• AGM2004

MINUTES OF THE 25 SEPTEMBER 2004 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF HUMBUG

The President, Mr Mark Suter, opened the meeting with quorum at 6:05pm and took up the chair.

Reports

President's Report

The President, Mark Suter, opened by saying he had a simple report: not much has changed. He went on to cover some issues on the horizon including the prospect of network traffic changes at meetings, and where caliburn is housed. He was happy enough with how the club had been run in the previous year.

Mr Clinton Roy asked what Mark was not happy with. The main issue has been membership numbers. We would like to see more. Other issues are talks and the Membership database -- but things are difficult when all executive members are busy.

Vice-President's Report

The Vice-President, David Seikel, reported that he had stuck to his core promise and not stuck to his non-core promise. When asked for a quick summary of the core promise he said that the core promise was to keep the meeting open to as late as possible namely to the limits of our booking at 3:00am.

The Secretary, Mr Raymond Smith, asked for clarification in light of the unanimous executive committee resolution to close meetings at the 1:00am. David agreed that such a resolution had been carried. Raymond made the meeting aware of the content of the resolution.

Secretary's Report

• Mark Suter took the minutes for this section.

The Secretary, Mr Raymond Smith, reported that we ended the year with 80 members up 10-20 on previous years. Most of our new members joined at the first January meeting. Whilst a membership database was still not in place it was very close following the selection of Linux Australia's membership database software. We would be contributing doco patchers. Raymond recognized the efforts of Matthew Sellers is making this software work for HUMBUG.

There was little communication between HUMBUG and other groups. The Linux Australia mailing lists are of increasing importance.

The main news was the HUMBUG caliburn outages. We have replaced the HDD but not the I/O or the motherboard. Raymond reported that the technical term for what went on was 'a fuck up'. He reported that we are not certain that this has fixed the problem.

At subsequent executive meetings we have discussed mitigation strategies including backup methods and the like. A plan is underway to create a HUMBUG email 'MX' package that people could drop onto their servers to receive mail for HUMBUG. Robert Brockway (the club founder) has offered to host an alternate primary for HUMBUG's services.

Finally, Raymond announced that he did not intend to stand for re-election. He has been contributing to HUMBUG for the past five years and it is a hard decision to leave the executive committee. However, the past year had been very difficult for him due mostly to factors outside of HUMBUG and the time had come to reevaluate his priorities.

Treasurer's Report

The Treasurer, Timothy Hitchens, reported that we still have money. We had some large expenses in the past year but our balance finished where we started. We have some concerns about revenue keeping pace with expenses. This has not been a problem this year because we have not had to pay for our room bookings.

Librarian

The Librarian, Matthew Sellers, reported that the library was available at the meeting. Subscription to the Linux Journal has been maintained. We are missing our copy of _Just for Fun_. Matthew called on the one who had borrowed it to return the book. Matthew thanked Raymond for his work as Secretary. Mr Greg Black asked about the need for a membership database. Raymond replied that we were looking to a member database for a number of purposes: to clean-up aliases and dns; for value added services (ie to keep track of the same); introduction of a bounty for new members (each new member is a credit against future renewals); to provide 'that auto-service' thing; and to keep track of the library.

Minutes of 2003 AGM

David Seikel moved that the minutes from the last AGM be accepted. Greg Black seconded. The Chair asked if there were any objections to a show of hands; none were received. The motion passed on a show of hands.

Elections

• President: Mark Suter stood down as chair in favour of David Seikel who called for nominations. Matthew Franklin nominated Mark Suter; the nomination was seconded by

Robert Brockway and accepted by Mark Suter. Mark explained that he would be on a six month contract out of Canberra for the first half of the new year and that he wanted the club members to be aware of this when voting. A question from the floor asked whether there were any constitutional questions. The answer was no because Mark is able to appoint an assistant to attend meetings and the like.

• As there were no other nominations for president Mark Suter was elected unopposed. Mark resumed the chair.

• Vice-President: James Iseppi nominated David Seikel; the nomination was seconded by Mark Elps and accepted by David.
  • Ben Fowler nominated Clinton Roy; Clinton Roy declined the nomination.
  • Raymond Smith nominated Tony Bilbourough; the nomination was seconded by Ben Fowler and accepted by Tony.
  • Timothy Hitchens self nominated; the nomination was seconded by Snowy Angelique [surname?]. In self nominating Timothy explained that the growth of his family meant he did not have time for the Treasurer's role but still felt he could contribute to the club.
  • Tony Bilbourough withdrew in response to Timothy's nomination.
  • Byron [surname?] asked about nominating for other positions at this time. Raymond pointed out that this was not feasible now that elections had begun.
  • David Seikel spoke saying that he promised to do something. Perhaps more with the server computers. As suggestion came from the floor for a multiplayer game but copyright would be problematic.
  • Raymond raised the issue of abiding by executive committee decisions in light of the Vice-President's own report. Raymond asked if David would agree to be bound by committee decisions. David agreed to be so bound.
  • A vote was taken with Pia Smith and Clinton Roy counting. The vote was: David Seikel-6, Timothy Hitchens-20 (including 2 proxies), Therefore, Timothy Hitchens was elected Vice-President.
• Secretary: Raymond Smith nominated Matthew Sellers; the nomination was seconded by Robert Brockway and accepted by Matthew.
  • As there were no other nominations for Secretary, Matthew Sellers was elected unopposed.
• Treasurer: The chair called for nominations.
  • When none were immediately forthcoming, Timothy Hitchens spoke on the role of the treasurer; the main requirement being to get to the city.
  • Clinton Roy self-nominated; the nomination was seconded by Timothy Hitchens.
  • As there were no other nominations for Treasurer, Clinton Roy was elected unopposed.
• Librarian: The chair called for nominations.
  • Byron [surname] nominated Tony Bilbourough; the nomination was seconded by Snowy and accepted by Tony.
  • David Seikel self-nominated; Scott [surname?] seconded. There was some discussion of his ability to fullfil the role.
  • Mark called for other nominations. Clinton spoke on requirements. Some questions from the floor regarding Tony's ability to stay late given the known preferences of his wife. Tony said he would welcome the 'late pass'. There would be no problem dragging the Librarian's box around in his Bedford.
  • A vote was taken with Pia Smith and Clinton Roy counting. The vote was: David Seikel-4, Tony Bilbourough 23 (including 2 proxies)
  • Therefore, Tony Bilbourough was elected librarian. Some joked that 'the Bedford' had been elected.

Comedic Interlude

Mark called for the new executive committee to come up on the stage. As the outgoing executive members left the stage, Raymond Smith tripped spectacularly on the network uplink and was only saved by the swift intervention of Clinton Roy. There was a round of applause for his efforts.

General Business

Ben Fowler asked if there were a 'server maintainer' role. The answer was not as such but the club has appointed a number of systems administrators over the years.

David Seikel asked about potential plans by the University to charge for traffic. There was some discussion of traffic minimisation techniques such as square. Right now were are using a transparent squid proxy. here is room for improvement. There was a suggestion to download images to caliburn but this traffic is charged. David asked for statistics regarding the effect of proxies and his file server on bandwidth.

Anthony Towns asked about charging for caliburn traffic. Matthew responded that this had been working well. Anthony asked if it was working for the partnership providing the co-lo services (as they supply these services at a discount). Raymond responded that they would not be unhappy for caliburn to relocate but were mostly happy with the situation as it stands.

Timothy returned the subject to traffic statistics raising privacy concerns. Mark offered that we could annonymise logs. What about information about GETS, etc. Clinton strongly objected to raw logs. Some discussion ranged around these issues.

Anthony Towns moved that the exec provide suitably annonymised logs; Raymond seconded the motion. Greg moved that the motion be put. The Motion was passed on a show of hands.

A question came from the floor: are executive meeting minutes available? The answer was yes they are, but in the last year we had been slack in sending them out. If there is ever a topic of interest please feel free to mail exec.

Noted that long-server talks maintainer, Benjamin Fowler, has stepped down. A new person will be appointed at a latter time.

Close

As there was no other business the meeting was closed at 7:05pm.