Hi all,
The minutes of the last board meeting are now up on the wiki at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Meetings/2009-06-23 and copied for your convenience below. Please could you let me have any corrections or queries.
At the last meeting, we had three key discussions on membership recruitment, fundraising and initiatives. One of the key conclusions was how interlinked these are - the more initiatives we have, particularly those that are participative, the more members we can attract to the chapter. Subscription fees will then be able to cover the administrative costs of running the chapter, meaning we can focus our fundraising on initiatives.
We affirmed our commitment to completing at least three initiatives by the time of the next AGM in spring 2010. To this end, we've adopted a timeline (at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives#Timeline) which says we aim to identify the three initiatives by 15 July, establish a person to lead for each task by 31 July and set out a full plan with costs, timetable and resource requirement by the end of August.
Next Tuesday, the board will holding an open discussion on initiatives in #wikimedia-uk - please come along and let us know what ideas you have, share ideas and let us know what you can do to help.
In the meantime we are looking into creating a range of members-only merchandising, which will feature Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia UK logos on mugs, ties, cufflinks and so on. Let us know what kinds of items you would be interested in buying!
We are also having business cards printed so that those people who represent the chapter will be able to give out a professional and consistent image. If you would like to have some of these cards printed, please contact Paul Williams, our Volunteers Director (ccd above).
Finally, we noted that our response to HMRC has now been sent in, and we are waiting to see how that is received.
Wikimedia UK
Wikimedia UK is the operating name of Wiki UK Limited.
Wiki UK Ltd is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827.
The Registered Office is at 23 Cartwright Way, Nottingham, NG9 1RL, United Kingdom.
Wikimedia UK Board meeting Tuesday 23rd June 2009, 8:30pm BST at #wikimedia-uk-board
Present: Michael Peel (MP) (Chair); Andrew Turvey (AT) (minutes); Joseph Seddon (JS); Paul Williams (PW); Tom Holden (TH)
Apologies: Steve Virgin (SV); Zeyi He (ZH)
Contents
[hide]
[edit] Minutes of the previous meetings
The minutes of the meetings dated 9 June were approved.
The following actions have been carried forward:
1. JS to send the tokens of our appreciation to the retiring Directors, tellers and external speakers.
ACTION: JS
2. TH to contact the bank to notify them of the new directors, to change the signatories to any two of MP, AT and TH and to set up AT and MP on the online banking. ZH, SV and JS to return to TH the forms they have received.
ACTION: ZH, SV, JS, TH
3. MP to organise transfer of wikimedia.org.uk to WMUK.
ACTION: MP /wiki/File:Yes_check.svg
/wiki/File:Yes_check.svgDone
4. AT will send the opt out email re Phorm once wikimedia.org.uk has been transferred.
ACTION: AT
5. PW will arrange the production of business cards for Wikimedia UK officials.
ACTION: PW
6. SV, MP, JS to collate press response template list
ACTION: SV, MP + JS
7. TD agreed to contact the gazette on behalf of WMUK to solicit a pro-bono lawyer
ACTION: TD
8. MP agreed to contact pro bono lawyer groups by email
ACTION: MP
9. JS to copy the standard templates from OTRS for use in the press response template
ACTION: JS
10. JS to clarify if the offer of help from WJBScribe means formal written advice that can be relied upon or informal word of mouth assistance.
ACTION: JS
11. The cost to attend the Online Information 2009 (1-3 Dec, London) conference is £400/day/person (£400 for the 3 days for registered charities). JS will confirm whether speakers have to pay this fee.
ACTION: JS
12. In the event that speakers do have to pay the fee, SV will look into getting a slot in a fringe event instead.
ACTION: SV
13. Once this is established, JS, MP, AT will work on a submission
14. AT to thank the pro-bono lawyer for his offer of help, explain the Board has decided to respond to HMRC ASAP; if this is not successful we may then seek legal advice so would be grateful for assistance then if it's still available and would they be prepared to advise us on the chapters agreement.
ACTION: AT
15. AT to submit expenses AGM claim .
ACTION: AT
16. MP to investigate what other domains names are available so that the Board can decide whether to request ownership ourselves or enable the WMF to own them.
ACTION: MP
[edit] Matters arising
[edit] Business cards
It was agreed that all people who act on behalf of the chapter - including non-board members - will be able to have personalised or general business cards so long as they pay for the cost, including postage, themselves.
The chapter agreed to pay up to £5 per person to fund board members' business cards.
It was decided to use the WMF standard design set out Business Cards/generic design, tweaked as necessary.
PW agreed to finalise the design, contact interested members to see what cards they want and organise the printing.
ACTION: PW
[edit] Reports
[edit] Secretary's Report
The report here was noted.
The response to HMRC was sent earlier today. We had not heard back from the Foundation so it was decided not to delay it any longer. AT agreed to upload the letter to the wiki.
ACTION: AT /wiki/File:Yes_check.svg
/wiki/File:Yes_check.svgDone (File:File-HMRC Response Letter.pdf)
[edit] Treasurer's Report
The report here was noted.
A member asked what the status was with direct debits - TH said we have to have had the account opened for a year so this will be reconsidered in January 2010.
[edit] Chair's Report
The report here was noted.
[edit] Conferences Report
The report here was noted.
[edit] Corporate relations Report
The report here was noted.
[edit] Membership recruitment
PW led a discussion on membership recruitment asking how can we reach out to people to join and how can we engage existing members to renew.
AT reported that the WMF are happy in principle with members merchandising - they would like to frmalise the agreement with an exchange of emails, from us setting out what we intend to do and from them agreeing to it. PW agreed to draft an email to the WMF.
ACTION: PW
PW agreed to look into where we could produce merchandise.
ACTION: PW
We discussed raising awareness of our activities by sending messages to the most active UK based wikimedians (perhaps using User:Cfp/Sandbox1)
It was agreed that having participatory intiatives was key, and we would consider this when looking at future initiatives. We could also arrange members-only events, as done by Wikimedia Australia with their cultural institution contacts.
Members may also consider that "having their say" through votes at the AGM and for chapter-selected seats on the WMF is a key reason to join.
We should also look to improve our standard advertising templates like Template:Welcome
[edit] Newsletter
Final changes were discussed to the June newsletter
PW agreed to finalise on Tuesday evening and distribute with MP.
ACTION: PW, MP /wiki/File:Yes_check.svg
/wiki/File:Yes_check.svgDone
[edit] Initiatives
The initiatives timeline was agreed with changes.
[edit] Fundraising
It was suggested we fundraise specifically for particular inititatives and try to recruit enough members so that subscriptions cover general admin expenses. When we do events we should sue that as an opportunity to fundraise - even if it's just standing there with a bucket for coins. Fundraising may be easier once we have charitable status.
At the moment it was decided not to establish a fundraising committee or to set up a CiviCRM account, but to reconsider both at the time of the annual WMF fundraiser.
[edit] Next meeting
It was agreed the next meeting would be on Tuesday 7th July, 8:30 pm (BST) in #wikimedia-uk-board.
In the meantime, there would be a discussion on initiatives on Tuesday 30th June, 8:30pm in #wikimedia-uk.
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