Minutes 2018-09-14

Board Minutes 14th September 2018

Held at West Dean College, Chichester on Friday 14 September 2018 starting at 4.15pm.

Housekeeping

Present

Trustees present: Josie Fraser (chair), Carol Campbell, Michael Maggs, Greyham Dawes, Lorna Campbell, Jordan Landes, Doug Taylor, Kate West, Attending: Sandy Balfour, Daria Cybulska, Marnie Woodford, Jane Carlin

Apologies

Apologies: Nick Poole

Declarations of interest

None.

Review and Approval of minutes of the previous meeting

The minutes of the previous meeting were reviewed. One change was proposed and agreed: that the record (Board Minutes, 14 June 2018, Item 7) reflect that the Board did not wish Wales to be entered separately into the Wiki Loves Monuments competition. Action: SB to amend.

Matters arising

The action log (14.6.18) was reviewed. All items had been completed except that the MoU with the Wales User Group had not been signed. SB reported that discussions were at an advanced stage; WMUK had been informed the final draft agreement was being reviewed by the User Group. No date had been set. JF requested that a signature date be set as soon as possible and that the board be informed. Action: SB to agree date and inform board.

Reports

CEO quarterly report

SB spoke to his written report. He note the staff changes and thanked Agnes Bruszik and welcomed back Davina Johnson and Karla Marte, and congratulated Hannah Evans and Sara Thomas on completing their probations. He drew the board’s attention to the bid submitted, in collaboration with UCL, to the London Mayor’s Digital Talent Fund. Trustees expressed concern regarding the scale of the project and how best to involve volunteers in a service delivery contract. It was agreed that SB would submit the full bid and trustees would comment as they saw fit. Action: SB to circulate; trustees to comment. He reported that filings at Companies House and the Charity Commission were up to date, and that WMUK was now registered as a charity by the Scottish regulator.

Quarterly Performance Report

DC spoke to her written report.

She noted the importance of the Celtic Knot and WMUK’s leadership role in work with minority languages. There are several other important and successful programme initiatives, particularly those in Scotland and the collaboration with Amnesty International.

She reported that the UK chapter also leads in its understanding of and work in education. She described some of the challenges of working with smaller organisations.

FDC progress report

DC also spoke to the report to the Foundation.

She was pleased that WMUK is meeting or exceeding its targets in all programme areas.

Trustees thanked Daria for the work and congratulated the team. There were two housekeeping points:

CC noted that the Reporting Template was unreadable for partially sighted people.

JF noted that licenses on photographs and other media were not systematically included and that this must be done, even - or especially - when the material is available on WikiCommons

Wikimania report back (DC, JF, KW,) including Global Wikimedia context

JF, KW and DC spoke about Wikimania and the general direction of the movement. Key points include:

• Knowledge Equity and Knowledge as a Service are the buzzwords in the build up to 2030.
• WMUK is recognised as having specific expertise in working with minority languages and in creating and managing Wikimedia in Residence programmers.
• JF noted that globalisation and decentralisation are strong themes in the movement thinking. She had spent time with other chapter chairs, and while the UK’s expertise is recognised, there is always a need for innovation and change. She was delighted Jimmy Wales praised the work of WMUK in Wales.
• DC noted that the movement strategy consultation is deep and long-term. It involves 9 working groups. She is currently the only UK representative and has a place on the Resource Allocation working group. It was requested that a full list of working groups be distributed.

The board expressed concern that WMUK should be part of the broader discussion and asked how volunteers could be more involved in the consultation and policy formulation. Action: SB to circulate the link to the Strategy Working Group Meta.

Discussion item (4.40 pm)

International Strategy and policy questions

The board were updated on various policy initiatives in which WMUK is involved.

SB had written to all UK MEPs twice (in July and September) regarding the movement’s opposition to Articles 11 and 13 of the proposed EU Directive on Copyright. Although the movement’s lobby filed, and the EU Parliament passed the proposal on 12 September 2018, the battle was not lost. Lobbying would continue and he was confident that the tone of our interventions meant that MEPs took WMUK seriously, and from the high response rate seemed genuinely grateful for input. He circulated a summary of the correspondence to all trustees. JF request the Dimi give a summary of ‘what it means and what’s next’ to the board. Action: SB to ask Dimi for feedback.

DC reported that WMUK had contributed to an ongoing DCMS Consultation on the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

JF reported that at her prompting LCR will be seeking a meeting with the DCMS minister and would present a series of asks. Trustees were invited to feedback on what asks these might be. Action: all trustees

SubCommittee minutes and Financial Reports (5.10pm)

Govcom August 2018

The GovCom minutes were noted. JF said she would do a further edit before they go public. Action: JF to edit.

ARC Sept 2018

Carol spoke to the ARC minutes, including the Q1 Financial Management Report and Financial Commentary.

She noted two concerns: Firstly there is not yet a B&W version of the strategic report available. During LCR’s absence there had been no fundraising and that this would in all likelihood lead to a deficit of up to £30K for the year and that the board should seek reassurance from LCR that fundraising would be a priority on her return. GD echoed this and noted that a deficit on that scale was troubling for an organisation with reserves of £200K

Organisational Technical issues: It was noted that there are some gaps in our technical capacity to deliver on our strategic goals. Recent resignations by technical people (which whom we have only an informal arrangement) had further weakened this. The board expressed its gratitude to Emmanuel for all his work and noted that the executive needed to develop an approach to meeting future technical needs. CiviCRM and GDPR: CC reported that, as reported to ARC by DJ, data deletion is continuing in compliance with GDPR.

Any Other Busines

Thanks to Greyham Dawes and Carol Campbell on their retirement from the board. Speaking for the trustees, JF thanked Carol and Greyham for the long service to WMUK and wished them all the best for the future endeavours.

The board thanked SB for standing in for LCR.