Talk:Meetings/2009-04-26/Agenda

Some thoughts

This is starting to look scary already... The important part is the administration section, which will need to be dealt with at this meeting; fundraising, PR and programmes could be discussed at later meetings if necessary due to time constraints, although it would obviously be better and quicker to discuss them face to face.

"Resolution to notify Companies House of new board members and officers" I think is unnecessary - this is a legal requirement, and will need to be done by the company secretary, so why do a resolution about it?

More coming over time... Mike Peel 06:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Good to start a discussion over this! I've added an early item - approval of the Agenda! It will be up to the new Board to decide what to discuss at the first meeting, and I wouldn't want to fetter that - so I'd take all of this as suggestions. I've suggested a few changes:

1. Combined noting election, vote of thanks, notifying CoHo together
2. I think we need to discuss roles before we elect Secretary, Treasurer at least - probably make sense to discuss all roles then elect
3. Some items should be decided over more than one meeting (e.g. Reserves policy) to allow some time to think, consider and allow community to input. I've changed these from "Discussion and resolution" to just discuss
4. I don't see the need to discuss WMF Fundraising drive at this stage - too early
5. Also I think 2010 AGM/UK Wikimedia Conference is too early to discuss AndrewRT 11:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I told you it would be scary! Some parts can be deferred if it's getting late. Notifying CoHo probably doesn't require a resolution, you're right, I wasn't sure about that so decided to err on the side of caution and include it. Secretary is a requirement (under our Articles, but not in law), Treasurer is not. The new board should be given the option to not have a treasurer if they want (they would be insane to do so, of course). I don't know about the rest of the candidates, but I would like to know what positions are on offer before deciding what to stand for (although, I intend to run for Chair, which I think really does need to be done straight away), so I would leave all elections other than chair until after the discussion. Depending on how frequently we decide to have meetings, it might be a good idea to resolve some things by written resolution if people aren't ready to vote during the meeting (delegate one person to receive any comments over the next week, amend the resolution if they aren't likely to be controversial and propose it, or otherwise decide to leave it until the next meeting) - the agenda can call that "discussion", I suppose, so I would support that change. I really think we should start talking about the important things ASAP. The Fundraising drive isn't really that far away and we need to negotiate with WMF about how they will direct donations to us (other chapters have been less than satisfied in the past with the prominence of links), what the WMF requires of us with regards to safeguards, etc., (that part should be easy enough - there are standard practices for these things that we can follow), what we'll spend the 50% that needs to be mutually agreed on, etc., etc.. That all takes time. Organising a conference also takes time and I think someone should be assigned the task of starting the planning for that ASAP. I don't intend these discussions to be very detailed, primarily they will be actioning someone to start work on them (perhaps just putting together a proposal for the board to approve at a future meeting, rather than actually doing anything yet). --Tango 14:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just gone through and undone a load of changes - there is no reason for the agenda not to be as explicit as possible. It makes it easier to work through if everyone knows precisely what is happening at each stage. It also makes it easier for the chair to keep the meeting to time if they know what needs to happen in each item. --Tango 14:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

It's only scary if we try to do too much, too soon. I don't want to rein in your enthusiasm but I think this agenda is too long for an initial meeting - Board members are all volunteers remember and there is a danger of provoking burn-out and unhappiness among them which we all need to be on guard against. Trying to do too much can be counter-productive.AndrewRT 13:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I understand your concerns, but all these things need to be discussed sometime. They might as well be discussion in person - I find in person meetings much quicker. There is nothing stopping the board adjourning the meeting early and deferring the other items to later IRC meetings if people need to leave to catch trains. The current agenda looks to me like around 2 to 2.5 hours worth of stuff - quite short compared to most of meetings of the current board. Knowing our board meetings, though, it might be worth allowing 3 hours! Would it help if I went through added guidelines for how long each item should take? --Tango 15:57, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Timings would be very useful - yes please! I agree completely that in person meetings will be quicker than IRC but I'm not sure we could cover all this in just 2 hours. AndrewRT 17:18, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Ok, timing added. Total time was a little more than my initial estimate: 2hrs 45 min 50 sec. Some of the times I've suggested may appear very short, but I don't expect any major conclusions from many of the discussions - I expect a lot of them will involve little more than choosing someone to do whatever needs to be done before a full discussion can happen (doing some research, putting together a proposal, that sort of thing - my hope is that the new board will delegate to individual members rather than discussing everything in committee rather more than the current one has - the full board only really needs to be involved in the final decision). --Tango 18:58, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reason the booking is only until 6:30? Can't we extend it? I think it's a waste of one of the rare opportunities we get for face-to-face meetings if we try and cut it down to 2 hours when there is more we could usefully do. The trademark/chapters agreement can probably be removed - apparently we won't have the draft by then, so nothing to discuss. --Tango 22:29, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Might be able to extend or adjourn elsewhere. I think 2 hours will probably be enough - remember we'll just have had a long AGM so probably wont feel like a longer meeting! on "Discussion regarding Reserve Policy" - you referred to Appendix A - were you going to propose something? AndrewRT 22:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Nobody said being a board member was supposed to be easy - if we're there, we might as well make the most of it, regardless of what we feel like. Remember, it will the first day on the job - nobody can claim burnout that early! I had a detailed reserve policy worked out a while ago, I'll try and remember it (I can remember the key points, at least). --Tango 22:40, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Bear in mind that, at least for any current board members that continue (and probably also the members), the AGM will be a lot of work. Once we get to the end of it, we'll be tired - and having a very long board meeting afterwards would be exhausting. Being very tired means that the outcomes might not be the best possible, which wouldn't be good. (I'm sure they'd still be very good, but perhaps not excellent.)

It's probably going to be a case of playing it by ear on the day - see how far we get through the agenda and then stop. It might be worth adding short (5 minute) breaks in appropriate places to break the work up, give people a chance to grab a drink and think things through. Mike Peel 06:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. I'd rather have a short, productive meeting than a long winded meeting that discusses things that could be deferred to the next meeting - when some of us haven't travelled for hours to attend a meeting that has lasted a few hours =D --Skenmy 06:57, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

Breaks are a good idea. In between each of the major sections, perhaps? That would be two breaks of 5 mins each, I think that is probably enough. However, I'm thinking dividing things into sections like that might not be the best idea - perhaps we should do thing in order of priority so we can more easily stop half way through the agenda if people are falling asleep. --Tango 13:17, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I have put a proposed Reserves Policy here - any comments are welcome. If we get it ironed out now, the board meeting will be quicker! --Tango 23:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

I suggest we cut from 6.8 to 7.5 inclusive and delay them for the next meeting. --Cfp 10:03, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Of the items on the agenda at the moment, those are the logical ones to delay. 6.10 it would be good to discuss in person, though, and 7.1 would only really make sense very close to the AGM so probably wouldn't be worth discussing at a later meeting. Mike Peel 11:21, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. We should try and do as much as possible in this first meeting. We can decide to defer things on the day if it is starting to get late. 6.8 shouldn't take too long (I'm not expecting agreement in this meeting, just a general discussion then action someone to make any amendments based on that discussion and present it to the next meeting), 6.9 can probably be removed since the draft isn't available to discuss, 6.10 needs to be discussed in the first meeting otherwise we won't know when to have a second meeting, 7.1 needs to be discussed immeadiately after the AGM otherwise we miss an opportunity for some good PR. 7.2 could be made very short - just action someone to put together a proposal for discussion at a later meeting. We should discuss 7.3 ASAP so we can start getting some money. 7.4 can be very short, just action someone to open a dialogue with WMF and find out how WMF expects everything to work so we know what to discuss in a future meeting. I've moved the grants part of 7.3 back to programmes since it's the actual programmes that need to be discussed at this stage, I think the current board have done all the discussion required on the grants themselves (unless the WMF has any problems with them). We should definitely talk about programmes a bit, since that is the whole point of the charity - the initial board was always intended to concentrate mostly on admin, but we shouldn't allow the new board to do the same. I've just realised there is something missing from the admin section: registration with CC. That needs to be discussed briefly, at least actioning someone to properly investigate the process and work out what we need to do before we can register, what information we will require, etc. I'll add it in. --Tango 13:07, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

(I've gone ahead and removed the trademarks bit - it meant I didn't have to adjust the timing to add in the CC bit! --Tango 13:09, 22 April 2009 (UTC))

Given there's disagreement over whether some of these items should be included, I've marked them in italics. I've also added a header to the agenda to say this is suggested only and will be finalised at the meeting. AndrewRT 22:50, 22 April 2009 (UTC)