MONTHLY MINUTES/TREASURER'S REPORT - No Replies Please

MINUTES - JANUARY 13, 2005

1. AMALGAMATION - LUCKY 7
It was agreed by everyone at the meeting that the amalgamation of 7 groups was a good idea. It guarantees a Meetup once a month. No more cancelled Meetups. Here's the list of groups that will Meetup together on Wednesday, February 9, 7:00 PM.
- Apache
- Photoshop
- PHP
- MySQL
- Web Design
- Webmasters
- Web Standards

2. POSTING FAVORITE RESOURCES (BOOKS):
Saeed agreed to start a thread on the Web Design message board listing his favorite books and why. We all agreed that it was a great idea and would be beneficial to everyone. Someone from each group is welcome to start this thread on their respective message board.

3. MESSAGE BOARD RULES & REGULATIONS:
We started a list:
- Posts containing profanity will be deleted.
- Spam will be deleted.
- Blatant self-promotions will be deleted.
- Useless discussions about why people didn't show up, etc... will be deleted.
- No posts of conflicting events. Events can be submitted to the Organizer and posted as proper events where RSVPs are requested.
- Specific thread for specific topics. (ie. Recommended books, speakers, etc...
We hope the next meeting will refine and/or add to the list.

4. MEETING AGENDA/GUIDELINES:
It was agreed that the following agenda would be adequate for the time being:
1) Everyone gets a minute or so to introduce themselves, what they do and what they expect from the Meetup.
2) Discussion - improving the group, group topics, industry topics, etc...
3) Mingle, network and have fun. (this is the bulk of the time)

5. ATTRACTING SPEAKERS TO GROUP:
The young woman who attended (Sorry, I too have forgotten her name.) put forth the idea of posting a thread to the discussion list inviting speakers to volunteer for future Meetups. A thread will be created on the message board for this sole purpose.

We all look forward to next month! And we all look forward to more members attending the Meetup.

MINUTES - FEBRUARY 9, 2005

1. AMALGAMATION OF GROUPS
New faces at the meeting agreed that amalgamating web centric groups was a good idea. The proof is actually in the latest Web Design Poll showing that Web Designers could use some help from Web Developers with scripting. Everyone thought it was a good idea to create the same poll for all 8 groups.

2. NEW GROUP THIS MONTH
It was great to welcome the Toronto Flash Members to our group of 7 bringing a total of 8 groups that will continue to Meetup together. Here's the list as it stands now:
- Flash
- Apache
- Photoshop
- PHP
- MySQL
- Web Design
- Webmasters
- Web Standards

3. MORE GROUPS?
Members liked the amalgamation of several groups so much that members came up with a list of even more groups they would like to see join us.
- Java
- Dreamweaver
- eCommerce
- .NET
- Acrobat
- Databases (all)

4. ATTENDANCE
14 people attended this month. Next month is a “Member +1” month. So make sure to bring a colleague or someone to the next Meetup. (Not a requirement for attending!) It was agreed that Meetups are far more interesting when larger numbers of members attend. And this is one method to do so and have more people to network with!

5. MESSAGE BOARD RULES & REGULATIONS:
We started a list last month that was added to this month. It was also agreed to start a thread on each message board listing the Board Rules. Rule to be added this month:
- Posts with invitations to do work for nothing, or next to nothing, will be deleted.

4. AGENDAS:
It was agreed to create agendas for our meetings. Naturally this will evolve as we get ideas from members of meeting topics. “SHOW OFF YOUR STUFF” is next month’s theme. Can’t really call this an agenda. :o-)
For the time being:
1) Because attendance is increasing, 5 new faces every month will get a minute or so to introduce themselves, tell us what they do and what they expect from the Meetups.
2) Discussion - improving the group, group topics, industry topics, etc...
3) Mingle, network and have fun. (this is the bulk of the time)

5. VENUE IMPROVEMENTS
The owners at the Fiddler’s Green are going to install wireless Internet access for us. It will be ready for our March Meetup. Thanks guys! So bring your laptops and SHOW OFF YOUR STUFF.
So far we’ve been meeting in their main dining room. Now that our attendance is dramatically improving we will now meet on the third floor in a private room all to ourselves. The room includes a large screen and projector for when we have speakers giving presentations.

Again, we all look forward to next month and an even larger attendance!

MINUTES - MARCH 9, 2005

1. ATTENDANCE
Wow! We got a record turnout this month with 30+ members showing up from all our web centric groups. Another record-breaking month! Perhaps we’ll even outdo ourselves again next month!

2. MORE GROUPS JOINING THE CLAN
This month we welcomed 2 new groups to our web centric bunch of groups. Open Source and XML join our ranks and we welcome them with open arms. Next month we’d like to welcome 3 more new groups, all programmers. See the list below.
- Flash
- Apache
- Photoshop
- PHP
- MySQL
- Web Design
- Webmasters
- Web Standards
- CSS
- Java
NEW THIS MONTH:
- Open Source
- XML
NEW NEXT MONTH:
- Visual Basic
- C#
- .NET
We’re nudging a little away from the web centric theme with these new groups and other groups like Photoshop that include photographers as well as Web Designers. Hey, it’s all computers and it’s all good! The more the merrier!

3. UP AND COMING PRESENTATIONS
It was great to hear from several members regarding their strengths and their willingness to share that knowledge with the rest of us. Those polls like the recent one posted to the Web Designers help dictate what presentations we hope to bring to you. This specific poll basically told us that “Scripting” was a major weakness for our Web Designers. So we should have the agenda soon for our first presentation on scripting scheduled for one Monday next month. Will keep you posted on this one!
We’re also in the process of developing a series on everything about your business, from starting a business, making a business plan, marketing, managing contractors, managing cash flow, managing your time, etc…
Another member with experience giving presentations has expressed a willingness to share her knowledge with CSS and Web Standards.
These special educational presentations will be held on Monday nights so that they do not interfere with our regular monthly meetings. More to come on all presentations in the coming weeks!

4. POLLS
As you can see Polls are extremely important. Take a few moments to vote in all active polls. Please login to Meetup.com to see if your group has a current active poll. If not, please don’t hesitate to contact the group organizer with your ideas for future polls.

5. BOOK RAFFLES
Wow, have we got good news for everyone! We have books to give away over the next three months. Here’s a list:
- “Web ReDesign - Workflow That Works” by Kelly Goto & Emily Cotler – This book will also be signed by the authors.
- “Build your own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL” by Kevin Yank – Third edition that covers PHP5, MySQL4 and Mac OS X – Available at http://www.sitepoint....
- “The CSS Anthology, 101 Essential Tips, Tricks and Hacks” by Rachel Andrew - A vailable at http://www.sitepoint....
PS. We also have 100 copies of “SitePoint Sampler – The Best of SitePoint Books” to give away to the first 100 members who ask for a copy. These books are filled with free knowledge in the form of sample chapters from 4 of their hottest books. These will be given away at the meetings only. You must be at the meeting to request a copy. The same goes for the raffles, you must be at the meeting to enter and to win!

Having said all that, I look forward to next month’s Meetup.

Special thanks goes out to Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of http://www.sitepoint...., who has graciously donated 2 books and those 100 samplers. Thanks Matt!

Please feel free to contact the group organizer with any of your ideas!

MINUTES – APRIL 13, 2005

1. ATTENDANCE
Another great turnout this month! 30+ members showed up from all our tech centric groups. There were many new faces and some familiar ones. It was great to see everyone!


2. MORE GROUPS JOINED THE CLAN
This month we welcomed 4 new groups to our tech centric bunch of groups. Visual Basic, C#, .NET and TechTV joined the ranks of Toronto’s techy bunch. Here’s the list as it stands today:
- Flash
- Apache
- Photoshop
- PHP
- MySQL
- Web Design
- Webmasters
- Web Standards
- CSS
- Java
- Open Source
- XML
- Visual Basic
- C#
- .NET
- TechTV


3. MONTHLY FEES
Yuk! We talked about money!
Altogether we have 16 groups that Meetup on the same day each month. As you may be aware Meetup is now going to be charging us, well the Organizer, a monthly fee to maintain our group(s). As I’m writing these minutes I believe Meetup has settled for $9.00 per month.
Our discussion at the meeting pointed out several points, some we were uncertain of. The biggest one is will Meetup charge us $9.00 X 16 groups?
As it stands, Meetup was nice enough to take the money our Organizer invested in his M+ membership and put it towards our monthly fees. As a result, our groups are now paid up Until September 12, 2005. Dave from the Web Design group was nice enough to donate his M+ membership fee to the group in the form of a coupon, good for another month. Thanks Dave!


4. COLLECTING FEES
Now that we have to cover costs perhaps it not a bad idea to involve another person; a treasurer. We have until September to come up with a plan. Meetup offers the Organizer a means of setting up a PayPal account as a means of collection from everyone, if in fact that’s what we decide to do.
Many came up with a few ideas on how much and how to collect our fees. Here are some ideas:
- Collect $2 from everyone who attends. The extra will go into a bank account, managed by 2 people, a treasurer and Organizer, in order to pay for future speakers, stationery (raffle tickets, etc…), equipment (video projector), door prizes, a Christmas bash, etc... I’m sure the group will come up with ways of spending the extra money. :o-)
- Pass a hat around at each meeting asking for donations, no obligation.
- Charge an annual fee to join our group.
- Collect $1 or $2 from everyone who attends, giving the opportunity for new people to attend at no cost in order to check it out.
- Get sponsorship in order to maintain a free membership.


5. ALL OUR GROUPS
An idea was brought forth to amalgamate all 16 groups into one. The fear is that Meetup will be charging $9.00 per group per month. This would entail getting everyone to subscribe to this new group and cancel their memberships in their old ones. Once all 16 groups are empty we would simply have them deleted, or if possible, maintain them with a zero membership providing a link to the new group. Hopefully Meetup is charging per Organizer and not the amount of groups organized by that person. If we cannot delete the groups, and Meetup doesn’t ask for a fee from groups with a zero membership, then the organizer would configure the groups to disallow membership.
There are many unknowns here. The bottom line is we should prepare for this. So, does anyone have a really great name for a new group based on our list of 16 groups above? If you do, start a thread and provide your ideas.


6. FREE GIFT
We gave a free gift away to everyone who was able to tell the Organizer what Yahoo! stands for. Here's a bit of search engine history and the answer to our question thanks to http://www.sitepoint.... and their latest book, “Search Engine Marketing Kit” by Dan Thies.

"1994 was a big year in the history of Web search. The first hierarchical directory, Galaxy, was launched in January and, in April, Stanford students David Filo and Jerry Yang create Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, better known as Yahoo!
During that same month, April 1994, Brian Pinkerton at the University of Washington released WebCrawler. This, the first true Web search engine, indexed the entire contents of Web pages, where previous crawlers had indexed little more than page titles, headings, and URLs. Lycos was launched a few months later making it the second.
By the end of 1995, nearly a dozen major search engines were online. Names like MetaCrawler (the first metasearch engine), Magellan, Infoseek, and Excite (born out of the Architext project) were released into cyberspace throughout the year. AltaVista arrived on the scene in December 1995 with a stunningly large database and many advanced features, and Inktomi debuted the following year.
Over the next few years, new search engines would appear every few months."

I have more gifts next month, so simply ask the Organizer and he’ll give you one.


7. MONTHLY ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Our first monthly round table discussion was a great success. The topic was on CSS to compliment our book give away. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a simple mechanism for adding style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing) to Web documents.
Our Panelists:
- Ed gave a comprehensive presentation of CSS and all aspects of its implementation. You can view and download his presentation with examples by reading his follow up post:
http://webdesign.meet...
- Saeed followed up with some solid real world example that you can also view from the above thread.

Next months round table discussion will include a presentation from Saeed on project management. Please read our May min-E-newsletter arriving in your email for more details. If you'd like to be a panelist please arrive a half hour early.


8. POLLS
We’ve kept the poll up again this month. Please don’t forget to vote. We need to hear about what’s lacking in your business. How can we help?
Please vote, it’s the same poll for all 16 groups.


9. BOOK RAFFLE
Special thanks goes out to Matt Mickiewicz, co-founder of http://www.sitepoint...., who has graciously donated 2 books. Thanks Matt! One of those books we gave away this month.
“The CSS Anthology, 101 Essential Tips, Tricks and Hacks” by Rachel Andrew - Available at http://www.sitepoint.... was won by RON FOREMAN. Congratulations Ron!
Next month we will compliment our Round Table Discussion with another book: “Web ReDesign - Workflow That Works” by Kelly Goto & Emily Cotler, graciously donated and signed by the authors, and acquired by Saeed. Thanks Saeed!


Next month should be as equally interesting. Please look to your email for our min-E-newsletter containing next month’s agenda. We all look forward to seeing you there.

<Work in progress>

MINUTES - June 8, 2005

1. ATTENDANCE

20+ members including several new guests

2. ORDER OF BATTLE

Assistant Organizers - Kevin Freeburn and Mark Innes
Group Treasurer - Wendy Guy
Content Developers - Jay Kim, Joseph Melnick, Alan, Brock Johnson, Cary Stein, Steve Lee

3. PRESENTER

– Alfred Ayache of The Last Byte Inc.
- Topic PHP primer

4. BOOK RAFFLE

Build your own Database Driven Website using Php and MySQL, donated by Sitepoint.

Winner - Matthieu Disna

DONATIONS COLLECTED - $16.72

CAllS TO ACTION

- Delete other related groups after 30 days notice
- Decide on a collective name for the group and domain name.
- Donation "hat" to be available at meetings, suggested donation $2.00 per participant.
- Wendy will collect the money, to be stored in a traditional bank account. PayPal account to be assigned.

This is my first post for minutes, so please bear with me as they may not be as detailed as before:

MINUTES - October 12th, 2005

1. ATTENDANCE

18+ people were in attendance.
New faces were introduced. Welcome!

2. ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION

Cory Koski - Web Development Supervisor, Hygeia Corporation
- Topic: Basics of Databases and SQL

3. GROUP WEBSITE DESIGN COMMITTEE

- Agreeded that for those available, Monday's were a good day to meet for the website design committee
- Skinning contest will be held once website has been built
- Will determine a target date for establishing the basic website at the first design committee meeting

4. BOOK DRAW

"Practical Guide To RedHat Linux 8" - Donated by David
Winner - Sunny Zhang

5. DONATIONS COLLECTED
For September - $55
For October - $47

6. OTHER NEWS NOT YET RECORDED IN MINUTES

- Website name is webcentrictoronto.org - generously donated by Korax Inc.
- Kevin Freeburn stepped down as Assistant Organizer
- Would be interested in opportunities for corporate sponsorship - any ideas or interest greatly appreciated

TREASURER'S REPORT

Recent donations are as follows:

September meeting . . . . . . . $55.00
October meeting . . . . . . . . . .$47.00

Current bank balance . . . . . $164.72

Hmmm... My escape to the Bahamas is looking closer every month...

Wendy
The Grand Poobah with the Moolah

Summary of November Meetup

- 18 people attended
- New faces were introduced
- General news
-- Sitepoint now has available "Build Your Own Standards Compliant Website Using Dreamweaver 8" - get it!
- Ask The Expert had someone ask about Google Bombs. Look in Wikipedia for the answer!
- Paul delivered a lively discussion on "The Web Development Industry" for our roundtable discussion
- The Door Prize, a copy of Alpha Software's AlphaFive Version 7.0 was won by Jonuh Libster. Congratulations!
- $45.04 was collected in donations for our Grand Poobah of the Moolah.
- Much mingling ocurred... even a beer and pop were spilled, breaking the 3 year record of not spilling of the lovely waitress Sarah! She was wowed by by our technical expertise!

TREASURER'S REPORT
November 2005

Collected at November meeting . . . 45.04
Previous balance . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164.72
CURRENT BALANCE . . . . . . . . . . $209.76

I also hear Paul has about $32 for me from commissions we've made from Sitepoint book purchases.

Thank you to everyone who is able to contribute donations at the meetings! And thank you to those who have bought Sitepoint books through our affiliate link! (see Message Board listing)

Wendy
Grand Poohbah with the Moolah

TREASURER'S REPORT
December 2005

BANK
$209.76 . . . . Previous bank balance from November report
......0.54 . . . . Test Deposit from PayPal
...(10.68) . . . Dec. Meetup fee ($9.00US = $10.68Cdn)
....15.00 . . . . Intake Dec.14 meeting from book sales
....45.00 . . . . Intake Dec.14 meeting from donations
$259.62 . . . . CURRENT BANK BALANCE

PAYPAL
$..32.00 . . . . Deposit to PayPal account from SitePoint affiliate sales
....(1.48) . . . PayPal fee for receiving payment
$..30.52 . . . . CURRENT PAYPAL BALANCE

TOTAL
$290.14 . . . . CURRENT TOTAL FUNDS for WebCentricToronto


Not bad! Keep those donations coming!

And if you're going to buy any SitePoint books, please purchase them through our affiliate link:

http://www.sitepoint.... /launch/5a0423c

This helps to support our group at no extra cost to you. For direct links to specific books at SitePoint, see this message in this forum:

http://webdesign.meet...

Besides paying for the Meetup usage fees (currently $9.00US per month), these donations and income will be invested in our group for things like equipment. We are hoping to get enough to buy a good computer projector, since this is almost always used for our Round Table discussions and presentations.

Thank you for supporting this group!

Wendy Guy
Grand Poobah Of The Moolah