Reports 26Jul12
Below are the Board and Staff reports to the Board Meeting; see Agenda 26Jul12.
Templates for actions: {{done}} 
Done, {{cf}} 
Carried forward, {{canc}} 
Cancelled.
If something needs discussing for longer than a minute, then please add it to the Matters Arising section on the agenda.
Board
All board
- All budget owners are asked to complete the details of their items by the next board meeting.
RB
- Geovation bid for 17.5 K for Coast Path Wales - more to come. Need to find 100K ext funding to get 100K more
- Met Leighton Edward with Robin Owain - many generous offers of support. RO now on Welsh Committee. Other nice offers in progress
- Government of Gibraltar announced first Wikipedia City and bridge to Africa
- Meeting Tangier Museum and Culture
- Four training sessions done in Gibraltar
- Chepstowpedia is stalled by initial funding (RB/JD) working on it
- QRpedia meeting imminent
- Top 3 Welsh cultural bodies are to release 150 images as National trisal
- Met National Library of Wales re WIR - need to find ext. funding
- Met St Fsgans re WIR
Chief executive
2013-4 Plan.
LInk to most recent calculations based on on-wiki discussions.
Treasurer
Pension report
From Templar Finance
I have now concluded my research on Stakeholder Pensions for Wikimedia UK.
Most of the companies contacted did not wish to quote as the immediate size of the scheme (max 5) is currently rather small for a proper group pension scheme. Providers are wary of being left managing a group scheme with only three or four members. This was reflected in the difficulty that you had in finding a pension provider when you tried to do it yourself.
As explained, a proper Group Stakeholder is the way to go if possible as charges are limited under Stakeholders by government regulation. Charges are at least as important in determining the eventual outcome as investment performance (IMHO).
Scottish Widows, however, were prepared to set up the scheme and they have offered an annual management charge of only 0.82% of funds which I feel is a very attractive rate. This is on the basis that the scheme will be set up and managed electronically, saving them costs, and that it will grow over the next few years. It is also on the basis that no commission will be paid to me or my firm initially or later in connection with the scheme. We will charge you the agreed fee for setting up the scheme and subsequent administration will be carried out by Wikimedia staff that you already employ.
Other reasons for recommending Scottish Widows are as follows:
1) Ownership by Lloyds TSB and high financial strength.
2) Strong branding in Scottish Widows which normally helps to ensure high take-up.
3) Established expertise in the group pension market.
4) A variety of risk-based investment profiles with a default Balanced Approach which avoids the need for the employee to make speculative fund selections that may not ultimately be to their advantage.
5) Availability of an Ethical Fund for those that wish it. (Caveat that the performance of such funds has not always been strong due to the investment constrains imposed by the ethical filter)
Please confirm that the trustees are happy to accept this recommendation and I will submit the documentation for compliance approval. Once that has happened within the next week or so, the joining packs with all of the brochures will be issued to the employees and the scheme installed.
It will be important to try to achieve 100% take up if possible as the minimum number of members for this scheme is five, though I may be able to obtain an exception for four initially if one employee does not wish to join. As there are no compulsory employee contributions, I assume that everyone will be joining, it is hard to see why they wouldn't.
Thanks,
Stephen Gardner
Templar Financial Limited, Templar House, 46 Tredegar Road, Reading RG4 8QF.