November 19, 1999
Cooper County Extension Center
Boonville, MO

Members Present: Harry Stone, Art Schneider, Bill Sullivan, JoAnn Sullivan, Bill Wood, Darin Starr and Jene Crook .

Call to order: The meeting was called to order at 10:50 am by President Darin Starr.

Minutes: JoAnn Sullivan moved and Art Schneider seconded that the minutes be approved as posted. The motion carried. Jene Crook reported that after check charges for the new account, the treasury has $877.13. She also noted that Darin brought a membership check from Ron Nedblake to be deposited. JoAnn Sullivan moved and Harry Stone seconded that the treasurer's report be approved. The motion carried.

Mo-River.Net web Hits: Bill Sullivan reported that there have been approximately 700 additional hits at the web site since the October meeting. He also noted that he has added a line to his e-mail signature "Come visit my neighborhood: www.Mo-River.Net." Harry Stone brought the laminated calendar cards for distribution.

Interns: Darin Starr reported that he has talked to two Missouri Valley College students. One is a sociology major and the other is a computer technology major. Each has his own strengths. We can use both if we can keep them busy. We will need to prepare a practicum detailing what we need the interns to do. The interns would be available 5 to 10 hours a week, or a little more for the computer specialist. Both students are from Saline County and might be available to work during semester break. The wish list of jobs Darin Starr e-mailed was approved.

Bill Wood also thinks we need a fresh look at the Mo-River.Net menu system. As the pages have expanded, moving around has become more cumbersome. Harry Stone reminded us that we still need pictures of area churches, etc. One of the possible projects for the sociology student would be public relations. He would be willing to speak to area groups to promote the web site. If we do send him around, we should pay mileage. JoAnn Sullivan moved that we use both interns and pay any mileage that is appropriate. Bill Wood seconded and the motion carried. Darin Starr will write up the practicums to present to the college.

Harry commented that he had talked to Mark concerning the calendar. Mark Eslick may have found a less expensive calendar that would serve our purposes. He may be willing to buy this one. Harry Stone also looked at some calendars on the Internet and found a serviceable one that could simply be written up in HTML.  Perhaps the computer specialist from the college could work on it as a part of his internship.

CIN 2000:  Art Schneider discussed CIN 2000, which will be held at Tan-Tar-A in April 2000. The registration fee will remain $125.00. Art Schneider feels that we need to have at least two members attend the conference. He would like the group to pay for the attendees. Art Schneider and Darin Starr will be attending in their capacities with University Extension. A new idea is that CINs may be good forums for emergency management and some federal dollars may be available to support the implementation. Bill Wood moved that we pay for one attendee at the conference with the possibility for approving more. Harry Stone seconded and the motion carried.

Emergency Management: Art Schneider wants to talk to Tom White about Mo-River.Net serving as a designated emergency information source. Bill Sullivan moved and Bill Wood seconded approval for Art Schneider to talk to Tom White about the emergency information potential. The motion carried.

Service Learning: Art Schneider also mentioned the Service Learning program at the University of Missouri. It appears to have some similarities to the Missouri Valley College internship program. There is a commitment of 45 hours per semester. Art put in a request for calendar design, page design, etc. He indicated that they were intrigued because this is not the usual project proposal. Art told them we would use as many as they can offer. He had not had any response as of the board meeting.

Calendar: Discussion returned to the calendar. Should we go ahead and put up something simple and let the interns refine it? As noted previously, Harry Stone has a couple of examples to work with. We need a policy about what will be eligible to be listed. We need to start simple and see how it evolves. Bill Sullivan moved, and JoAnn Sullivan seconded that Harry Stone pursue the simple calendar he found. The motion carried.

Video Commercial: Darin Starr reported that he and JoAnn Sullivan met with Ron Nedblake concerning the commercial. They took him on a "tour" of the web site. Ron Nedblake suggested that we come up with 10 points we would like to make. He reminded them that we can only say about 100 words in 30 seconds.  Our target date is sometime in January, hopefully. They will need two to six weeks from the time we call them to work with us. We will obviously take second place to any paid advertisers, and Ron Nedblake is doing a good job of promoting the idea to area businesses. We need to check the links on the web site before any commercial airs. For instance, the media page is missing a lot of references. The integrity of the pages is critical. Bill Wood suggested that we take a full day to get together to review the web site.

Next Meeting: The next meeting was set for December 15 in Boonville. We will start at 9 a.m. with a regular board meeting and then turn to reviewing the web pages. We need to ask Art Schneider to bring the digital camera to record our activity for potential use in the commercial.

Respectfully Submitted,

Jene Crook
Secretary-treasurer

Updated 02/02/00

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