Minutes 2010-05-04
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Wikimedia UK Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday 4 May 2010, 7.30-10.30pm BST Via Skype
Attendees: Andrew Turvey (AT; chair), Michael Peel (MP; minutes), Thomas Dalton (TD) Steve Virgin (SV), Joseph Seddon (JS)
Apologies for absence
None
Approval of minutes: 2010-04-24a and AGM (MP) - 7:45
Minutes of both 2010 and 2009 AGM should be approved at the next AGM.
Minutes from 24 April 2010 were approved.
Vision / Job Descriptions
Andrew (AT) - 8:00
Text sent around by email (4 May 2010).
Focus is relationship between individual board members; then board and chapter members; chapter and rest of Wikimedia community; Wikimedia and open source generally; Wikimedia and the public.
ACTION: AT & MP to talk offline about communications strategy.
ACTION: MP to put AT's email on to the wiki along with the minutes.
Meetings: AT doesn't want them to be too long or unnecessarily frequent; focus on efficiency. Informal discussions should happen first, then more organized discussion and decisions at the meetings. At the end of meetings, actions to be gone over so that everyone is clear on what they have agreed to.
AT: Need to trust members more, and delegate things better. JS: need to make sure that members doing things have an understanding of how things are done with Wikimedia. AT: clarified that he was referring to board members. MP: sharing what a board member is doing between board members is useful in case suggestions can be made / changes need to be made to approach. JS: common sense should be applied.
ACTION: AT to send around a more concise job description / responsibilities list for his job/role. (here)
Mike (MP) - 8:15
Ran through email; to be put online.
Main aims: events/initiatives, and improving press coverage and mood.
Companies house update: leave with Andrew.
Staff: to be discussed next time; depends on the level of management that would be needed as to who would be best suited to manage them.
Tom (TD) - 8:30
Send around by email.
Accounts, expenses and fundraising. Involvement with setting budgets for initiatives. Also handling membership.
Membership application: previously suggested that approvals should be delegated to the treasurer; however this is not allowed by the Articles (2.2b). Can't be delegated to a single person, but can be delegated to two or more directors. Should continue to be approved by email by the board.
Would be useful for the board to hear the balance of the bank account, and the amount raised & spent since the last board meeting. To be included on TD's report.
Annual accounts need to be prepared soon. Current accounts are £40 off.
Two resolutions: approving continuing the bank account with the co-op, and the financial transactions. Approved unanimously; AT, MP and TD have agreed to the financial transactions undertaking.
Cheques: having a board member process them is time consuming and may not be worth the time, but having an office manager take on the role would work. Hence continue accepting them.
TD is also interested in liaising with WMF, and helping with the Wikimania bid. Will volunteer for things as and when they come up if he has the time.
ACTION: TD to write an amended job description based on the above.
Seddon (JS) - 8:45
GLAM side of things; particularly GLAM-WIKI, but also cultural things more generally. Want to strengthen relationship with the broader free culture movement within the UK. Also membership participation within the chapter.
Available time will vary between having lots, and having nothing. Hence can't offer regular commitments, but can dedicate large amounts of time during free periods.
MP: suggested having another board member cc'd in important communications so that during periods when one board member is unavailable, the backup person can pick up and carry things on.
AT: general policy, make sure that whenever someone is doing something, another should also be involved.
GLAM-WIKI: AT: something that can have a major impact on the chapter's activities as a whole; it's a big thing for one person to organize. Better to have someone else helping with that. Mike to assist. Planning wiki exists, with a number of people having access to it. Currently a closed wiki during the early planning stages; content can be moved onto the public wiki later on. Also some content that can't be made public (e.g. contact details), which is best kept on a private wiki where a select group can access it.
Key thing: get Seddon involved as much as possible when he is available.
Interested in a 'free culture hack day' happening; day for developers to get together and write open source code.
Steve (SV) - 9:00
Role primarily as a door-opener; almost a 'business developer'. Perhaps schools, education, possibly focusing around Bristol. Still talking to museums, etc. as appropriate - working with other board members rather than leading.
'Bristol hub' - developing a group of people that could help with Bristol content.
AT: would help SV to get more involved with the Wikimedia community. Possibly organizing Wikimeets - SV agreed that would be part of the larger objective.
'Bristol Loves Wikipedia' - either as part of Britain Loves Wikipedia, or Wiki Takes The World, etc.
The existence of WikiProject Bristol, The Eighth Annual Plone Conference and [1] were pointed out. Also [2]
ACTION: AT to send SV notes from telephone conversation about SV's role. ACTION: SV to write role description.
Overall chapter - 9:15
Big thing: need to get more members involved.
Microgrants: two members that have plans already: Zeyi wanting help funding advertising; Brian wanting to set up something with Wikinews. AT interested in putting it together, and advertising. TD also interested in helping, as part of his role as treasurer. MP interested in helping in an advisory role.
ACTION: AT, TD, MP to put together details for microgrants process for next meeting.
JS: should be getting experts from outside the chapter involved in what we do. e.g. we want to do things in education, but none of us are teachers. Should seek out people that support what we do and can help. TD: exactly what the advisory board is about. MP: advisory board is about advising; also want people that are active in helping do things. e.g. press coverage: get a PR company involved. AT/JS: general approach, with everything we do then we should be looking for this sort of thing.
AT: Advisory board: a lot of people at OKCon were on OKF's advisory board. Good way of getting people involved in what the chapter does. JS: Conversation to have outside of meeting.
ACTION: JS, AT to draw up a proposal/plan for an advisory board. Need to have a clear idea of how the advisory board will be used.
SV: physical, or virtual presence advisory board? All: Probably mostly the latter. AT: Essentially 'on call'; have a relationship with them already, so can approach them with appropriate requests/questions.
Fundraising Conference - update & final preparations (TD) - 9:45
Organization: TD, SV think everything is in hand.
Not discussed WMUK role in the chapter. TD attending; SV doing organizational things and not attending. AT can probably attend Friday, JS can probably attend Saturday.
Some chapters not attending due to scheduling conflicts. Currently 14 people signed up. Expected up to 20.
TD: To send around an email giving 48 hours for remaining participants to sign up, due to room logistics.
Budget: cost for WMUK? Cost for our people getting to Bristol. Possibly small amount of money to have a minibus taxi for Friday - to/from venue - in addition to Steve with a car. Allocate £100 for taxi?. Identity badges; marker pens, notepaper (from HP).
£200 for combination taxi/petty cash. Cash withdrawl before; receipts for expenditures; remaining cash deposited back. Approved by all.
Also travel expenses approved.
Schedule: supposed to be collaborative, but will probably end up being drawn up by TD and Rand Montoya. To be printed out for the meeting. Also to be discussed at the end of the Friday.
JS: Air travel worries: suggest that Tango gets in touch with participants to find out which airports they will be landing at and taking off from, and where people are staying.
ACTION: TD To send around an email giving 48 hours for remaining participants to sign up, due to room logistics. Also to ask for airports and locations, due to volcano worries. Recommend getting travel insurance.
What happens if people are trapped due to volcano? If the airline flies within the EU, then hotel has to put people up in a hotel, even without travel insurance.
To be discussed by email, and brought to the next meeting.
Reports (and actions) 10:15
AT: Suggests that these should be optional. MP: important for ordering thoughts on what has been done, and for recording. TD: reporting to the board is an important bit of the roll. MP, TD, SV, JS would likely do one. SV suggests "no obligation to do a full report"
Actions: started off having actions included in the minutes, then they were moved to the reports. AT suggests moving them back to the minutes so that they are organized into topics. TD points out disadvantage that the actions might not be for the next meeting, which reduces sense in linking them with the last meeting. MP finds it useful to have a list of actions in the report to know what needs to be done. Hence keep them by person in the reports.
Chair (Andrew Turvey)
The Chair's report was noted.
Ongoing actions:
- TD, AT, MP: Update bank account signatories a/w TD
Waiting for TD.
- Order new business cards for AT, MP, TD, SV, plus general information cards
Want to find a different provider.
Secretary (Mike Peel)
The Secretary's report was noted.
New mobile phone: £50. Approved.
Web hosting costs: would like in the future for WMUK to help cover some of these. MP to come back to the board at some point in the future with a proposal. Proposal should also include prices for other hosting companies for comparison to justify costs.
Action on MP: change Steve's emails to mediafocusuk rather than blueyonder (discussed earlier in meeting)
Treasurer (Thomas Dalton)
Nothing not already covered in the meeting. (Actions in Treasurer's Report)
Steve
Steve's report was noted.
Bulldog: actually Bloodhound. Steve gave a general description. Plan is to have another meeting - SV plus one other meeting them near their base, particularly with their webmaster and marketing company, to see if a content donation can happen. TD: need to know more about what content might come out of this. SV to send an email around about this.
BBC: email sent around. The possibility of suggesting a Wikipedian in Residence was discussed. Would need BBC's agreement, and a person willing to do it, and be willing to fund it. Board are willing to fund such a thing. Possibly could be done as an internship, along the lines of WMNY's? Steve to progress.
Arkive: MP put together a sample page. SV will be getting back with them.
Seddon
Seddon's report was noted.
Discussion points:
Generic WMUK cards for LW?
- MP asked whether business cards with a name on it should be done.
- Business cards; general cards with name and contact details on them should be covered by the chapter. If extra fanciness is wanted, then the board member should pay for that. All happy with this.
- Also happy to do this for Liam. JS and AT to share details offline.
Travel support for members to Backstage Pass
- JS personally thinks we should pay.
- MP: could fall under microgrants.
- Support? JS, TD, MP yes. SV abstain. Cap at £300 (SV happier). JS and TD to implement.
ACTION: JS to arrange access to GLAM-PLAN wiki for board members that don't have it.
Backstage pass:
- Concern shared that the event is not WMUK members only; not possible to restrict it as Liam is organizing it.
- Anyone with feedback should pass it on to Liam.
Any Other Business
- Press release on fundraiser - broad approval by email. SV to push forward. Still to be run past the Foundation.
Date, time and content of next meeting
Tu 8 Jun 2010, 7.30pm, to focus on Staff