Board Notes--OSI-US December 18, 2009

Present: Karen, Peggy, Doug, Ed

Ning site donations and support

The question is, Can people give to osius for use of Ning site

Don't want osi-us to have large presence—could they give to osi Portugal?

It seems clear we should not give tax advice.

We can lose our 501(c)(3) if we act as “fiscal intermediary”--we have to maintain control over our funds and not just transfer money.

Perhaps people can give us donations and we support the Ning site directly.

We as individuals cannot get tax deductions for donations to other countries' organizations; but we as organization we can do work in other parts of the world.

Peggy is checking to see that our ePostcard 990-N filing is current.

Is it important to hear from Lisa what her concerns are?—I don't see any urgency on this issue that we have to decide today.

We do need Lisa's input.

Will ask the question of Lisa via email now.

Should we send response to Michael?

and to Artur?

Send the proposed response to Michael; for OSI-Portugal we need to work further on a response. For one thing, it is up to individual to determine with their tax advisers if deductible or not.

Prepare a proposed response to Artur and send to Board members.

We do not want to commit to an ongoing funding of the Ning site.

Doug will do notes of this meeting

Donations page revisions

do we want to amend the donations page? at http://www.openspaceworld.org/osi-usa/pmts.html

just remove the last sentence or so

Doug will do that

World open space calls:

future WOSONOS—we'll wait for Berlin to decide about 2011 and possibly 2012—will try to encourage South America

There will be posted notes of their call

Additional members for Board

Peggy will call one person who has expressed interest to encourage participation on Board calls.

Notes of Board meetings

Put a link in old location and put the actual notes in Ning site

Next meeting

Friday January 15 at usual time (10:30 am Pacific, 1:30 pm Eastern)

Bin:

clean up .net site;

sf osonos posted;

edits on blog;

ning donations;

osius blog;

disambiguation page on wikipedia;

World open space calls;

osius annual meeting follow up