Meeting Minutes of the KOPN/New Wave Corporation Board of Directors, March 21, 2017

The meeting was called to order at 7:07 p.m., and all members were in attendance: President Dan Hemmelgarn, Vice President Ellen Schlie, Secretary Heather O’Connor, Tao Weilundemo, Curt Wohleber, Margot McMillen, Kevin Rae, Treasurer Allen Vaught, Laird Okie, and Mohamed Sawani.

Kent Froeschle with iZones, Tony Lotven, and Boden Lyon were present as guests.

The previous month’s minutes were approved by unanimous voice vote after a motion by Margot McMillen, seconded by Allen.

Financial Report:

The audit is still in process; documents are being transferred to the auditors as requested.

Tao moved that the financial report be approved, Mohamed seconded, and it passed by unanimous voice vote.

Dan invited Boden Lyon to the table, and she introduced herself and briefly explained her background and experience and why she would like to serve on the board. Tao moved to appoint Boden for a term ending January 2018, Heather seconded, and the move passed by unanimous voice vote.

Kent Froeschle and Tony Lotven of iZones were invited to speak to the board and answer questions about their proposed deal with the station. They briefly described the plan, which includes mounting hardware at the tower and on the roof of the station for their usage in exchange for a reduced-price deal on phone service. The antenna would be a non-penetrating roof mount, or might attach to the existing mount.

At the tower they would install 3 microwave sector antennae, and an 18-inch dish that points back toward their facility on Paquin Tower. Their connection to the internet goes from there to the tower, and they would use it to provide Internet service for people who live in that area.

The rate the station would pay would be $344/month for 6 months then $220/month thereafter.

Tony said they would be charging about ⅓ of the current rate for our phone service, and it may be even lower if some of our lines are deemed to be unnecessary. There is a potential for the station to receive revenue from the clients who get service at the tower. They have drafted a contract, but the first step would be for their proposal to be formally accepted. The phone service would be provided through INC inc., a VOIP phone service provider that is based in St. Louis and has been around for approximately 20 years. Their installation cost will be 1200-1800. The station’s share of this cost would be $600. There will be an RJ-45 port at the tower. The data transfer rates provided would be more than sufficient for our streaming needs, at 50 Mbps and adjustable up to 100 Mbps. Tao had a question about Trac phones; it sounds as though for pledge drives, the existing station number can be forwarded within the system to other phones including cell phones. Dan has concern about the audio quality on the phone lines for phone interviews. Margot mentioned that we might want to call people currently using the system for references. 5 static IP addresses are built into the proposal. The contract is 5 years automatically renewing with a 30-day notice. If we move from this location, we will still have to consider line-of-sight access to Tiger or Paquin. Any problems with our internet would be reported by text to their lead engineer, and would be resolved at their expense. The phones would be through the microwave.

Station Manager’s Report:

There are some empty shifts and a need to train new on-air talent.

Engineering issues: the Local Area Network has been malfunctioning, causing computers to fail to “talk to” each other. Regarding AV air, Gary Novak is going to hard wire the two machines to each other. The stream has been down intermittently because Socket has migrated us to a new server. CD players need replacing. Replacements may be included in the new equipment grant.

Grant Withers has offered to pay for parts and service to fix mic 1. He has David’s approval if he wants to proceed with that, as it is lower on David’s list of priorities than some other things.

Working groups are currently:

Finance: Dan Hemmelgarn, Allen Vaught, Tao Weilundemo (for grants), Boden Lyon

Personnel: Dan Hemmelgarn, Curt Wohleber, Laird Okie, Allen Vaught

Equipment and Facilities: Ellen Schlie, Mohamed Sawani, Curt Wohleber, Kevin Shults

Membership and Fundraising: Margot McMillen, Tao Weilundemo, Heather O’Connor

Community Advisory Board: (already established, external to BoD, w/BoD ex-officio)- Dan Hemmelgarn (ex-officio), Tom Verdot (chair), Jack Wax, Tricia Woolbright, Peter Yronwode, Shelley Botts

Programming Committee: (per Programming Committee Policy, ext. to BoD, w/BoD ex-officio)-David Owens, Kevin Rea, Sean Witzman, and Jim Reynold.