Report of the Board Camp conducted at Bangalore on 20, 21 & 22 September 2014 Dear members and other concerned friends, A Board Camp (a face to face meeting of the members of the Executive Committee along with several formal and informal meetings with other stakeholders of WMIN) was conducted at the office of CIS, Indira Nagar, Bangalore on 20th, 21st and 22nd of September. A brief description of the schedule of the camp is given below: 20/09/2014 9:00 15:30 Deliberations and discussions on WMIN’s state of affairs, immediate and midterm future plans and appointment of a new Program Director (PD). 20/09/2014 15:30 17:00 Consultation with Mr. MN Rao, the Legal and financial expert consultant, on various aspects such as rules and regulations on the membership eligibility, compliance on AGM scheduling and election rules as per the Government law and the Chapter’s Memorandum of Association, validation of the legal compliance of all actions performed by the EC during the previous several weeks etc. 20/09/2014 17:00 19:00 Meeting with the Election Committee. The EC and Election Committee deliberated and exchanged views on the election procedure and decided on a tentative schedule for the Election / AGM date. 20/09/2014 19:30 21:00 Informal dinner meetup and discussions with former WMIN EC members, Executive Manager Sowmyan Tirumurthy and the new Program Director Designate (Ravishankar Ayyakannu) on the formation of an Advisory Committee to the board. From among the former EC members, Arjuna Rao Chavala and Naveen Francis participated in this meet. 21/09/2014 10:00 13:30 Board meeting, passing resolutions on various chapter affairs and determining AGM date. 21/09/2014 13:30 16:00 Community Meet-up. The EC and the new PD met some of the community members from Bangalore. 21/09/2014 16:00 21:00 Discussions on Budgets, FDC and other financial affairs, program planning 22/09/2014 09:30 13:00 Bank documentations and visit to the branch for transfer of authority signatures. Major decisions taken and policy stands evolved during the Board Camp: 1. To the extent and degrees possible, the WMIN will attempt to publish all its procedures, minutes of the meetings, resolutions and such other information to the public through appropriate channels such as its members wiki, members mail list, public wiki, blogs, relevant mail lists and other media. Matters involving constraints of disclosure due to Government or company law, privacy and financial or commercial implications may be excluded from such public presentation. 1. WMIN will release an extraordinary circular clarifying the steps it undertook in restructuring the EC after some of its original EC members had resigned abruptly. 2. The AGM is to be held tentatively on 23th November 2014. This will be finalized after consultation with the Election Committee so as to also conduct the Elections simultaneously. The dates will be announced sufficiently in advance so that Election Committee will be able to process all stipulated stages of the election process with adequate time. 3. The names of all members (as reported in the application forms) will be enlisted on the chapter’s public wiki along with their membership ID numbers and location (city, district or state of residence). 4. As per the bye-law (Article V Section 2), if a member fails to pay the annual subscription fees even after the expiry of a three month grace period, the membership will cease to be effective. However, on paying the defaulted arrears of annual fee, the membership will be reinstated to its original status immediately. After obtaining the expert advice and the interpretation by the legal consultant, EC decided to establish and follow that such renewals shall not be treated as fresh memberships. The membership in such cases will be in full effect as soon as the payments are realized within the bank accounts of the chapter. However, in compliance with the election rules and requirements, such members can tender their vote in a general election only after the stipulated three months have passed from the date the membership has been restored. Notwithstanding the above, in order to comply with Section 4 of Article V, members who have elapsed their membership for more than 12 months from the beginning of the fiscal year, shall have to apply for a fresh membership. 5. Due to legal and technical reasons, there had been a delay in the completion of the annual financial audit report and the subsequent clearing and approval of the same from the Government. This resulted in a need of postponing the AGM than it is scheduled normally. The EC decided to formally approach the Registrar of Societies and inquire the possibility of rescheduling the AGM to a later date. [Update: Subsequently, as per the instructions by the registrar of societies, a formal request has been submitted to the registrar which shall comply with the necessary legal requirements for conducting the AGM and elections anytime before 31st of December 2014.] 6. The EC also decided to make the membership application process easier and user-friendly by adapting to better technical means. This may include the ability for a new applicant to fill up the form online and then create a print-out. The membership-renewal process may totally bypass the need of any physical forms. Instead, members should be able to update any changes in their data via online forms and submit the same along with electronic fund transfer. The EC also corroborated the possibilities for multiple-year memberships up to 3 to 5 years. 7. The EC also decided to accelerate the process for establishing standard documentations on Conflict of Interest, Terms & conditions for staff, Code of conduct for various positions, travel and incidental allowances policy etc. The EC initiated the basic steps to form a framework for the Advisory Committee. These tasks will be pursued upon so that the upcoming Annual General Body can ratify the same and put them into regular practice. Regards, Jayanta Nath President Wikimedia India Chapter The PDF copy you could found at http://wiki.wikimedia.in/images/a/ab/Report_of_the_Board_Camp_conducted_at_…