BCARES Board meeting June 12, 2003

The meeting was called to order at 7:05 PM in a Ball corporation meeting room by Jim Kubitschek.

Persons present:

Others: Andy Przedpelski KC0CWK

Minutes:

May 5 board meeting: A draft was prepared by Dale Scott.  Dale Scott made a few corrections.  The minutes were approved as corrected.  Dale will send the board members the corrected version, and give it to Rick Clark to be posted on the web page.

Old and New Business

Jim K moved that Steve Price be approved to spend up to $100 to get the antennas installed at Longmont fire station 5.  Motion Carried.

Jim Kubitschek showed an 8 ½  x 11 BCARES ID sign that could be used to mark member’s cars that are left at a incident.  They could be put in the BCARES equipment kits.  The board considered including the BCARES pager number (441-3851 is the automated pager contact number, pager ID 1891.  BCARES can also be paged via the dispatchers at 441-4444).  The signs could also be posted at our operating positions during incidents to help others identify us.  The board decided to make a set of these and put them in each BCARES equipment kit and for some board members.  The signs will not be magnetic.

Preparedness discussion

Jim Kubitschek led a discussion of “Is BCARES really ready for a Served Agency Callout?”.

Dale Scott discussed some information from the ARRL about public service do’s and don’ts with volunteers.

Training

Jim Kubitschek proposed a packet training session at the hospitals for the evening of June 26.  Dale Scott volunteered to organize/lead the exercise.

Leadership roles

In the interest of making BCARES tasks better coordinated, Dale Scott agreed to oversee and organize membership/training/staffing.  The people working on the pieces are:

Ÿ         Membership roster: Len Koppl

Ÿ         Incident staffing/scheduling: Board as a whole

Ÿ         Planned activities

Ÿ         Recruiting and processing new members: Mike Borenstein

Ÿ         Introduction/Training

New members

John Early, W0RMA, has submitted a membership application.  Jim Kubitschek sent it to the Sheriff's office for background check.  The board approved him conditionally, and Jim will call him to tell him.

Web page

Jim has some ideas about making the web page more attractive to potential new members, more informative, and more current.  Jim will take responsibility to meet with the web committee and get some web updates to happen.

Bylaws

Jane said the bylaws committee has not gotten far as a committee.  Jim asked Jane Przedpelski to chair the committee, and said he will organize a meeting to get some progress made.  Jane mentioned a few concerns she found that had not been previously considered.

The Colorado secretary of state’s web site has a copy of our official paperwork.  The URL is www.sos.state.co.us.

MOU updates

We have some changes in the works that Jim K is working.  Dale Scott will send a draft MOU to the Colorado Repeater Association for the user of the 145.46 repeater.  The Rocky Mountain VHF society MOU is with that organization.  Len Koppl will follow up.  Steve Price will modify the Longmont MOU to cover the handling of the “Longmont” BCARES equipment.

CU Liaison

Jim Andrews needs to be replaced.  Nima Gharavi has indicated a willingness to take over.

Equipment

CU Contributed $2000 to BCARES for new equipment.  Jim K will have a meeting with the people at CU about what equipment would help their situation.

Repeater Update

Mike Borenstein sent an e-mail update.  Two UHF link receivers have been installed on the 146.76 repeater, and a cross-band link has been added.  Board members can contact Mike or Jim to get the frequencies and tones.  This will ultimately expand the range of the repeater.

Next Meeting:

Thursday July 17 7:00PM, location to be announced.

Adjournment

Meeting adjourned at 9:30PM.

Minutes by Steve Price