Compsoc Minutes (01/12/2006)

Posted on 1st December 2006

h4. Present (Exec listed first)

Bruce Tinton (Bruce)
Andrew Wheat (Candle)
Frederick Emmott (Fred)
Arun Prasannan (Polar)
Sean Connolly (Morlark)
Laurence Hurst (Laurence)

Timothy Retout (Tim)
Sadiq Jaffer (Sadiq)

h4. Agenda

Secretary
Progcomp promotion
OSP
Emergency fund for server upgrades
Any other business

h4. Joblist

| *Person* | *Item* |
| Laurence | Notify members of date of EGM as well as procedure for nominations and proxy voting and deadlines for each.|
| Bruce | Check that we can move the AGM to week 7 of term 2.|
| Candle | Organise a mailout to DCS students advertising the progcomp.|
| Bruce & Fred| Sort out stuff for emergency fund application. (Find the amount of ram in crypt and graveyard and the amount we can contribute.) Draw up thress upgrade plans, one for a 300GBP budget, one for 600GBP and one for 900 GBP. Also obtain quotes for co-location of insomnia.|

h4. Secretary

It was suggested that we could hold the AGM at the end of week three to elect the new exec and a replacement secretary. Sadiq said that this was too soon for an AGM and was generally agreed with. Candle suggested holding an EGM at the end of week 1 but Fred pointed out that this may conflict with exams in week 1. Sadiq reminded the exec that we can take a proportional representation of the members for a basis of a decision even if the vote is not quorate. Candle asked if there were any further objections to week 1 of term 2 and none were made. Tim asked what the deadline for nominations would be, and Candle said one week before the EGM. Candle also said he would like to hold the AGM in week 7 of term 2 and asked Bruce to investigate the possibility of this.

h4. Progcomp promotion

Polar asked about the possibility of tshirts with Accenture's logo on for the competition entrants. Sadie suggested the CompSoc logo, Accenture's logo and the phrase ``Computing Society Programming Competition '06'' which would act as free advertising for next year's competition. Polar pointed out that in order to organise this we would need to know numbers for the tshirts. Candle asked if we could get the tshirts from Sadiq's supplier and Sadiq said there would be better options for this kind of tshirt production and he will investigate and get back to us. Bruce said that we need to check how much we should be invoicing Accenture for as a number of figures have been mentioned and their last email was not clear. It was generally agreed that physical prizes are better than cash and the possibility of organising physical prizes should be investigated.

h4. OSP

Polar reported that a number of people had enquired about Compsoc running an OSP as they do not wish to partake of ones associated with the LUG, like the ``mini OSP''s currently happening. Sadiq suggested asking whoever was so keen to have an OSP to organise it.

h4. Emergency fund for server upgrades

Bruce asked if we should apply to the emergency fund for money for server upgrades. Fred reported that he needed more RAM for crypt and graveyard, and a new motherboard and processor for Molotov with the current ones moving into Twilight. Sadiq asked how much RAM is in crypt and graveyard at the moment and Fred replied that he needed to check but it was only 128MB or 256MB. Sadiq suggested that 350GBP would get a new Core 2 Duo, motherboard and RAM for moltov. Laurence said that he thought given the way Moltov is used it would probably benefit from a dual core or multi-processor setup. Bruce said that we may be able to afford this without support from the emergency fund, but will have to check as some of the money is earmarked for ongoing server running costs.

h4. Any other business

Fred reported that a new switch is required for the DCS cupboard. Polar said he had asked Microsoft for a tech talk next term and the Windows User Group might be able to organise some projects, talks etc.

Sadiq proposed changing the way the CompSoc exec are elected to having termly elections like the LUG. Morlark objected as he though it would result in a lack of continuity with too much time spent on handover and not enough on actually doing things. Sadiq pointed out that it ensures continued engagement with the members and is something to think about and possibly discuss on the forums. Polar suggested a compromise could be a core exec of 3 people and a termly elected committee making up the rest.