Reports 4Oct14

Govcom report

There has been one Govcom meeting this quarter, the minutes of which can be found here.

Publication of Expenses

Our new system of publishing expenses is working as requested.

Governance audit

We received three tenders for the governance audit and the committee has chosen the tender from Rosie Chapman. Rosie will be interviewing the staff and the board, and some members of the WMF.

Relationship with volunteers

A volunteer working group with KTC, CC and Chris McKenna made little progress, partly because of Wikimania. With KTC away on leave, a new group has been constructed with Fabian Tompsett and Carol Chapman. They are already making positive progress.

Non-board committees

A proposed new non-board committee charter, currently on the public wiki for discussion at Non-board committees, has not been significantly commented on. This has to be part of our much larger volunteer-engagement plans, and can't be considered in isolation.

Updating the charity's Articles of Association

We proposed to undertake a comprehensive review of the Articles over the next year, with a view to presenting amendments to the members at the next AGM.

Updating the Scheme of Delegation to the Chief Executive

We now have, thanks to KW, a table which sets out examples of what is reserved for the board, and what is delegated. This is not a binding document, but simply guidance. Review of the CE’s job description and the Scheme of Delegation is still not complete.

Transparency

The committee agreed to an eval score for this quarter of 4/5.

Wording: This quarter, we ensured that our published expenses lists are clearly defined and are regularly updated, we defined formal new transparency commitments, we published an explanatory table of Matters reserved for the Board and delegated to the Chief Executive, we published old in camera resolutions of the board, and we ensured that new in camera resolutions are published as soon as possible, in redacted form if need be. Against that, the costs of the Berlin conference were not reported promptly and openly, as they should have been.

Other points considered, but not contributing to the score

• A member objected to the lack of live streaming at the AGM. The committee considers the decision of the chair on the day not to live stream to be correct since (1) no member had asked for it in advance, and it has not been done before, and (2) live streaming could potentially have breached our 'safe space' policy.
• Some members indicated they were not happy with consultation on our new website pages (though a greater number expressed approval).

Possible co-option of new trustee

With the agreement of the board, Govcom invited Gill Hamilton to attend the October board meeting with a view to her possible co-option as a replacement for Padmini Ray Marry, who stepped down from the board on September 18th.

Membership application and renewal procedures, and rules

We need better written procedures for membership, and better renewal processes. MM has agreed to produce a short paper for the board suggesting a possible process (to be done).

The committee discussed email renewals and the quality of the reminder emails that were being sent out – Govcom was keen to impress that the standard of emails to members regarding renewals needs to improve significantly.

Annual review of trustees (incl Chair)

The annual trustee review will be bundled into the survey being carried out by Rosie Chapman. Appraisal of the chair will be done by Govcom (in MM's absence).

Govcom membership

As there are no skill shortages on the committee, it is not at present considered necessary to appoint an observer. We consider it wholly inappropriate to have observers take on a roll of “scrutineer” on such a committee.

Michael Maggs Chair