January CH.
The Web Master made the following report.
Work is progressing on the Organizers and Web Masters interface to the Future Events Database on the web. We hope to be doing initial testing by February 1st.
The first version of a PayPal interface for the Future Events Pages went live on our site 12-27-02.
I've been working with Severine Wamala as an "Alpha" test user (friendly customer who understands it is still under examination for bugs") to develop the characteristics of how it would work.
I made the interface for the Dofe Database as generic as I could while still focusing on the task at hand, to get a working system in place.
Severine did not have a PayPal account. I sent him to the PayPal site and within a few minutes he established a "Business" PayPal account. There is no fee for setting up an account. All he needed to do was answer questions and provide a credit card number for monies to be transferred to or from.
When people pay by Credit card, the person receiving the payment is charged 2.2 (or maybe it was 2.7) % of the Total.
The PayPal site provides the ability to create the code for shopping cart buttons to be pasted onto your own web site by filling in a form. Severine did a first pass attempt at creating buttons for his next Winter Getaway. He then sent me the code. I looked over the code and then, over the course of several days made the following incremental progress.
A. Used it as generated to verify it worked
B. Cleaned it up and documented parts of it and then verified it worked
C. Created a template for cloning to quickly generate the code for a custom shopping cart.
D Took the template code and implemented it using the ASP (Active Server Pages) language and generated a template. This template would let you make changes just at the top of the file to cause the template code to be replicated on the page (instead of copying a lot of code over and over trying to customize it in each copy).
E Modified the DOFE database to allow entry of all the information needed for Online payments into the record for any event.
F Created a PayPal Payment ASP page to read the DOFE Database data.
G Integrated the ASP button code with the Payment page
H Passed information from the existing Dofe ASP pages to the new payment page.
The end result is that events can now be configured to accept PayPal payments.
PayPal accepts major credit cards.
Users can create their own account quickly should they want to pay via the web/PayPal.
I've entered the Payment data for the Winter Getaway in February. After doing that first event, filling in the info for the January one day event only took me about 2 minutes. Most of that time was spent carefully reading the flyer.
Organizers, as a confirmation that the data has been entered correctly ( and you as well) can simply add each item to the cart to see that it goes into the cart correctly. Nothing happens until you attempt to check out. At that time, it will ask you to log in or create a new PayPal account.
PayPal keeps a complete history of what was paid in or paid out.
One advance feature that I put in that I think will be most appreciated by the organizers it that you specify, for each "item" being purchased, a Start and End date is specified. This allows you to enter in the Advance registration dates for everything and when the date is reached, the prices automatically change. Hence, once you've completely configured your event in the database, you will not need to revisit it. This feature also disables after the last date expires.
The system allows for a fair amount of flexibility in how things can be set up. One interesting bit of flexibility for example is:
For Severines One day event, the last date for online payment is midnight the night before the event. For the Weekend Getaway however, the At the door prize will kick in after the last entry cut-off date but, by setting the end date to be the last day of the event, people will be able to still register on-line. Severine is going to have an extra web connected computer at the Weekend Getaway. He already has his main computer on-line at the Hotel during the whole event. If someone shows up to register and wants to pay by credit card, Severine will inform them that they can use the 2nd computer to register on-line and create a Free PayPal account for themselves to use their credit card.
In a test to see how long it took for Severine to be notified of a registration payment, it took less than one minute. Of course, it could always happen to be slower but it appears that time lags shouldn't be an issue (Well see when its in action !!)
If you want to check it out, or register, look at the NorthEast OneDay on Jan 11, or the Getaway on Feb 7th.
The link to pay on line is NEAR the BOTTOM of the FLYER in big letters, just before the tear-away entry form.
If anyone wants to discuss getting a particular event on-line, send me an email and specify which past or future event you are interested in.
One other bit of info for you. The only information needed from Severine to make all this work on our site was the Email address he wants to receive payment at. No account numbers or anything else was needed.
Note also: Once Maca sets up an account to receive PayPal transactions, we could easily put up pages to
A. Submit renewals for CH
B. Solicit donations for any number of causes, e.g. LMCF, Prison outreach, scholarships, etc.
C. Membership renewals
The Budget Committee Chairman had nothing to report.
The Investment Committee Chairman had nothing to report.
The Bylaws Committee Chairman had nothing to report
Discussion: We must start our election activities on time this year, so we dont have the last minute confusion that we had last year. The first priority is to select an Election Commissioner.
Maryanne Reilly has agreed to be the Election Commissioner. She will solicit people to join the board. Ballots will be sent to her address.
Harvey Reed will create the master files for the ballot.
|
Motion_2003-01-02 Kaprielian, Messenger 2nd To appoint Maryanne Reilly as Chairperson of the Election Commission for the 2003 MACA election cycle with Harvey Reed a member of the committee and to authorize the Chairperson to appoint the 3rd member of the committee. Passed: 9 0 - 1 |
Some general discussion about the direction and type of promotion we might have was held. Frank DelBonis will determine if RICA wants some kind of arrangement with Maca for CH or not.
|
Motion_2003-01-03 Messenger, Delbonis 2nd Move that the board approve the application for life memberships for Todd Chase, George Zimbis and Stacy Angle. Passed: 9 0 0 |
|
Motion_2003-01-04 Messenger, Lee 2nd To authorize the Treasurer to open a new account with Citizens Bank of NH for use with electronic transfers as specified in the Corporate Resolution presented at the Board. Meeting Passed: 9 0 - 0 |
|
Motion_2003-01-05 Messenger, Lee 2nd To Adjourn. Passed: 9 0 0 |