Minutes of Board Meeting of February 26, 2003

Location: IRC server webmaster.ca.us.webchat.org, channel #asfar
Time: 9:00 pm eastern time

Board Members Present: Tevi Abrams, Winston Featherly-Bean, Jacob Kafka, Daniel McGuire, David Schneider-Joseph, Oliver Traldi, Susan Wishnetsky

Members Present: Elliot T.

Visitors Present: None

The meeting was called to order at 9:21 eastern time.

Approval of minutes.

No minutes of previous meetings were ready for approval.

Reports of Officers

The President, Justin Mallone, was not present.

The Vice-President, Daniel McGuire, arrived after reports had been given and gave no report.

The Treasurer, Susan Wishnetsky, reported a bank balance of $586.11. Webmaster David Schneider-Joseph added that there was a balance of $500.77 in the PayPal account.

The Webmaster, David Schneider-Joseph reported that the automation of addition of new members was completed, that our Amazon.com account contained $33.85, and that the ASFAR site is recently averaging around 28,000 pageviews per month. Susan Wishnetsky said that the automated messages sent to her (to send packages to new members) don't contain enough information. David Schneider-Joseph said that he could have this additional information sent in a monthly file, and explained that the e-mails were only for members who said "yes" to snail mail.

The Secretary, Oliver Traldi, reported that he had been using the newly automated member database and was nearly up-to-date in adding members. He also discussed an e-mail from a documentary producer in the UK who had contacted us for information.

Reports of Committees

For the zine committee, Susan Wishnetsky reported that PDFs of the earliest issues of Youth Truth, the ones not posted on the ASFAR site, were posted (at least temporarily) at <http://www.tvbooth.com/asfar.htm>. She mentioned that the latest cover story "Doctored Documents" was being reprinted with credit by a library-related online zine. And she again appealed for submissions.

The demonstrations committee had no report.

New Business

After discussion of the qualifications and views of various board members and the roles of officers, Susan Wishnetsky nominated David Schneider-Joseph as President and herself as Secretary. David Schneider-Joseph nominated himself as Treasurer and Winston Featherly-Bean as Recruiting Officer. Tevi Abrams nominated Oliver Traldi as Vice President. The nominations were all accepted by the parties nominated, although not all were seconded. The board agreed to vote on all the nominations as a slate, in a single vote. Oliver Traldi then moved to elect David Schneider-Joseph as President and Treasurer, himself as Vice President, Susan Wishnetsky as Secretary, and Winston Featherly-Bean as Recruiting Officer. The motion was seconded and passed 6-0.

David Schneider-Joseph raised the issue of goals and objectives. Susan Wishnetsky suggested getting ASFAR its 501c4 tax status. David Schneider-Joseph and Winston Featherly-Bean agreed that outreach and assisting with chapter formation would be important functions of the Recruiting Officer. David Schneider-Joseph suggested that a committee might be formed to find ways to facilitate chapter formation; some ideas were presented about how this might be accomplished. Susan Wishnetsky proposed organizing voting protests; David Schneider-Joseph suggested that these be planned to take place in 2004. He then mentionedthat perhaps more printable versions of ASFAR's site should be available, and that he would be working on that. Susan Wishnetsky said that more position papers needed to be written, especially on the drinking age and youth employment. David Schneider-Joseph added revitalizing the demonstrations committee to the list of goals.

The next meeting was scheduled for March 19, 2003 at 9 pm eastern time.

The meeting was adjourned at 11:35 pm eastern time.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan Wishnetsky
ASFAR Secretary