[LUAU] Hello - My Name is Scott

Angela Kahealani angela at kahealani.com
Thu Mar 27 15:55:57 PDT 2008


On Thu, 2008-03-27 08:15:42 R. Scott Belford wrote:
> Bottom Line
> My name is Scott.  I am the volunteer Executive Director for The
> Hawaii Open Source Education Foundation.  In our last complete Board
> Meeting, when we last had a quorum on 12-22-07, I stated that our
> ecycling initiatives either needed to become self-sustaining or that
> we needed to phase them out.  I stated my plans for doing so and the
> fact that we had an abundance of P4 computers in storage costing me
> money.  We all agreed on the plans.  Two members left the board after
> this meeting due to life circumstances, leaving us without a quorum. 
> Two of the three remaining members will not release the minutes from
> this meeting.  They have threatened to sue me if I release the audio.
>  In this meeting I state that we must end ecycling or make it work. 
> Yet, you, the public, do not know this.  Instead, all you are hearing
> is one Board member claiming that he alone is championing this change
> and is having to fight me to do it.  There will be another Membership
> meeting in May, and this will be the opportunity to support the
> future of HOSEF or to help put it to rest.  Either is fine.  What is
> not fine is keeping the meeting minutes of HOSEF from the public,

or, maybe it's OK to keep from the public,
but I would think they should be available to MEMBERS.
...not being a member of HOSEF, I'm OK with not knowing,
but have been enjoying the lively discussions.

> then misrepresenting the minutes and the organization to the public
> in order to slander, libel, and attempt to destroy a human being. 
> This should be banned from LUAU as it has been banned from the HOSEF
> mailing lists.  It is unconscionable.

Maybe I wasn't paying enough attention,
but then I'm only on LUAU and not on the HOSEF mailing lists,
so I missed the "slander, libel, and attempt to destroy a human being"
part, but probably just as well. I have recently seen Jim comment that
from his perspective some of your behaviour is unconscionable due to
putting HOSEF board members at legal risk, but I still don't know what
you did that puts them at risk. I don't need to know.  I do believe
you folks need to resolve your differences, and everyone needs to
operate conscionably.

> My quote from 12-22
>
> "long story short, trying to really focus more on the "efficient
> promotion and outreach and a little less of the moving of mass
> quantities of hardware, yet not letting, you know, I don't wanna to
> lose out on the good things, you know, the P4s, and, like from the
> castle foundation, 3 three flat screen monitors and the P4s and those
> type things. but by not taking everybody's castoffs, um, we've really
> kind of, and I'll know better in 2 weeks after XXX and I get done
> inventorying but we've got a nice, manageable, very desirable
> collection of hardware.  

In the light of today's financial analysis of summing
hardware acquisition cost with hardware operational cost,
would you, as of this date, still assess a collection of P4's,
as a "very desirable collection of hardware"?

> an If we keep it that way, cash flow 
> positive, then I can do more computer guts for people, 

The computer guts classes have always struck me as being an excellent 
example of HOSEF performing its' education mission. Maybe, in light
of recent economic analysis, the computer guts program might want to
be modified, to encourage the replacement of old motherboards and CPUs
with greener versions, still keeping the drives, cases, power supply?

> I think I can 
> do more parks, and I think that XXX can help more of the DVR and
> homeless people through his own endeavors and all being cash flow
> positive, plus selling some services on the side, some of these
> checks ron talked about were for some support contracts we sold to
> schools who weren't willing to take me up for my  free Saturday
> offers of help but were willing to write checks.  So, I think thats
> the big picture looking back and looking forward and trying to be a
> little leaner

Running lean, without negative cash flow, seems like a good goal.
Maybe it's time to get a grant from the North American Union to
spread FLOSS goodness via the OLPC program to them homeless, and 
parks... naahhh... someone would walk-off with such cute little 
laptops, so you probably do need old P4's you can burry in cement so 
they don't grow legs. Or??? maybe they can live in supervised 
environments such as public libraries? But then they should be green?

> and another statement from me
>
> 36:55 Scott - I agree with Ron though and by design I have put us on
> the edge 

the cutting edge of technology?
the bleeding edge of financial ruin?
the edge of our seats with anticipation?

> so that starting now I can put up or shut up with storage 
> stuff, otherwise we just kill it and rethink everything. that we
> don't want to be obligated to something we can't pay for, so

I take it the primary issue here is the overhead cost of storing
a bunch of computers awaiting gifting into the community, and 
meanwhile the board is changing the rules of the game by adopting
a greener attitude, and this forces a rethinking of just how valuable 
that inventory is, and whether it's worth paying to store them, and
whether they should become landfill or get gifted to people who have
more electricity than computers? However the situation got to be as it 
is, can't the existing managers of HOSEF come together and make new 
choices based on today's information? goals? priorities? budget?
or does any real action await achieving a quorum by having the members 
elect more board members? From the outside here, it doesn't seem that 
all of this has to be very painful, unless there's no alignment of 
will. I would hope that reason and practicality would overcome the 
past.

Aloha, Angela Kahealani

-- 
"(I'll) Be Seeing You..."    All information and transactions are
private between the parties, and are non negotiable.   All rights
reserve without prejudice Angela Kahealani.  http://kahealani.com



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