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ComputerBank NSW. Meeting Sydney 8.00 TONIGHT



Dear All

Please do come along to the meeting tomorrow night.
Note that we don't need only linux / technically
orientated people, we need prople who will DO things.


***************************
Place and Time

The Crystal Palace Hotel
(near Central, opposite railway square)
8.00pm
19/9/00

****************************
Agenda

1 Accept aims and constitution of Computerbank
Victoria

2 Appoint NSW versions of 
President 
Secretary / Webmaster 
Housing Officer
Collection Officer 
Sales / Despatch officer 
Technical officer 
Volunteer coordinator 
(Note: use the Vics as a reference point)


3 Decide on Mimimum spec or at least a person to
decide on this (tech officer)

4 Fundraising and Advertising

*****************************
Discussion Points attached

*****************************
FIO - a previous message, from 25/8/00

To become more than just a good idea there
computerbank sydney needs people willing to do stuff,
and not just twiddling with linux. The attached
document lists what *I* think is needed to get the
ball rolling. I plan to hold an "inaugral AGM" at

The Crystal Palace Hotel
(near Central, opposite railway square)
8.00pm
19/9/00

At this meeting we WILL formulate a plan of how to go
forward and people WILL get a specific task or tasks
to execute in order to put together the bigger
picture.
If you would like to be involved
Read the attached notes
Think about what you could do to help
Think about *solutions* to potential hassles
Come to the meeting and volunteer for one of the
"comittee" "positions"


Regards
John Coote


PS a lot of the numbering in the attachment is a bit
all over the place



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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The following notes spell out points for discussion,
which when resolved should get Computerbank NSW off
the ground. The numbered points refer to what I
consider to be the most pressing issues, in order of
priority. Many items within the main points are
discussion points that could be resolved by the
"Steering Committee" defined in Point 4.

This agenda / set of notes won’t be revised before the
inaugural AGM, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of
opportunity to fine-tune it then.

 

 

 

Aim of Computerbank 
To prevent individuals and communities from falling
behind due to a preventable lack of technology.

Plan of Attack
To refurbish obsolete computer equipment for use by
disadvantaged groups and individuals, and groups doing
"charitable" works.

Computerbank shouldn’t give directly to individuals,
but rather should take instructions from organizations
more qualified to assess need.

Computerbank shouldn’t get involved with organizations
that are

Politically inclined 
Have a religious objective 
Motivated by profit.
 

 

Premises
Listed below are minimum criteria for premises.

We Need to have premises that are available 9 – 5 on
Saturday and Sunday 
We need to have a space that we can use for at least 1
month 
The cost needs to be negligible 
We need to appoint a housing officer. 
It would be nice to have a 24/7 drop off point for
equipment.
Possible places to look include: STARTTS, Northern
Sydney Waste Board, Old Hospitals, Army Buildings,
Scout halls, Schools etc.

APPOINT A HOUSING OFFICER

 

"Sales" / Shipping & Despatch of Refurbished computers

Define what makes a "suitable" recipient of a computer

Find suitable recipients

Advertise the service

Formulate some sort of Distribution policy

Organizations potentially interested in having some
computers may be Work Skills Training Inc and STARTTS.

APPOINT A "SALES" / SHIPPING & DESPATCH OFFICER

 

Steering Committee
Define the nature of regular meetings

Define the goals of a working day

Build to stock 
Build to order (for a specific project)
Timetable for getting things happening

Inaugral AGM 
Receiving old hardware 
Reworking into something useful 
Despatch computers to live useful lives in new homes
Define a quorum for getting things decided.

Incorporation: Now / Never / One Day ??

Funding??

Will we do one off jobs or follow up with service of
any kind?

We need people to be responsible for specific areas,

President 
Secretary / Webmaster 
Housing Officer (Section 2) 
Collection Officer (Section 6) 
Sales / Despatch officer (Section 3) 
Technical officer (Section 7) 
Volunteer coordinator 
Pool of willing volunteers
Without people to look after all of these roles,
things won’t happen. If one person looks after too
many of them, things won’t happen well.

 

Demo Network
A demo network would be great for demonstrating the
benefits of what we do to

Potential Recipient Organizations 
Potential Donors 
Potential Sponsors
It would be a good spot to train volunteers and
recipient organizations

 

Collection
We need to come up with a strategy of where / when /
how donated hardware is collected.

Will we collect if there are more than a certain
number being donated?

Will we refuse to accept machines below a certain
specification, or will we remove for suitable disposal
for a fee?

There are supposed to be loads of people who are
willing to get rid of old computer stuff. Two are

Lisa Blanche lisa@nswactieu.labor.net.au of 
Annie Kavanagh kavanaghnswb@bigpond.com.au of Northern
Sydney Waste Board
APPOINT A COLLECTIONS OFFICER

 

Technical Group 
Decide on useful applications and minimal hardware
specifications (for example)

Network Server

Must Run : SAMBA / NFS / Print Server / Apache / Squid
/ etc

Must have as minimum: Pentium, 32MB RAM, 1Gig HDD,
Monitor, NIC, Modem

Low end Client / Terminal

Must Run : Telnet / email client / browsing / etc

Must have as minimum: 486, 8MB RAM, 500MB HDD,
Monitor, NIC

Workstation / Standalone

Must Run : Star Office / CAD / GIMP / email client /
browsing/ etc

Must have as minimum: Pentium, 32MB RAM, 1Gig HDD, 15"
Monitor, NIC, Modem

Decide on suitable distributions / application bundles
to meet the objectives

I also believe it is very important that clients /
standalone machines should be useable without any
"under the hood" tweaking being required. Refer to
Simple End User Linux for details :
http://www.seul.org/

APPOINT A TECHNICAL OFFICER

 

Volunteers 
Obviously people who are willing to volunteer their
time and effort to computerbank. To keep people
interested enough we need to 

Fill key positions

Delegate work effectively

Establish a framework for regular events

APPOINT A VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR

 

Other Points for Discussion
Funding 
Advertising


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ComputerBank Australia -- http://www.computerbank.org.au/