December 11, 2003

Minutes of the OATA Meeting

Those attending: Jim Wolf, David Sever, Scott Metzger, Harold Watters and Nathan Watermeier. Jim Wolf presiding.

Minutes of last meeting discussed and approved. We will forward minutes to the whole board not just officers by e-mail. Minutes will also be posted on the OATA website: http://www.ag.ohio-state.edu/~agnatres/oata/

Treasurers report:
Scott has opened an account at Bank One with $64. We were given a checkbook and so can take in and dispense funds. We do need to establish ourselves as an organization with a Federal tax i.d. number. At this point Scott's social security number is on the account. We should contact Peggy Hall to get advice on doing this.

Agenda items:
Members contact list, Nathan will forward to all of the officers. There are 43 members. The officers and board members will be able to send messages to the listserve at oata@ag.ohio-state.edu to communicate directly with all the members.

Regional Ag Info Conference, no further information has been received from Harold Reetz. Nathan has called and sent e-mails but has not had contact with Harold to discuss the possible regional Info Ag. He will try to make contact with Scott Murrell who is the new PPI director for the midwest.

The group felt that CCAs should be interested in joining a technology based ag organization. Harold will draft a note to send to the CCAs and get the e-mail list from Nathan. Postage would cost about $370 and with only $64 in the treasury we felt that the low cost method would be better. We plan to place a member registration form on the OATA website and the e-mail solicitation will refer potential members there. The on-line registration form can then be printed and mailed with $10 to Scott.

Discussion of the group's goals and future responsibilities. We discussed several items as to what direction for the group to move. We did agree that we were a communication and educational organization but felt that we might become a political and business oriented group in the future if needed. We would like to conduct web based educational and informational sessions perhaps by Webinar. We should sponsor and support informational meetings. Nathan has four meetings in the works that he is conducting. We will co-sponsor. We are also developing and presenting a program at the Ada CTC, see notes below. We may implement two levels of membership, at $10 for general members and perhaps at a higher level such as Kansas Ag Technologies Association (KARA) has done; they have a $100 level. This higher level allows the member to participate directly in research opportunities. Training could also be done. With expertise in the organization we could conduct training for individuals in several technology areas. This might allow us to generate funds as well.

Planning for the Conservation Tillage Conference, Ada Ohio on February 26th. We will once again conduct a one-half day seminar on technologies useful to agricultural interests. Our program will be the afternoon of the first day of the CTC which has moved up to the week previous from past years. The program will run Thursday and Friday of finals week for Ohio Northern rather than during their spring break.

We have seven time slots of one-half hour each, from 1:15 to 5:05PM, with a 20 minute break midway.

1:15 High Speed Internet - methods and access
Steve Lichtenstiger, OSU Extension
1:45 Wireless Technologies in Agriculture
Nathan Watermeier, OSU Extension
2:15 Operating Systems and Hardware Compatibility
Jeff Beebe, OSU Extension
2:45 break
3:05 Surviving Computer Viruses
Marc Flinn, OSU Extension
3:35 Webinars - why use this method for a meeting?
Jim Schwartz, Icorn.com
4:05 Data Management - collection, use, storage
David Sever, Sever Consulting
4:35 - OATA update, Future Technologies, Feedback
Jim Wolf, Icorn.com

We will set up the OATA display at the back of the room. We plan to have wireless connections and a high-speed satellite with an internet link on site for the two days of the conference. We may conduct a Webinar as we are doing our session as a demonstration. Nathan is providing the satellite high-speed connection and the wireless connection equipment and Jim Wolf will investigate with Nathan the possibility of a Webinar program.

Next Meeting: January 26th, 6PM we may meet again at the Der Dutchman Restaurant in Plain City. The entire board is invited to the next meeting.