Minutes 2010-06-08
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Wikimedia UK Board Meeting Minutes Tuesday 8 June 2010, 7.30-10.30pm BST Via Skype
Present: Andrew Turvey (AT; chair), Michael Peel (MP; minutes), Thomas Dalton (TD), Joseph Seddon (JS).
Apologies for absence
Steve Virgin (SV) sends his apologies.
Approval of minutes: 2010-05-04
The minutes were approved unanimously.
Email decisions
Toolserver Association - agreed by email to participate. €5k contribution plus share of working group costs.
Backstage pass lunch budget increased to £150.
Reports
Chair (Andrew Turvey)
Andrew's report was noted.
BLW prizes - deliberation coming along. Seddon to get in touch with Durova to make sure that she can still participate.
Charity Commission response - approach
Response was circulated to the board. Suggestion is to have a meeting with the lawyers to discuss the way forward.
Business cards: MP wasn't happy with quality of previous cards; Andrew has found a new supplier, will check with Mike and then order.
Secretary (Mike Peel)
Mike's report was noted.
Featured article prize blog post approved. MP to put blog post live.
MP to approach individuals to represent Wikimedia UK at the Guardian Activate summit
MP asked the board to respond to his email on Insight Radio.
The BLW evaluation email was approved; MP to send this out.
Backstage Pass event went well; results page speaks for itself.
Treasurer (Thomas Dalton)
Tango's report was noted.
Tango put forward a resolution on changing the signatories for the bank account. The resolution was approved unanimously.
Tango provided an updated job description. Everyone was happy with this.
Auditing of the accounts is on hold whilst Tango familiarizes himself with them. Andrew to chase the auditor for details of what he needs to carry out the audit.
Andrew has had an invoice from the lawyers that needs adding in as an accrual.
Fundraising Summit: went very well. Main thing to improve on was the availability of information beforehand. Main disappointment was the low number of chapter attendees. Partly due to the dates of the meeting? Oral feedback from the Foundation: very happy; venue was thought to be the best of any Wikimedia meeting.
Steve had positive feedback from those attending on Friday eve. Negative was the arguments during the preparation for the meeting.
Contacts in Bristol eager to do something else there in the future. Possibilities are chapters meeting, or next year's fundraising meeting. Need to find out the cost breakdown for the chapters meeting from WMDE, and find out what would happen with travel funds for other chapters. Another big expense is catering.
Need to chase up the report from the spending of the travel support that we provided for the last chapters meeting.
ACTION: TD to contact Pavel to ask for a report on how our money was spent; what the overall cost breakdown for the event was; and what plans exist at the moment for the next chapters meeting.
Chapters meeting is co-located with the developer's meeting and WMF board meeting. A lot of developers are in Germany (with a few in the UK), hence need to evaluate whether both events could be held in the UK or whether they would have to be split.
Interested in hosting the event in principle, but concerned about the financial viability.
If we do not host the chapters meeting, then there was broad support for hosting next year's fundraising meeting.
JS: should think about holding our AGM and a UK Wikimedia conference. Should make sure that the AGM and the chapters meeting are seperated by around a month (either side).
Steve
Approached the BBC about having a wikipedian in residence; this was turned down.
Steve and Rand talked to Arkive, which is progressing well.
JS - Seddon
Attended backstage pass. Also attended JISC event, being led by Liam, which went well. Good base to go from that to GLAM-WIKI.
GLAM-WIKI: spoke to BM about them hosting the event. Interested, but wants to wait for the wikipedian in residence to come to an end first. Going to provisionally book dates, get catering details, etc. Also spoke to Jane Finnis of culture24; will look into other possible venues, e.g. Tate Modern, and also funding. culture24 would be happy to host anyone hired for the GLAM-WIKI organization if we did that.
JS has been provisionally invited to speak to the Flemish parliament in Brussels about Wikimedia. Would be no expense to us aside from travel within the UK. AT suggests getting in touch with WMNL.
AT/TD/SV - Role descriptions
Steve's role description given in his report.
TD suggests writing a general description of the responsibilites of board members; the role descriptions for individual positions would then be on top of that.
Formal officers should have a full role description; others are more flexible.
ACTION: MP to relocate the role descriptions to a more suitable location once all are finalized.
AT's role description is pending; AT to email it around.
Staff
Office Administrator
Job description
Andrew put forward a potential description. Focus is on administration. Discussion focused on changes to the description, which were implemented on the wiki page.
Broadly happy with the person working 8-12 hours, for the duration of around a year, with flexibility for additional hours.
Post via PO box. Phone should not be a public number; should be used for contacting companies, and being the contact number for related purchases etc.
Recruitment approach - Agency or self-advertised?
Agency easier way to find someone, and will likely be higher quality. More certain of finding someone. Negative is cost; typically can be 30% of an annual salary for a full-time job, and might be higher for a short-term job. Agencies know what they are doing when hiring. Need to find the actual cost.
Payment approach - Payroll, invoice or agency?
ACTION: AT to ask the foundation (via Sue) for advice on hiring low-level staff and writing job descriptions.
Payment approach subject to costs.
Agency: any more than £1k seen as too much.
ACTION: AT to approach some agencies to find out the costs.
Interviews - two interviews, one in person, AT+MP?
Two interviews: one over the phone, one in person. Broadly happy with this.
ACTION: All to work on job description on the wiki.
Other staff
GLAM-WIKI
Fundraiser
Developer
Using office manager position as a process to learn the ropes. Would be hiring people to work on the projects, out of the project budgets.
GLAM-WIKI: worth head-hunting Liam for this? Caveat with work permits. Potentially might start in August (or mid-July), with event happening in November. Should have a process where we consider different candidates; should get quotes from professional organizers. Could split the role: event organizer, and supporting the event.
ACTION: MP to investigate hiring someone to organize the GLAM-WIKI event
Microgrants
MP has put forward a proposal on the wiki.
Want to restrict this to just members (but making it obvious that people can join up easily).
UK-related activities preferred/prioritized. Case-by-case decision.
2 board members: Tango and MP. Delegated budget. Formal resolution creating a committee.
Method of submission should be via the wiki, however email applications are also accepted and will be posted to the wiki anonymously.
Available at all times, but pushed (via blog etc.) every 3 months. Approvers should spread out the spending of the money.
ACTION: TD to write resolution to form the committee, to be approved by email. ACTION: MP to flesh out the webpage for the process.
Advisory Board/Group
Left to the next meeting. Possibly too early to have an advisory board.
Any Other Business
MP raised two items. Format of meeting: length and timing has been going well, and is more efficient. More decision making by email. Skype preferred to IRC. Need to move some of the email discussions onto the wiki, or use the public mailing list, but being careful not to flood the mailing list.
Skype headsets: worth buying headsets for board members to improve the quality of the conference calls? Supported. Capped at £20 each.
ACTION: AT and TD prepare a report, for email approval and to approach the Foundation to extend the grant.
Date, time and content of next meeting
Proposed: Tuesday 6 July 2010, 7.30-10.30pm
Not adopted due to Wikimania. Instead going for 29th June, 7.30pm-10.30pm. Following would be 20 July, 10 August.
Next in person board meeting? Summer or Autumn? Do an afternoon board meeting, so that people can travel each side. London is central location. Either July or August; then would be November for the next meeting.
Agenda should ideally be up 2 weeks before the meeting; reports and proposals up 1 week before the meeting. Flexibility to modify the agenda should remain.