Wikimediauk-l October 2008

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31 participants
70 discussions

Volunteer Opportunities
by Horatio Rodriguez 13 Oct '08

13 Oct '08

Hi There My name is Horatio Rodriguez, I currently live in the Scotland, UK. I have been watching a television documentary on the wikimedia foundation, & on there it states that apart from 10 people everyone else is a volunteer, that consists of maintaining and editing posts on wikipedia & various other task¹s. I am currently not working but have been in a 1st Line Incident Support Management role, and have an NQ in engineering & Computing Technology & a HNC in Engineering & Computing. I am really interested in the work that the wikimedia foundation provides and would like to ask if there would be a possibility to volunteer and help out in any way. I appreciate you time for looking over this. Kind Regards Horatio Rodriguez

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Tonight meeting
by Kwan Ting Chan 13 Oct '08

13 Oct '08

Just a reminder that meeting is happening tonight in about 30 minutes time. Agenda is on [[meta:Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Board_meetings/2008-10-13/Agenda]]. Regards, KTC -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine

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name?
by Tom Holden 13 Oct '08

13 Oct '08

I remember us having a vote on whether or not to include "limited", but I don't think we ever discussed whether we wanted "Wiki UK" or "Wiki Information Network" (to the best of my memory). Can we add this to the agenda for tonight? (For that matter: do we have an agenda? And are we all still OK for 7:30?) Tom

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Objectives Discussion Thread
by Andrew Turvey 13 Oct '08

13 Oct '08

I've added my suggestion to the meta page at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives: "The charity's objects are the promotion of education for all through assisting the vision and mission of the Wikimedia Foundation: Creating a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledgeby empowering and engaging people to collect, develop and effectively disseminate educational content under a free license or in the public domain" Might need a bit of work in terms of getting it to flow. It's very easy for us to explain how this is exclusively charitable and for the public benefit ("promotion of education" and "for all") and hence keep the Charity Commission happy. It's expressed in a way that keeps our autonomy so we are not controlled by a foreign organisation not registered with the UK Charity Commission. By explicitly referring to the vision of the WMF, we comply with ChapCom's http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requirements_for_future_chapters which state "The mission of the organisation must be in line with the mission of the Wikimedia Foundation" This leaves everything flexible, so projects that WMUK may come up with in, say, 10 years time, would not require us to rewrite the M&As. The details of what we're actually planning to do - wikimania, schools etc. shoudl also be discussed and agreed (I suggest at the AGM in January) but I suggest we leave the Mem&Arts objectives broad. Andrew

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Mem&Arts - Summary
by Mickey Conn 12 Oct '08

12 Oct '08

The board meeting on 7th October has recommended several changes to the proposed Memorandum of Association http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/MoA and Articles of Association http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/AoA. The target date for sending an agreed version of these documents to the Chapters Committee was 11th October. In order to get more feedback from the community, the board has decided to postpone this action to Monday 13th October, when the next board meeting will be held. This means that we need to work quickly to agree a final version of the documents. In particular, we want to discuss and get a consensus on the objects (about which I've posted separately), and the following clauses in the Articles of Association: # (Clause 4) Termination of Membership - What procedure, if any, should be in place for appeals from people who have had their membership terminated by decision of the board? # (Clause 7) Quorum - What should the minimum quorum for general meetings be? We hope to grow quickly, so the usual "one tenth of the total membership at the time" should soon be the one that applies, but what should the lower limit initially be? # (Clause 10) Voting - Do we need to specify voting procedures for electing Directors? Perhaps the procedure used in the recent board election? # (Clause 14) Age limits of Directors / members - Are we happy with the proposal that Directors must be 16 or over, with a majority of Directors 18 or over, and that there shall be no limit on the age of members? # (Clause 21) Delegation - Should Directors be permitted to delegate the powers to committees of non-Directors? # (Clause 27) Indemnity - So far as I can remember, Option 1B has been the only one suggested. Are we happy with this? If you have a proposal or an opinion on these, or on the changes made to the MoA and AoA during the board meeting, please put it forward now - time is of the essence! Best Wishes Mickey Conn

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Community building workshop
by Ross Gardler 09 Oct '08

09 Oct '08

Another workshop folk may be interested in is being run by OSS Watch in Oxford on Oct 20th with the title "Community Building and Open Source Development". As the title suggests it's main focus is on software development communities, but much of the community focussed stuff is appropriate to a content community. The mornings speakers come from a range of backgrounds - open source development and use in education, commercial open source development and use of open source in massive custom builds for education. Whilst the afternoon splits into two strands - development practices and management practices. For more see http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/events/2008-10-20/programme.xml Registration is free to UK HE and FE affiliates. However, if you want to come as a representative of this community just note it in the comments field of the registration form and I'll make sure you are given a place (assuming there is space of course). Ross

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OER Workshop
by Andrew Whitworth 09 Oct '08

09 Oct '08

I found this piece of news today, if any of your group are interested, this might be a nice way to meet other like-minded groups in the UK and make a name for your new chapter: http://blog.okfn.org/2008/10/09/workshop-on-finding-and-re-using-open-scien… I have a few contacts there that I might be able to introduce people to, if anybody is interested. --Andrew Whitworth

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Minutes of the Wikimedia UK v2.0 Board Meeting, 07/10/2008
by Mickey Conn 08 Oct '08

08 Oct '08

Minutes of the Wikimedia UK v2.0 Board Meeting #wikimedia-uk-board, 20:30 07/10/2008 1. Constitution Present with speaking rights: Kwan Ting Chan (KTC), Mickey Conn (MC), Tom Holden (TH), Mike Peel (MP), Andrew Turvey (AT) 2. Apologies for Absence No apologies were received. 3. Minutes of Last Meeting The minutes of the meeting of 2nd October 2008 were available to view at [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Board_meeting…]. It was agreed to correct the action under item 4 to state that the board were to propose to the mailing list to release vote tallies for the board election and proceed only if there were no objections. The minutes were otherwise unanimously approved as a true and accurate record. ACTION: MC to amend minutes of previous meeting. 4. Matters Arising 4.1. Timetable MP and AT amended the timetable, as agreed. 4.2. Release of voting information AT and MC posted to the mailing list asking whether there were any objections to releasing vote tallies for the board election. None were forthcoming. MC to request Election Committee to release vote tallies. ACTION: MC to ask Election Committee to release vote tallies. 4.3. Memorandum and Articles of Association This item was discussed under point 5, below. 4.4. CRB checks MP reported that no board members would be required by law to undertake a CRB check. He is awaiting a response to an enquiry as to whether it would be possible for the organisation to get a board member CRB checked, should it wish to. He does not believe that there is a need to. Other board members questioned whether it might be desirable to get the Membership Secretary CRB checked, if permitted, in order to show that the organisation is taking every reasonable precaution. Discussion to be resumed once a response to MP's enquiry is received. ACTION: MP to report back on response to enquiry. 4.5. Data Protection registration MP reported that the organisation will initially be exempt from registration under the Data Protection Act. Future activities might require registration; this can be revisited once the organisation has been officially set up. 4.6. Minutes circulation MC circulated minutes, as agreed. 5. Memorandum and Articles of Association 5.1 Memorandum of Association 5.1.1 Introduction * Name of the company It was proposed to include "limited" in the name of the company, although this is not required legally. If it is not included, all official correspondence from the organisation would have to mention that it is a company limited by guarantee. Two in favour, one against, two abstentions - carried. * Registered office location The registered office location was unanimously agreed as England and Wales, as this gives the greatest choice. * Charity's objectives Two possible approaches were presented: a single sentence encompassing promotion of education and the Wikimedia Foundation mission statement, or a list of eight points expanding on this [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives&ol…]. TH suggested combining the two as a third option. Various changes were made to the text. The Wikimedia Foundation could be mentioned in the objects using a phrasing such as "the advancement of education for all in particular by supporting the charitable work of the Wikimedia Foundation;" this is in line with an example given by the Charity Commission, but may not be needed. It is desirable to mention that the charity will work for the advancement of education and of heritage, and to connect the objects with the UK. The objects could mention wikis, although if so, they would need to be clear about what this means. It may be easier to include "to promote freely accessible online information repositories whose content is freely and collaboratively editable;" which gives a definition of a wiki without using the term. The board agreed that it would like the organisation to represent UK citizens and residents; it would be possible to broaden this to include anyone with a connection to the UK. It is important to distinguish between objects and powers, and to include only objects in this section. Including "undertaking any enterprise or business and generally do all such other things as may be conducive to promoting the objects of the charity" is broad but may be questionable in the eyes of the Charity Commission and may be redundant to text elsewhere in the documents. The board compiled an updated list of objectives [http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikimedia_UK_v2.0/Objectives&ol…] using a format similar to a Charity Commission example [http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/registration/exobj21.asp] but did not agree to finalise this; TH would like to further investigate using a single list of points. Further discussion is needed on the mailing list; MC to start this. This is likely to mean that the date for finalising them in the timetable, 11th October, will be missed, but they should be approved at the next board meeting, just a few days behind schedule. ACTION: MC to start discussion on mailing list to finalise objectives. 5.1.2 Powers 5.1.3 Application of property 5.1.4 Membership The board unanimously approved the text of these three sections of the Memorandum of Association. 5.2 Articles of Association (Clause 1) Interpretation AT proposed an expanded definition of "address" to permit the organisation to give notices to members via their talk pages on Wikimedia projects. Following discussion, in order to give members the greatest possible say in how they are contacted, the board unanimously decided to change the definition to: '"address" means a postal address or, for the purposes of electronic communication, a fax number, an e-mail address, a text message number or any other electronic point of contact at which the member has explicitly consented to receiving messages, in each case registered with the charity;'. (Clause 3) Classes of Membership All content with the proposed text. (Clause 4) Termination of Membership Concern was expressed at the proposed text stating that if a person appeals a termination of their membership by the board, the board would be required to hold a Special General Meeting. While no timeframe is given for holding this, and it could be held alongside an Annual General Meeting, this would lead to additional work and possible confusion. AT suggested an alternative text for point (5): "Any person whose membership is terminated as in clause 4.4 hereof, shall have the right to appeal within seven days of receiving notice of membership termination. If an appeal is received within the time, the termination shall be considered at the next general meeting of members, and may be overturned by an ordinary resolution. The member whose membership has been terminated, or the member's representative (who need not be a member of the charity) shall have the right to attend said GM, and have speaking rights on the said resolution." KTC proposed to adjourn the meeting to another time. Unanimously agreed. MC to initiate discussion on Clause 4 and the following items on the agenda: (Clause 7) Quorum, (Clause 10) Voting, (Clause 14) Age limits of Directors / members, (Clause 21) Delegation and (Clause 27) Indemnity over the mailing list. All members of the board and the community are to be asked to come to a consensus on the Memorandum and Articles of Association before the next board meeting, where the board will be voting on the version existing at the time, rather than drafting by committee. ACTION: MC to initiate discussion on remaining clauses in Articles of Association. KTC to include vote on Memorandum and Articles of Association on agenda of next meeting. 10. Date and time of next meeting The next meeting will be held on Monday 13th October at 19:30.

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Mem&Arts - Summary
by Andrew Turvey 08 Oct '08

08 Oct '08

Three minor comments on Mickey's earlier email: Mickey Conn mickey.conn at gmail.com said: > # (Clause 10) Voting > - Do we need to specify voting procedures for electing Directors? > Perhaps the procedure used in the recent board election? We will have to specify this at some stage, of course, The first question we need to decide now is what method to use: 1) Writing the procedures into the articles 2) Adopting the procedures as a Board-decided Rule per Article 28, or 3) Adopting the procedures as a Members-decided Rule per Article 28.4 4) Having them informal The key difference is that they require a different threshold to change: 1) requires a 75% vote of the members 2) requires a majority vote of the Board 3) & 4) require a majority vote of the members If we go with (1), we need to agree a form of wording. If we go with any of the others we do not have to make any changes now, but we will need to come back to this in a few weeks. > # (Clause 14) Age limits of Directors / members > - Are we happy with the proposal that Directors must be 16 or over, > with a majority of Directors 18 or over, and that there shall be no > limit on the age of members? Under the Companies Act we cannot accept directors under 16. However, we could choose to set a higher limit (say 18) if we wanted. The proviso "with a majority of Directors 18 or over" is not a legal requirement but follows from the CharityCommission guidance. > # (Clause 21) Delegation > - Should Directors be permitted to delegate the powers to committees > of non-Directors? The model Articles for a commercial company under the Companies Act 2006 allow directors to appoint a delegate, whereas the Charity Commission model articles do not allow this. Presumably they thought this was more appropriate for charities, but it is ultimately a decision for us to take. Regards, Andrew

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CRB checks
by Michael Peel 08 Oct '08

08 Oct '08

All, Please see the response to my request for information from CRB Customer Service below. I think that the key phrase is: "The CRB was established under Part V of the Police Act 1997 which made Standard and Enhanced Disclosures available for positions included in the Exceptions Order 1975 to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974." I think that this means that if we want a CRB check, it _must_ be for a category listed at http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx? page=1855 . Can anyone identify a category on that list which membership falls under? I can't spot one... Mike Begin forwarded message: > From: "CRB Customer Service" <info(a)crb.gsi.gov.uk> > Date: 8 October 2008 09:59:46 BDT > To: <criminalrecordsbureau(a)mikepeel.net> > Subject: RE: Form Submission: Enquiry:Volunteers > > The role of the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) is to assist > employers/regulatory body in making a recruitment/licensing > decision by > disclosing any relevant information recorded by the police and to > check > against the lists held by the Department for Children, Schools and > Families (DCSF) and the Department of Health (DH) of those > unsuitable to > work with/care for children and or vulnerable adults. > > The CRB was established under Part V of the Police Act 1997 which made > Standard and Enhanced Disclosures available for positions included in > the Exceptions Order 1975 to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) > 1974. Neither Part V of the Police Act 1997 nor the Exceptions Order > 1975 makes checks compulsory. However, there are other pieces of > legislation which make checks mandatory, for example it is compulsory > for childcare organisations (as defined in the Act) to undertake > checks > of the Protection of Childrens Act (PoCA) list and to establish > whether > an individual is subject to a direction under section 142 of the > Education Act 2002 for those working in regulated positions. > Furthermore, there is a statutory requirement on care providers who > are > planning to employ a care worker in a care home or through a > domiciliary > care agency to check whether that person is included in the Protection > of Vulnerable Adults (PoVA) list. > > Organisations are not penalised if they do not avail themselves of the > opportunity afforded by the Exceptions Order to ask staff to apply > for a > Disclosure. However, as mentioned above there are consequences if > employers do not ask staff to apply for a Disclosure when other > legislation requires them to do so. > > It is not enough to meet our eligibility criteria, to state that an > individual may come into contact with children or vulnerable adults. > Eligibility to apply for a Disclosure depends on the specific role a > person will perform whilst conducting their duties within an > organisation. A risk assessment should be undertaken to assess the > role > and duties they are expected to fulfil whilst carrying out their role > and Disclosure application should be made accordingly. > > Therefore, in light of the above, by using a full range of > pre-recruitment checks, the employer is ultimately best placed to > assess > whether a Standard or Enhanced Disclosure is required for a specific > role, bearing in mind their legal and other responsibilities. > > The Disclosure Access Category Codes can be found on this direct > link to > our website http://www.crb.gov.uk/Default.aspx?page=1855 and > provides an > overview of the eligible positions. > > > Kind regards > > Paul Coventry > > Criminal Records Bureau > > PO Box 110 > > Liverpool > > L3 6ZZ > > T: 0870 90 90 844 > > F: 0151 676 1730 > > Please remember the CRB call centre is open 6 days a week, 8am till > 8pm > weekdays and 10am till 5pm on Saturdays to answer all your enquiries. > > Also you may wish to take a look at our Disclosure website at > www.disclosure.gov.uk for further up to date information regarding the > CRB and the Disclosure process. > > > -----Original Message----- > From: criminalrecordsbureau(a)mikepeel.net > [mailto:criminalrecordsbureau@mikepeel.net] > Sent: 06 October 2008 8:24 PM > To: CRB Customer Service > Subject: Form Submission: Enquiry:Volunteers > > Subject: Enquiry:Volunteers > > Email Result For General Enquiry Form : > > Title : Mr > > First Name/s : Michael > > Surname : Peel > > Address : Jodrell Bank Observatory > > : > > Town/City : Macclesfield > > County : Cheshire > > Postcode : SK11 9DL > > Country : United Kingdom > > Telephone : > > Email : criminalrecordsbureau(a)mikepeel.net > > Enquiry : Volunteers > > Comments on site : Dear Sir/Madam, > > I am currently involved in the creation of a new charity to support > the > work of the Wikimedia Foundation (the foundation behind Wikipedia > etc.) > Membership of this charity will primarily aimed at adults, but > children > are also expected to join. I have been asked to investigate whether > the > Membership Secretary of the charity should undergo a CRB check. > > As I understand it, a CRB check is required only if working directly > with vulnerable people. I am unclear as to whether it is required for > people who hold personal information of the members of the charity - > e.g. age and address - which might include children or vulnerable > adults. I am also unclear whether it is legal to require CRB checks of > membership secretaries, especially with regards to the > Rehabilitation of > Offenders Act (ROA) 1974. Please could you clarify both of these > issues > for me? > > Yours faithfully, > Michael Peel > > > > This email was received from the INTERNET and scanned by the > Government > Secure Intranet anti-virus service supplied by Cable&Wireless in > partnership with MessageLabs. (CCTM Certificate Number > 2007/11/0032.) In > case of problems, please call your organisations IT Helpdesk. > Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored > and/or > recorded for legal purposes. > > > ********************************************************************** > This email and any files transmitted with it are private and intended > solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are > addressed.I > f you have received this email in error please return it to the > address > it came from telling them it is not for you and then delete it from > your system. > > This email message has been swept for computer viruses. > > ********************************************************************** > > > The original of this email was scanned for viruses by the > Government Secure Intranet virus scanning service supplied by > Cable&Wireless in partnership with MessageLabs. (CCTM Certificate > Number 2007/11/0032.) On leaving the GSi this email was certified > virus free. > Communications via the GSi may be automatically logged, monitored > and/or recorded for legal purposes.

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Wikimediauk-l October 2008