Monthly Meeting Tues 4 th March 2008

BRISTOL WIRELESS MONTHLY MEETING, TUESDAY 4TH MARCH 2008

PRESENT:

Rich H, Woodsy, Jim F, Acesabe, Lu, Everton, BenG, Sean K, Pete F, Lloyd C, Sam R, Jules, Chris P

APOLOGIES FOR ABSENCE:

Mike H, Kevin O'M

MINUTES OF LAST MEETING:

Agreed nem con.

MATTERS ARISING

1. Infrastructure routine maintenance schedule: Lloyd reported he and John Palfrey had inspected the infrastructure on Twinnel & Holroyd, as well as The Park. This leaves Armada House and ECC still to be inspected. Written confirmation will be needed from John as to the condition of our infrastructure equipment, which Lloyd will co-ordinate (action - Lloyd).
2. Travel to forthcoming conferences: Woodsy stated he would not now be attending the ICT Hub national conference in London as an email had been received from the ICT Hub stating Bristol Wireless had not been given a bursary place.

REPORTS

1. Recycling project report: Sam gave an update on progress. We are currently experiencing knock-on sourcing problems as a result of Byteback's woes with the NHS (who want to charge them to take redundant P4 machines with no hard drives off their hands). Byteback have discussed payment for these with Bristol Wireless and are nevertheless still prepared to supply P3 kit gratis. It was felt that having to pay for the better machines would jeopardise the viability of the project. Pete F read out a paper from Kevin O'M re Bristol City Council's recent recycling moves: BCC are prepared to provide some of their old kit to Byteback and the meeting hoped this would enable Byteback and Bristol Wireless to continue the recycling project. Kevin O'M also stated in his written submissions to the meeting that it is hoped the council's releasing some redundant kit for recycling would act as a catalyst for other local organisations (e.g. the universities) to get involved. Everton related we currently have 9 machines in stock for the recycling project.
2. UFI update: Rich announced we had now received the outstanding monies! Sam informed the meeting of his recent activities in Dove St, including a site visit and addressing a residents' meeting. Funds are available to connect 11 residents + office (where training could be started, after which installs would be done). As regards numbers for the UFI user journeys, Sam proposes to revisit Halston Drive and Horley Rd residents to see if there is any interest.
3. Unmet needs fund update: Sean reported there is growing interest in the scheme following a recent promotional campaign and inquiries have now increased. The next report and evaluation to funders needs to be prepared by mid-April.
4. Xtream Secondlife feedback: The DROID event was well publicised, appearing in many publications, including Venue and Metro. All the streaming worked flawlessly and the event, both in Trinity and Second Life, was full to capacity. Trinity will be making a contribution to the costs of the connection infrastructure (which will be retained for future projects of a similar kind) for the event. Sam will prepare a pro-forma invoice for this for forwarding to Jules (action - Sam).
5. ECC project: Rich reported back on a recent meeting with TocH and First Born. The community centre needs its networking sorted out (e.g. subnets). The centre's IT facilities - LTSP, switch, public access and support contract - need assessing. The quote for this work will be progressed on the admin wiki.
6. Bridewell: Mike H has started a page on the admin wiki. Following discussions with Sam, they both felt the idea of an internet cafe by itself was not viable, but could form part of an overall broader spectrum of use with other organisations/groups. It would also offer Bristol Wireless a higher profile being in the city centre. The space would be available in return for IT assistance. In addition, a quote for connectivity/telecoms needs preparing for Artspace/Lifespace.
7. Financial report: As reported above, outstanding UFI monies have been received substantially reducing accounts receivable. The meeting noted with satisfaction that outstanding monies from Tynn Care had also been received. Jules pointed out our new guidance whereby the central services element of quotations need to be costed at 20% of total.
8. Proprietary software policy: As promoting open source and free software is a core component of our mission statement, all Windows stuff must be gone from the premises; it does us no favours. In addition, we should no longer help do callers favours with broken Windows machines, apart from fixing them properly and permanently by installing Debian.

AOB

1. Enterprising Britain Awards: Documentation received from Kevin O'M revealed that Connecting Bristol would like to put Bristol Wireless forward for the Enterprising Britain Awards, which looks to identify projects that can demonstrate how they have transformed the community through enterprise in the last two years. There will be 12 regional winners who each receive a £10,000 grant. The deadline is 18 April. The application is in hand, but Kevin may need to get some help in clarifying one or two things before its submission.
2. Communities Building Capacity Project and Event: Kevin O'M's written report also stated the Communities Building Capacity Demonstrator projects of the DC10plus have now been agreed. Bristol will be working closely with Norfolk on this as they are running a separate but similar project. There is funding to carry out elements of this work and Connecting Bristol like to explore Bristol Wireless' capacity and interest in becoming closely involved in delivering the work. If there is interest Connecting Bristol and Bristol Wireless should set up a meeting to discuss how to take this forward (action - Sam).
3. BCC laptops: 6 laptops have been received from BCC (unfortunately one arrived with a broken screen) for Linux installs ready for a Scarman Trust workshop on open source web development in the near future. Acesabe has now installed and tested various Linux distributions on the laptops, which are to be collected in the week of 10-15 March. Acesabe is to contact Kevin O'M re collection (action - Acesabe). The laptops will again be available for Bristol Wireless and other groups to borrow from Connecting Bristol for community projects after the Scarman event.
4. Clare Stephenson: BenG reported he had been assisting Clare in a project at her work involving open source, thin clients and interoperability. As part of her project, Clare also did a presentation on open source.
5. Pervasive Media: Pete F announced that Tarim's power to the people project involving setting up a controller for the city centre fountains is going ahead. Help is needed.
6. Network documentation: Rich stated that Tesfaye has been producing some network documentation and suggested he look at updating, expanding and revising our current network documentation. This was agreed. Lloyd mentioned his offer of training on networking, which was well received and attracted considerable interest from the meeting.
7. MediaSearch email: An email had been forwarded by Matt Hamilton of Netsight to Rich Higgs. Having previously been forwarded from Avensys, the original message originated from MediaSearch and alleged the presence of material infringing copyright being made available via peer-to-peer on an IP address used by Bristol Wireless. An acknowledgement has been sent to Matt. Due to the serious nature of this matter, it was proposed by Pete F and seconded by BenG that legal advice be sought as regards common carrier status and our position: this was carried.
8. MySQL course: Jules is offering to run such a course and asked for a show of interest (there was plenty). If he put on such a course, it would need publicising (underscore and BBLUG were mentioned as possibilities) to attract attendees from outside Bristol Wireless.
9. Williton station: Jules announced a new project is to be initiated at Williton station involving installation of CCTV, public information screen and a wireless hotspot. He intimated this could be more similar projects forthcoming.

Date of Next Meeting

Tuesday, 1st April 2008 at 6.30 pm at St Werbughs Community Centre