Meeting Notes

Our last meeting was pretty exciting, wasn't it? We had a lot of great information shared, everyone got to input their ideas and we saw some changes that will positively affect Free Geek Providence!!

Here are the highlights of the meeting:

- Free Geek Providence is officially incorporated as a Domestic Non-Profit under the state of Rhode Island as of October 20th!

- We announced our Board of Directors, Executive Director and Council Coordinators!

- Green Tech Assets showed up and explained what they do and how their for -profit company can help our non-profit organization. They are going to do a lot and we are also going to do a lot for them in return!

- A mini-build program curriculum is going to be created just for times where we have access to other people's places while we look for our own place.

- Randy displayed a laptop showing a virtual server running an asset tracking database that he will work to get on our hosting service.

- We provided 700 pounds of materials to our recycler!

- We took in almost $4000 in donations just in the past four weeks!

- Current donations/equipment were discussed. See the Donations So Far post below

All this means that we are now starting to get to the point where we can actually give computers away, train people, take in donations (to a small extent) and give back to our community.

People interested in Free Geek should be getting their friends, coworkers and neighbors involved in Free Geek.

To be successful, to be able to help others have access to relatively new technology, we still have a lot of work to do. Here are some current projects:

Natey's main focus is applying for 501(c)(3) status and organizing corporate donations.

John has started an online social networking campaign. From everything to twitter, to blogger to myspace, he's going to make our online branding more consistent and get it out there.

Randy is working on getting GPLI asset tracker onto the hosting service and he's also going to work on a mini-build program curriculum with Forrest and Adam.

Forrest is helping with the mini-curriculum and is working on getting all the paperwork filled out with Natey for the 501(c)(3) status.

Kim added some questions for people for the new volunteer recruitment process which has been integrated into our community portal. She'll be monitoring the site and approving people to have access to it.

Megan is going to continue liaising with Green Tech Assets and New England Ink. She will also be approving members of our portal. Megan also will be taking in small donations from friends and family.

Sara is going to propose a Free Geek Mini-teaching module. She runs a NewBCamp with Johnson & Wales and she'd like to propagate this into the community as a whole through Free Geek.

Erren from New England Ink will continue working with Green Tech Assets. When ink cartridges come to GTA, NEI will take them for recycling and pay Free Geek Providence any revenue.

Annette from Green Tech Assets will put us in touch with Emily at Keep Blackstone Valley Beautiful (a chapter of Keep America Beautiful), she'll provide marketing and advertising for any program we'd like to include them in and will provide recycling for anything we have that's technology related.

Adam and Casey will work with the IS Council in whatever way they can.

Everyone in the group:

We will all evangelize Free Geek, strive to attract our friends and family and neighbors to participate, look for space or people that have empty space in Providence and take hardware donations to make it all possible.

Another great meeting with a great attendance (13 people!). Thanks folks!

-Natey