Present: Chuck Howerton (pres.), Rob Bryant (NW), Viera Proulx (NE), Cathy Bareis, Jim Aman (MW), Susan Dean (Past Pres.), John Meinke (Pub.), Bill Myers (Tres.), Kevin Treu (SE), Gail Miles (NECC), Peter Isaacson (RM), Laura Baker (SC), T.S.Pennington (CP), Will Mitchell (Conf), Matthew Dickerson (Pres.Elect)

The minutes of the fall board meeting were accepted as distributed.

Central Plains (T.S. Pennington): Spring 2000 conference will be held on April 7-8. They have 13 papers, 7 tutorials, 1 panel, and a keynote speaker on digital signal technology. There will be another lecture on the history of computing. Spring 2001 will be a joint conference hosted by two schools (Southwest Baptist and Missouri Southern), in Branson Missouri--tentatively looking at the second weekend in April. Leaders of those schools have been on the region steering committee.

Rocky Mountain (Peter Isaacson): Written report was distributed. Peter verbally noted a highlight of the conference was student paper presentations. Fall conferences will be held in Orem Utah in 2001, and in Rapid City in 2001. They hope to try a Friday morning or Saturday afternoon workshop at the 2000 conference.

Midwest (Jim Aman): The call is out for papers. The 2000 conference is Sept.22-23 at Valpairaiso. The 2001 conference is scheduled for Olivette Nazarene.

South Central (Laura Baker) : The 2000 conference is April 14-15. They have accepted 28 papers, 5 Tutorials, 12 Student papers and 3 student posters. Registration fee is a bit higher. It will be in Corpus Cristi with a boat ride. Hoping for 125 to 150. It has been well-marketted in the state of Texas. The 2001 conference is scheduled is for Amarillo.

Southeast (Kevin Treu): Successful conference last November at Augusta state, reversing a declining trend. They will be at Roanoke in Salem Virginia in November 3-4 of 2000. The next conference will incorporate a student paper contest. The programming contest at the previous conference had 20 teams (which was maximum capacity.)

Northeast (Viera Proulx): The 5th annual NE regional conference will be April 28-29 in Ramapo, New Jersey. We had increased submissions (perhaps thanks to SIGCSE in-cooperation agreement) with 30 papers accepted. Proceedings will be in the ACM digital library. There will be a post-banquet celebration with live music from the blues band "Deep Freyed". In 2001 the conference is scheduled for Middlebury College in Vermont.

Viera answered questions about the budget, and the expectations of the hosting institution being made explicit. John noted that the Northeast has been succesful at drawing people.

Northwest (Rob Bryant): Report was e-mailed out. 1st conference with 51 people. On October 13-14, 2000 in Beaverton Oregon. Used a SIGCSE presenter, and has already lined one up for 2000.

ASIDE: It was noted that the fall CCSC board meeting will be at the Northwest conference.

3. NECC Report (Gail Miles): Report was e-mailed out. In 2001 the conference is scheduled for Chicago. There is a CCSC presence at NECC (not in number of attendees, but in name recognition).

4. Conference Coordinators Report (Will Mitchell): Will has had conversations with several people about whether there is interest in a new region in the Mississippi valley. The goal is to find ten people willing to get together (in one room at at time) to plan a conference. Whether that happens will be an indication of whether there ought to be such a conference.

John wanted to know the implications for Central Plains of a conference in Central Missouri.

Will said the goal of "regional" conferences is for people to be able to get to one in three to four hours drive (or less) so people can get there by noon on Friday and be home on Saturday night. He said we donât have many members from these areas, or from Memphis, because there isnât a close conference. In other words, a new region should not negatively affect existing conferences.

There is also potential in Western Pennsylvania and Southeastern Ohio.

Chuck brought up again the question of whether to pursue any Canadian regions, and we discussed several possibilities: a region for southern British Columbia (such as at Simon Fraser); inviting them to join existing regions.

ASIDE: Bill mentioned to Viera (and everybody in general) that any brochures should be e-mailed (in ASCII) to him for distribution in various sources. John asked also for copies to be sent to him.

The question of associating the Eastern conference with CCSC was again raised. The big question is whether Eastern is interested. John said the Eastern steering committee was not well-attended this year. There are strong feeling among the Eatern committee members in both directions. The Eastern people have not followed-up so the initiative rests with them. There is general feeling that they would be welcome.

5. Membership Report (Cathy Bareiss):

Statistics were distributed, and are now dynamically updated on-line. Receipts will now be sent by e-mail, thus saving considerable money. Membership cards have been very helpful. There are still some inconsistencies in regional registration forms, and they need to be updated. Cathy is on sabbatical next year and hopes to get Oracle to pay for her to go to all conferences to work on college educational database issues.

The following issues were raised:

1. Cathy doesnât feel like the registration chair should handle anything other than membership dues and registration. (In other words, not student or vendor registration.)
2. Cathy would also like to see a late-registration fee, and would like to get rid of half-year memberships.

It was noted that the numbers for this year are incomplete because registration has not finished for the spring conferences.

Concerns were raised about students helping with the CCSC database because in doing so they have access to the data. There is concern that the data is private and shouldnât be used. Cathy has agreed to scramble the personal part of the data. This issue was tabled to be discussed later as new business, as well as concerns #1 and #2 above.

6. Publication Report (John Meinke):

The report was submitted electronically. In synopsis, the South Central and Central Plains proceedings were split. John now has the name of the person to contact with respect to the digital library.

7. Web Site Report (Kevin Treu):

He has redesigned the site. It took him some time to get telnet access to Auburn, so updates can be done more easily. He regularly updates links (conferences, contests, etc.)

Will wanted to know if we have pursued a commercially-hosted web-site. Jim said it can be done for abou $100/year. Kevin wanted to know why we should do that, since itâs currently free.

Advantages: multiple people can manage different parts of the site. It would give a unified domain name for various regions, we could put a table of contents, etc. In general the desire is for a bigger site.

8. Treasurer(Bill):

See attached spreadsheet.

9./10. Finance Committee / Budget Committee (Bill):

Question was raised whether we need a line item for the audit. Do we cover expenses for the audit committee?

T.S. recommended that we rotate through the conferences and require them to provide auditors. Several people noted that this is unrealistic. It is not desirable labor. We could sweeten the deal by providing a free hotel room. Cathy recommended that we budget $500 for the audit committee.

It was noted that CCSC is really in the hole this year. The obvious interpretation is that we need to improve income (higher dues, more members, or more conference surplus) or decrease travel.

We cannot increase dues this year, because the by-laws havenât been changed. We expect an increase in membership. We might need to encourage regional conferences to charge more to get a greater surplus. It was also proposed that we could move to an alternate type of meeting (e.g. electronic) in the fall.

The Rocky Mountain conference has projected a surplus of $1300. The Southeastern has presented a balanced budget. The Northeast has a proposed budget that has a big deficit. The Northwest has projected a $500 surplus.

MOTION: Bill moved that we accept the budgets of the Northwest, Southeast, and Rocky Mountain conferences and authorize the treasurer to pay the budgetted items. For the conferences which have not yet submitted their budget, the treasurer will later recommend for or against the budgets, after which the board will vote electronically. If and when these budgets are approved, the treasurer will have authority to pay budgetted items.

Seconded by Viera.

11. Bad Check Policy (Bill):

Bill proposed we lower the bad check policy from a $25 fine to a $5 fine. The consensus was to leave the policy as is.

12. Travel Policy (Bill):

Bill has a CCSC credit card to pay some expenses directly. He will have to go to each hotel and pay in person. For flights, right now Bill will have to reimburse (by check) this yearâs expenses. In the future, we need to make reservations and then pass the information on to Bill to authorize the credit card payment.

13. Audit Committee Report (Susan Dean):

The Audit committee is working today (in parallel) following some procedures culled from church audits. Their goal is to create a target for realistic goals. Susan will look at how much they actually accomplish, and set up future guidelines based on that. John said we need to give thought to how the audit committee will be constituted. We need to formalize the process. This will be discussed at the fall meeting.

14. Nominating Committee Report (Susan Dean):

Was e-mailed to the committee. Curt White has withdrawn.

Rob asked how the general membership knows about the nomination process. Susan replied that information goes out at the national meeting (e.g. this week at SIGCSE) and then through regional steering committees. Each region should have a set of rules for how the region organizes.

It was suggested that an e-mail goes out to the general membership soliciting nominations and explaining the process. Cathy will send out this e-mail, and require all nominations be sent to Susan Dean by April 1, 2000.

MOTION: Bill Myers proposes that full year memberships be charged the regular rate (currently $35) if they are postmarked by September 10. For those postmarked between September 11 and the end of November, the rate is $5 higher (currently $40). Half-year memberships are $20 if postmarked from December 1 to March 15.

Cathy seconded.

Will noted that purchases 5 or more back issues will cost more than a yearâs membership, which is desirable.

Cathy raised the issue that moneys other than membership dues should not go to the membership chair. We need another way to deal with these issues (like programming teams, vendors, etc.)

It was suggested that this money could go directly to Bill. Bill said the audit committee should decide this. T.S. suggested that it should be up to regions to decide how to handle this.

Bill said that any checks from corporations must be registration, and not be reported as income. Cathy is charged with coming up with a policy and reporting it at the fall meeting.

MOTION: Peter moves that any use of the CCSC membership data other than CCSC business must be preapproved by the CCSC board.

Seconded by Jim Aman.

MOTION: Viera proposes that Olivette Nazarene University Computer Science Dept. be designated the information consultants to CCSC for membership data.

Seconded by Susan.

MOTION: Susan Dean moves that the publications chair be authorized to split a joint proceedings issue in the event that the joint issue becomes more costly than the production of the two separate issues. The extra issue will constitute an additional issue within the current volume of the journal and will be dated with the succeeeding month of the original joint issue.

Viera seconded.

$500 was put into the budget to cover bonding.

MOTION: John moved that, beginning with 2001 conferences, we establish only a single rate for conference registration regardless of CCSC membership, and that CCSC receives $35 from each conference registration.

T.S. Seconded

Matt moves that we postpone a vote unti April 1, and allow until then to discuss this issue farther.

Mattâs motion was unanimously approved. Discussion of Johnâs motion will take place electronically throughout March.

It was agreed that the Web Site Administrator need not be a board member.

Jim is going to get more information about a commercial web site--including the possibility of separate domain names.

What are we going to do about Eastern? We are waiting for them to take a proactive approach.

Will suggested that we preparing all regions to start moving toward an entire electronic process--manuscript submission, review, etc.

Viera said the Northeast system could be copied and used by other regions.