President- John Smith, Vice President- Joe Gentry, Secretary- Elaine Keel, Treasurer- Eric Bindner
Teleconference
August 23, 2012
Date: August 23, 2012
Teleconference
Facilitator: John Smith
Recorder: Elaine Keel
On call: Jerry Donley, Joe Gentry, Megan Greene, Elaine Keel, Dan Pierce, Patrick Rizzo, Rich Schornstein, Don Sinclair, John Smith
Guest: Jed Conforth- USATF- Business Development
John Smith called a teleconference to discuss issues with the website and website proposals.
Once all had copies of the proposals, John asked Megan to read the following from the Raesoft Technologies proposal:
As Is:
The current website and email system is hosted on Go-Daddy.com. This system though convenient, creates a few challenges for USATF-CO in terms of flexibility, growth and maintenance.
1. The website is developed using Joomla, an open source web development tool and interface.
Joomla is limited in terms of its functionality and design capabilities, leaving the design and website maintenance team with limited and time consuming options regarding site maintenance and support.
2. The current email hosting for USATF-CO utilizes the basic Go Daddy offering of 25 MB of email capacity for five email boxes and addresses. This offering is significantly inadequate, and increasing the mailbox size and amount of email addresses constitutes a significant monthly fee, in addition to the website monthly hosting fee.
3. Document sharing and storage are consequently out of the question with the current limited email storage and capacity. In addition, there is no file and document-folders functionality to store any documents with the current system.
4. The means that growth for USATF-CO in terms of increased website features, functionality, storage, and members’ participation are limited without a significant outlay of financial resources.
John Sinclair refuted the abovestatement claiming that the system the association has in place already has the ability to do what the Raesoft proposal is offering. He went over several items to reiterate his point. He suggested that the proposals be tabled until the new board is in place. Rich Schornsteinsaid he was in agreement with Donon almost all points. He was concerned about the substantial cost when there was functionality and wondered why the association was even addressing this. He suggested that the associationfind a webmaster that was able to utilize what the association has in place and best serve the association/customers. Patrick Rizzo wondered if we have all these functionalities who’s capable of managing them and why aren’t they being utilized. Rich asked who the current webmaster is. John asked to continue with the comments and then the webmaster concern would be addressed. Jed Conforth, USATF Business Development manager joined the meeting. John left it open for the board to address Jed with questions that they had about the system that the national office offers to associations. Questions were asked about the system, its capabilities, startup time and fees. Jed named the following associations for the board to review their sites: New York, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, and Indiana. Jed also explained advantages of nationals system in terms of registration for meets. Questions were asked about the associations’ commitment to the current webmaster.There is a one year contract, in which 4 months have been served, paying $350 a month. Raesoft is the Webmaster. John suggested that he could go to Raesoft to see if he would be able to work with the national program as it is the most cost efficient. John was asked to send a copy of the webmasters contract to the secretary as there was none on file. John wanted to poll the people to see if they wanted to consider the national proposal as the future website for the association. Elaine suggested that we should be asking if we want to change websites, then we discuss which proposal we would consider. As this was not a board meeting, the board members on call felt that they would feel more comfortable tabling the proposal and discussing it at the annual meeting, September 23, 2012. As Tania Pacev-LDR chair, was not able to be on the conference call, she sent an email to the board to be read on the call. Don Sinclair made a motion to table the item until the September 23rd annual meeting and make it an agenda item. Rich and Patrick both seconded the motion. The motion was carried; 6- yes (Rich S., Megan G., Elaine K., Don S., Dan P., Patrick R.), and 2 no (Jerry D., John S.,). Dan asked that John find out what it would take for the association to get out of the contract with the current webmaster. It was also recommended that the proposals are sent out to the membership for consideration. Rich reiterated that John would contact the current webmaster for options to void the contract beginning the 1st of October and get a written proposal from USATF. John wanted clarification on whether he is getting information for the webmaster to implement the USATF system or to void his contract. Figures are wanted from the webmaster for all possible options: keeping current system with or w/out him, or with the USATF proposal. Rich asked about the webmasters obligation for posting items. John says that he is posting by the week but on a system that has problems. There is discussion about the current system; fix it or go with something new. Jerry made a motion that the meeting be adjourned. Don seconded it.
Proposals attached:
Raesoft Technologies
USATF
C:\Users\Elaine\Documents\USATF\2012\USATF-CO_SharePoint_2010.pdf
C:\Users\Elaine\Documents\USATF\2012\Association_Website_Package[1].docx