NCF Board of Directors
Minutes of Meeting
March 23, 2021
SOME HIGHLIGHTS
- Communications and advocacy in the Executive Director's Report!
- The majority of this meeting was conducted in-camera to allow for a strategic direction presentation and discussion from NCF staff.
Minutes of a meeting of the Board of Directors
The meeting was called to order at 7:18 p.m. with Chris Cope as Chair and Graeme Beckett as Secretary for the meeting.
INTRODUCTIONS
Board members present:
Christopher Cope (bz787) Chair
Anis Hanna (gb499) 1st vice Chair
Emmanuel Adenlolu (gc476) Treasurer
Graeme Beckett (aw958) Secretary
Andrea Holland (es170)
Martin Dubois (al432)
Michael Chan (ga869)
Lauren Gardner (fy923)
Lindsay Carreau (gc034)
Majd Karam (gc029)
Regrets:
Peter MacKinnon (fr198) 2nd Vice-Chair
NCF Management/Staff present:
Executive Director: Shelley Robinson
Nathan Medema
Andrew Asare Martey
Guests:
None
Once around the table.
Informal pre-meeting conversation, with Directors taking turn offering personal views and commentary on interesting things that might not make it to the Agenda.
- Confirmation of Quorum
Quorum was confirmed.
- Review of the Agenda
Motion: To adopt the agenda as circulated.
Proposer: Martin Dubois (al432)
Seconder: Michael Chan (ga869)
The motion was carried.
- Review of the Minutes of the Previous Meeting
Minutes as circulated.
- February 23, 2021
Motion: To adopt the minutes of all the meetings as circulated.
Proposer: Lindsay Carreau (gc034)
Seconder: Lauren Gardner (fy923)
The motion was carried.
- Reports
- Executive Director's Report (Shelley Robinson)
Shelley distributed her ED report in advance of the meeting for both the open and in-camera sessions of the meeting.
Select Highlights from the public portion of the Executive Director's Report
DSL MEMBERS:
Jan. 1/21: 3109/2809 without CAF
Feb. 1/21: 3100/2798 without CAF
Mar. 1 21: 3058/2762 without CAF
2021 YTD sign-ups: tool broken - to be fixed
2021 YTD cancels: tool broken - to be fixed
Net DSL growth at Dec. 31/20: -51
Mar. 1/20: 3239/2947 without CAF
Mar. 1/19: 3324/3056 without CAF
Mar. 1/18: 3284/3076 without CAF
Mar. 1/17: 3089/3031 without CAF
Mar. 1/16: 2977
Operations:
● Work underway to start cable beta test in April
● Andres Carranco joined the HelpDesk and is picking things up quickly!
● With four full-time HelpDesk Analysts, three part-time and four regular HD volunteers we’re back to our pre-pandemic service excellence standards despite a higher volume and more in-depth support requests.
Communications and Advocacy:
● March newsletter and advocacy campaign: thanks to all those members who wrote their MPs and
the CRTC!
● NCF participated in the Affordable Internet Day of Action, Shelley moderated the first panel on the human cost of high internet prices.
● NCF also participated in an ACORN Ottawa meeting about municipal internet.
● The #InternetIntelligence campaign is being posted online and twice a week, the best tips are being shared on Twitter.
● Working with CIPPIC (Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic) to draft bilingual plain language annotated Terms of Service, thanks to funding from ACFO: done by July.
● Also working on a workshop (English/French) about “What you’re agreeing to when you click ‘agree".
● The member town hall will be held online during the AGM in Spring/early Summer as part of the Member Meet and Greet.
● Meeting with other community networks: Toronto Mesh, Toronto FreeNet, Telecommunities Canada, Chebucto Community Net, supporting Vancouver Community Network with the dial-up service.
● Being interviewed by Algonquin College student as part of “Humans of Impact” program related to social enterprises.
● Shelley attended United Way Community Response Table – Ensuring an Equitable Economic Recovery.
● Andrew and Shelley gave talk about NCF and community networking to a Global Approaches to
Peace class at SOAS University London.
Covid 19
● The provincial shutdown ended on February 16, office still open by appointment only but now able to make appointments for payments as well as technical issues.
● Ottawa is currently back in Red Zone.
● NCF COVID-19 response: www.ncf.ca/coronavirus
● HelpDesk hours: Monday-Friday 10am-7pm, Saturday 10am-5pm.
● Office hours: Monday-Friday: 10am-5pm.
● Masks must be worn in the office at all times.
● Following national and local health guidelines we’re encouraging office staff to use the three-layer medical masks we provide, rather than their own
● We have two extra-large air purifiers for the office: one for the office and one for the HelpDesk area
● Only one member/member group in the office at a time, chairs are in the hallway spaced more than 2m apart
● Many staff are still working remotely to ensure staff can maintain appropriate social distance in the office.
● We have a daily office cleaning checklist.
● We have a plexiglass shield for the front desk and a washable plastic cover for the debit machine.
● We now have hand sanitizer, gloves, lots of cleaning fluid, hand soap and face masks.
● Some members are using the lockbox (during and outside of office hours) for modem and payment drop-of
● We continue to encourage members with no payment method on file to use forms of payment that don’t require them to come to the office in person. As recommended by the Bank of Canada, we still accept cash.
Motion: To receive the Executive Director's report..
Proposer: Emmanuel Adenlolu (gc476)
Seconder: Graeme Beckett (aw958)
The motion was carried.
- Ongoing Business
- AGM Discussion
Majd volunteered to take on the role of AGM Chair.
Motion: To appoint Majd Karam as the AGM Chair and Returns Officer for the upcoming 2021 AGM.
Proposer: Anis Hanna (gb499)
Seconder: Andrea Holland (es170)
The motion was carried.
- New Business
- Strategic Direction discussion: Cable, Mesh and More! (NCF Staff - in-camera)
The item on strategic direction was discussed in-camera.
- Announcements
- There were no NCF announcements.
- Date of Next Meeting
The next meeting is scheduled to be April 20, 2021 at 7 pm.
Location: Electronic meeting.
NCF Offices are located at Suite 206 Richmond Square, 1305 Richmond Rd.
- Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 9:09 p.m.
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