11 July 2000 Waynet Board Meeting Minutes

Waynet Board Meeting
July 11, 2000

Members Present: Misty Dees Hollis, Bill O'Hara Felker, Jane Holman, Rodger Smith, Carol Smyth, Larry Turner, and John Weber.

Guests Present: Randy Baker (Richmond Power & Light).

Meeting Called to Order: John Weber called the meeting to order at 12:05 PM, July 11, 2000.

Approval of Minutes: Misty Dees Hollis made a motion to approve the minutes of June 13; Carol Smyth seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion passed.

Old Business: None

New Business: Rodger Smith reminded members of the board of a meeting to be held on July 19th regard Lilly Grant funding called CAPE which awards up to five million dollars to institutions to improve education within the community.

Executive Director's Report:

Applied for fee waiver: None

New Not-for-Profit Members:
* First Friends Meeting & First Friends Childcare

Existing Not-for-Profit Members invoiced:
* Indiana Football Hall of Fame
* Main Street Richmond-Wayne County - Overdue

New Basic Members:
* Saver Systems, Inc.

Existing Basic Members Invoiced:
* Heavenly Handicrafts
* Rosa's Office Plus
* Richmond Roosters - Overdue
* Curiosity Shop
* Jillian's Dolls-N-Stuf - Overdue
* Local Musician
* Perfect Circle Credit Union
* Pro Body & Paint

New Expanded Members:
* Emmons Real Estate Appraisals
* Law Offices of E. Thomas Kemp - upgraded from Basic Member

Existing Expanded Members Invoiced:
* Fairway Mortgage - Commerce Pkg. - DID NOT RENEW
* Wayne County Home Builders Assoc. - Commerce Pkg. - STILL WAITING
* Programming and Micros

Existing Sponsoring Members Invoiced:
* Richmond-Wayne County Economic Development Corporation
* Centerville-Abington Community Schools
* Indiana University East
* Eastgate Electric Supply & Lighting Center
* Wayne County Foundation

GOLD Members:
* Richmond Community Schools - upgraded from Sponsoring Member

PLATINUM Members
* Morrisson-Reeves Library - upgraded from Sponsoring Member

Services Invoiced:

Advertising/Marketing
* 1/8 page advertisement ran in all four issues of the Palladium-Item's Progress issues during in June. Jane may go with a smaller and more continual ad in the future.
* Took out ad in new Chamber 4-color map that will be published in the fall. - 1/4 page, good placement.
* Agreed to again run ad in Hampton Map (like last year) as it b & w & less expensive - with an established distribution base.
* Currently running a 30 second ad on 101.3, every other weekday, between 11 am and 1 pm. A bit goofy, with a Wizard of Oz (Wizard of WayNet) theme, but it catches your ear.

Achievements for June/July
* Attended ICNA Meeting - elected to Board of Directors. Congratulations Jane!
* Tweaked meta tags to increase accuracy of Atomz.com searches. It is working much better now.
* Added a page for Rose View Transit.
* Added a page for Abington, took photos for Abington & Greens Fork pages. Jane will continue to add the smaller towns.
* Added new Cemetery pages for Fairfield, Mt. Pleasant, & Cook Cemeteries in Genealogy section. Info donated by member,
* Jayne Beers of the Greens Fork Preservation and Historical Society.
* Fielded questions regarding copyright on Levi Coffin photos - this is a fairly common occurrence.
* Took photos of new bridge opening & posted - received several "thank you's" for the effort.
* Posted & reconciled budget reports for April & May.
* Did mock interview as a favor for Carolyn Bunzendal at the Richmond Workforce Development Center.
* Ran invoices & cover letters for 3rd Quarter & July. ($5,750)
* 1 seminar - attendance is 4-5 per seminar.
* Added many calendar items - (a time-consuming venture due to the slowness of the program).
* Website Maintenance: Toyed with various new ideas for home page to replace the "Welcome" program. Jane is looking for something new. Suggestions given were historical pictures of Richmond, "where is it" pictures, alumni sports teams from different graduating classes, highlighting different businesses. Another suggestion given was including what is going on with WayneBrain or the Technology Zone in the Richmond area. Let Jane know if you have further suggestions.

On-Going Projects for the coming month:
* Prepare for WayNet's "Best Web Site Award" contest.
* Create policy for Employment Ads (high on priority list).
* Terms of Service Policy- still trying to set up meeting with Steve Rabe.
* Continue to look at alternative funding sources.
* Prepare letter for distribution to restaurants and motels touting benefits of our Commerce package.
* Finish new brochure and get printed.

Log Analysis for June:
* Ran weekly and posted on the Members Only page. Monthly user sessions decreased 10% in June 2000, making it similar to the April
figures. Page views in June '00 decreased 23% from May but are still up from February figures. This decrease can mostly be attributed to school being out for the summer & the decrease in usage of our Levi Coffin page. As our users become "return users", they will refer to WayNet for specific items, with less general surfing. The "user" is our more important number. The user sessions increased by 97% and the page views by 67% over June of 1999.

2nd Quarter 2000 - showed a reasonable 10% increase in user sessions and a 11% increase in page views over 1st quarter 2000. There was a 93% increase in users over the same time period last year and a 104% increase in page views.

1999 Yearly Figures show an outstanding 100,426 users requesting 310,586 pages. It's difficult to do a true comparison as we did not purchase the logging software until mid-February '99, but a rough estimate is that we nearly tripled our visitors/hits from the previous year.

Others Items Discussed:

Calendar Policy: The current practice is to give passwords to sponsoring members. Jane suggested giving the passwords to not-for-profit agencies. Everyone on the board was in agreement with this decision.

Mission/Vision: Misty Dees Hollis made a motion to accept Version 2 of the Mission/Vision Statement. Carol Smyth seconded the motion and the motion passed unanimously. John Weber reminded the board that the Mission/Vision could be revisited next year if anyone felt there was a need to do so.

Web Awards '00: It was decided that the dates on the nomination form from 1999 could be changed and the same format could be used again this year. The deadline date will be Tuesday, September 26, 2000. Jane will form the committee to make selections.

Board Member News: Notices will be sent to current board members to see if they wish to continue to set on the WayNet Board. Randy Baker has indicated interest to fulfill the remaining year for Ron Lind. Rodger Smith moved to accept Randy as a board member and Larry Turner seconded the motion. All were in favor and the motion passed. Larry Turner and Misty Dee Hollis are nearing the end of their term. Jane asked them to let her know if they wish to continue on the board.

The meeting was adjourned at 12:45 PM.

Respectfully submitted,

Tricia Shrider for Steve Reynolds, Secretary

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