From: Patrick H. Barrett To: ORCNET, Members List Subject: ORCNET Mtg Minutes of 25 Jan 01 Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2001 8:18 PM ORCNET Members: These are the minutes of our meeting of 25 Jan 2001, at 18:30, at Carrow's Restaurant, in Tigard, OR. Our attendance was 14 individuals, at least three of which were new faces! Bob deForest was good enough to record these minutes; I reviewed & modified, adding clarifications that have dribbled in since the meeting. Mistakes are mine. Thanks Bob. We need a Secretary. Volunteers? Nominations? patb -------------------- meeting minutes -------------------------- 1. Our speaker, Mr. David House, was unable to attend due to a family emergency, but sends his apologies and will reschedule. 2. We were pleased to have three guests, one of whom, Bill Reiersgaard, may provide a future Program on the work of Dr. Albert Starr regarding a truly unique heart repair robot for which they are hoping to gain FDA approval for use in the U.S. The robot is very small, practically non-invasive, and presently IN USE in Germany and elsewhere. A significant alternative to splitting your chest! This would be an amazing presentation! 3. Our next meeting will be on Feb 22 at University of Portland. It is actually a joint SAE/IEEE affair, highlighting NanoTechnology: Speaker: Professor Jim Hutchison, UofO Topic: "Recent Developments in NanoTechnology" When: Thursday, 22 Feb 2001. University of Portland, Chiles Center, Hall of Fame Room. Dinner: pasta buffet, beverage, no alcohol. Cost: Members $15 in advance, $20 at door. Seating is limited; RSVP Pat Barrett by Tues, 20 Feb 2001. Gather at 6:30 p.m., Eat at 7:00, Mtg. & Presentation 8:00 p.m. * BE THERE OR BE SQUARE! * 4. Our March 2001 meeting Will be at Carrows, at 18:30, on Thursday 22 March. 5. Re: our meeting location: Our current agreement with Carrows is that we may reserve the room in advance, at no cost, for non-exclusive use. On the evening of the meeting, if we will guarantee purchase of at least $180 of product, we may have exclusive use of the room. 6. It's time for Elections: Pat Barrett, 2000 Chair, noted that it is time to elect new officers to our Board. Hard to believe it's been a whole year since the group's founder, Phil Witham, stepped down. Our offices are Chair, Treasurer, Program Coordinator, Webmaster, and Secretary. Members can nominate themselves or others. If you like the group and believe it's worthwhile, then please consider some involvement; the present Officers need a break. Our Program Coordinator, Bob deForest, made a statement: "It is hard to hold volunteer organizations together for any great length of time. As many of our members know, the Seattle consultants group has been inactive for some time. When Pat Barrett called for officer nominations, he mentioned the well known fact that in volunteer groups there is a tendency for the same people to be officers over and over. This can have the chilling effect of not making new members feel a part of the group. We don't want that to happen. We want our group to grow so we can all benefit more from each other's experiences. This is a plea to those people who have been regular attendees to consider becoming officers. It will not take a lot of time right now to be an officer. Any new officer can expect help from the previous office holder, so you won't have to start from scratch. If we can keep our group solid till the next economic downturn, which is guaranteed to happen sooner or later, we will be available as a support group for a whole new wave of members who will have been "restructured" out of a full time job with Behemoth, Inc. We need time to grow into something really useful to all of us, so please give serious thought to volunteering as an officer. 7. Keith Loftstrom volunteered to be Webmaster for FY2001. Thank you Keith! 8. We discussed the IEEE's Concentration Banking scheme (cBS): The IEEE has relaxed the requirement that all funds be placed in a central bank back East. It will now permit accounts to be maintained locally, but they want Signatory power on the account. We reached no conclusions but realize that we MUST take some action in the near future. The choices are: Participate in cBS (you figure it out) or separate from the IEEE. If we disaffiliate, we will lose the right to claim affiliation with the IEEE. We will also lose the $180 annual "benefit" promised us by the AICN (but which we have thus far not received). If we disaffiliate, we may lose whatever funds we now possess, because they were accumulated under the auspices of the IEEE. Or we may be able to simply refund the moneys to our Members before we disaffiliate. If we disaffiliate, we may lose the potential for free (or nearly-free) participation in local tradeshows. One of our Guests noted that a VERY similar situation arose with the SAE nearly 20 years ago. Same IRS threats, same bureaucratic thinking, etc. ORCNET Members are encouraged to research this event and report at (or before) our next meeting. What were the details? What did SAE National demand? What did the local SAE do? What was the eventual outcome? This matter MUST BE DECIDED at the March meeting! Members are encouraged to discuss it among themselves or via our list-serv, then attend the March meeting and make their voices heard. 9. We discussed the FY2001 Dues: We decided to make no change; they remain $50/year for FY2001. 10. Re: Advertising ORCNET: We discussed advertising, noted that we didn't do much in FY2000, which is why we have accumulated ~$1200 in the bank. We discussed spending some funds to make our web site easier for search-engines to find; elevating it's rating. Duke suggested that we buy our Guests' dinners*, based on his experiences with other organizations. *(Note: Duke did NOT mention if his relatives are moving to town! #:^)# - pat) We decided to use some funds (if necessary) to pursue the ratings-elevation scheme. Note: On 29 Jan 2001 I received some very good follow-on input from Dennis Ritola about elevating our website's ratings. See below. Thanks Dennis! 11. Request from Member Phil Roethig: At the meeting, Phil asked that his webpage be updated, and submitted corrected copy. Then several days later he asked to be dropped from the group, effective 01 Jan 2001. No reason given (or required, of course). We'll miss him. 12. Action: Pat Barrett Ensure that Keith gets the "Keys to the Kingdom" from Phil Witham. 13. Action: Bob deForest Coordinate with Mr. House to reschedule his presentation. We drew a few folks from outside the group, which suggests that this may be a popular topic! 14. Action: George Gogue Work with Pat to announce that FY2001 dues are due. (Now done - patb) 15. Action: George Gogue Plan to explain to the Members at the March meeting exactly what paperwork is required if we adopt Concentration Banking. Bring examples. Is our present account free? Will CB be cheaper than our present method? 16. Action: Pat Prepare and submit the annual ORCNET report to the Oregon IEEE Executive Committee. This is a requirement of affiliation and is also the action that should net us the annual AICN funds mentioned above. The report must be submitted with copies of Minutes of at least two ORCNET meetings held during the year, so the Minutes you're reading now will be useful in February 2002. 17. National Engineers' Week Pat noted that the week of February 22 is National Engineer's Week. Get your boss to take you to lunch. If you ARE the boss, take your people to lunch. If you've got no people, tell the waitress about Engineering! Submitted for your review, Patrick H. Barrett, Chair, ORCNET 2000 Barrett & Assoc. Engineering POB 19847, Portland, OR 97280 503-245-0325, v&f pbarrett@ieee.org http://www.barrettengineering.com -------- end of meeting minutes ---------- -------- re elevating our website's ratings ---------- Da: 29 Jan 2001 Fr: Dennis Ritola To: Pat Barrett, ORCNET Chair Pat; I took a brief look at the website and would like to make a few suggestions: Meta Tags: The Keyword and Description Meta Tags are relatively short and only appear on the very first page of the web site. It would probably help if these were expanded a little bit and placed on each of the individual pages. You can alter these tags to better match the content of each of the pages that they are placed on. These tags should also have good correlation to the content of the pages themselves (be repeated in). Content: I don't know what your thoughts were when the web site was put together originally, but I think that it might help if more content was added to the individual contractors pages. The descriptions of what each individual does seem exceptionally brief. If I was advertising for myself I would want it to read more like a resume. The Meta Tags could be modified on each of these pages to match the expertise and skills of the individuals as well. This will give better coverage from the search engines. When we spoke at the meeting, you mentioned that you knew of a potential job. I do work full-time, but I do like to do small side jobs as long as the deadline isn't too short. I have a background in emulator design, FPGA development using schematics, Verilog, and VHDL. I have also done a number of microprocessor designs using AMD's AM186ES, Intel's 80KC196, Motorola's 68HC705 and 68HC11, Atmel's AVR and am currently working on a design using TI's DSP TMS320VC33. I also do a little bit of programming using assembly language, C, and C++. I have done a few high precision (16-bit) analog data acquisition designs as well. I consider my emphasis to be in FPGAs and uP board design, but I certainly enjoy working on the complete package. Regards, Dennis Ritola denr@teleport.com home: 360-687-6788 cell: 360-903-3826