Govcom minutes 2018-02-08

Attendees

Josie Fraser (in the Chair), Carol Campbell (by Skype), Kate West, Lucy Crompton-Reid, Katie Crampton (minuting)

Apologies

Rosie Chapman, Michael Maggs

Declarations of interest relating to matters on the agenda

None

Minutes of last Govcom meeting

The minutes of the meeting of 9th November were approved.

Matters arising

Carol to speak to Alastair regarding his membership of ARC.

Josie has received details of previous board evaluations from Michael and will move forward with this, with support from Lucy or the interim CEO depending on the timescale.

Recruitment of Treasurer/Chair of ARC

Lucy had hoped to combine adverts for the interim CEO role with the Treasurer/Chair of ARC role, however since all advertising is now digital it’s not possible to do this and save money. She and Katie therefore prioritised the three paid posts that needed advertising at the start of the year and haven’t yet externally advertised the trustee role; although the role description and person specification has been finalised.

Some concerns have been expressed about the likelihood of recruiting a suitable candidate through advertising alone and so Katie got a quote from Prospectus for a paid search. This would be £10,000, including the cost of adverts, compared to around £1500 that we would spend on targeted paid advertising. Obviously we would want to get other quotes for comparison but on the basis that they are likely to be similar, this was felt to be excessive given our budgets for the year. At the same time, we don’t want to advertise the role for a second time and not fill it.

It was agreed that Lucy and Katie would find two additional quotes for a paid search, and will also research targeted publications and relevant networks for advertising the role (seeking Greyham’s advice). The aim is for the recruitment campaign to be underway by early March and so Lucy will email GovCom for a final decision on this by the end of February.

AGM Update

Lucy updated the committee on progress with the AGM, and in particular the venue; after GovCom’s recommendation at their last meeting that the 2018 AGM should be held in London where the vast majority of our members live. Richard Nevell asked his contact at the Natural History Museum whether they would consider hosting the event pro bono, and after several conversations with our lead contact Lucy submitted a proposal about this in January, for consideration by the museum’s senior management.

Membership

Organisational Membership

Following Lucy’s paper at the board meeting, it has been agreed that there would be a ‘soft launch’ of organisational membership in early 2018, with the creation of a new organisational membership page on the wiki, a logo for organisational members to use, and targeted emails from Lucy to potential members (focusing on current partners and stakeholders in the first instance). This is all in hand and will be happening within the next month or so.

Online Voting

Lucy has two meetings/calls scheduled with companies that run online voting (for ERS and CILIP) and has had some indicative costs. Josie questioned whether we needed to use an external company for such a relatively small number of members. Kate responded that she thought we should consider an external company on the basis of our internal capacity/resources, and the credibility of the process; however the latter may not be an issue. It was agreed that Lucy and Katie would go ahead with the meetings and conversations as planned but would also look at potential in house options using Google Forms or other tools. This is likely to be something that the interim CEO will need to take forward.

AOB

None

Date of next meeting

Thursday 17th May 2018.