Hello everyone,
I'm happy to let you know that Greyham Dawes has been co-opted to the Wikimedia UK Board of Trustees. Greyham has also been appointed Treasurer.
You can find full details, and some information about Greyham, on our blog herehttp://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/02/greyham-dawes-joins-the-wikimedia-uk-board/ .
Thanks and regards,
Stevie
Im not seeing full details, like the process used to identify Dawes.
John Vandenberg. sent from Galaxy Note On Feb 16, 2013 2:58 AM, "Stevie Benton" stevie.benton@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
Hello everyone,
I'm happy to let you know that Greyham Dawes has been co-opted to the Wikimedia UK Board of Trustees. Greyham has also been appointed Treasurer.
You can find full details, and some information about Greyham, on our blog herehttp://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/02/greyham-dawes-joins-the-wikimedia-uk-board/ .
Thanks and regards,
Stevie
--
Stevie Benton Communications Organiser Wikimedia UK+44 (0) 20 7065 0993 / +44 (0) 7803 505 173 @StevieBenton
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects).
*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.*
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Actually all that's listed in the minutes is the vote to co-opt Greyham, which doesn't give you a huge amount of context!
The context is as follows - you might remember that in about March 2012 we advertised for people interested in becoming trustees (including advertising in Third Sector magazine, as well as people approaching personal contacts, and an call to the community).
In about December, Jon Davies reviewed the people who expressed an interest then who either hadn't ended up standing or hadn't been elected, and contacted a number of them who had the most extensive experience of charity governance to see if they were still interested in being co-opted. Greyham responded to that, spent a bit of time getting to know the organisation, and given his experience the Board was keen to co-opt him.
Thanks,
Chris
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 9:16 AM, Gordon Joly gordon.joly@pobox.com wrote:
On 15/02/13 22:07, John Vandenberg wrote:
Im not seeing full details, like the process used to identify Dawes.
Surely that will be in the Board of Trustees minutes?
Gordo
______________________________**_________________ Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/**mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-lhttp://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 16/02/13 12:07, Chris Keating wrote:
Greyham responded to that, spent a bit of time getting to know the organisation, and given his experience the Board was keen to co-opt him.
Yes, I can see why.
http://www.accountingweb.co.uk/user/18322
****** Spare-time activities include running a charity (CARA - C/R No.1117929) that provides free advice on public accountability compliance issues to charities that can't afford to hire professional staff/advisers for the purpose. ******
CARA => "CHARITY ADMINISTRATION RESOURCING & ACCOUNTABILITY"
Gordo
Thanks Chris for the context, some of which appears to have been omitted from the governance review. I am a bit surprised by that.
I'm guessing that Greyham didn't respond to the call to the community ;-)
How many responses did you receive from the advert in the Third Sector?
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:38 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
Thanks Chris for the context, some of which appears to have been omitted from the governance review. I am a bit surprised by that.
I'm guessing that Greyham didn't respond to the call to the community ;-)
How many responses did you receive from the advert in the Third Sector?
I think the review notes we engaged in a proactive trustee search exercise, though it doesn't go into any more detail.
Jon D would know the answer, but I think answer was somewhere in the dozens.
Chris
We received 13 final applications. From this six were shorlisted to attend our board interest day. Two stood for election, one was elected and one subsequently co-opted. Greyham, as Chris explained, emerged over the last couple of months as we had a vacancy.
Are your chapter thinking of a similar exercise? If so would be happy to liaise.
Jon
On 17 February 2013 09:28, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:38 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.comwrote:
Thanks Chris for the context, some of which appears to have been omitted from the governance review. I am a bit surprised by that.
I'm guessing that Greyham didn't respond to the call to the community ;-)
How many responses did you receive from the advert in the Third Sector?
I think the review notes we engaged in a proactive trustee search exercise, though it doesn't go into any more detail.
Jon D would know the answer, but I think answer was somewhere in the dozens.
Chris
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Thanks Chris & Jon for providing the context.
Clearly Grayham will bring some valuable experience to the board and it's great to have him involved. However, it's less clear how he will meet the other requirements of being a trustee, in particular understanding the Wikimedia culture of openness and volunteer leadership. Has the board arranged anything for his trustee induction to fill these gaps?
In particular, the Treasurer plays a key role in ensuring that certain standards of openness and accountability set out in the Finance Policy, such as: [1]
"The key principles underlying this policy are ... financial reporting is clearly expressed and highly transparent" "Individual expense claims are normally published on the office wiki (Administrator) with a summary of the claims posted on the public wiki" "Office expenses and the Chief Executive's expenses are published on the public wiki in summary form" ** "Monthly financial reports to be published on the public wiki"
** Interesting to see this was watered down at the last board meeting, although it's unclear if even the watered-down version has ever been implemented.
Is Grayham planning to introduce himself to the community or engage on this list or on the wiki? It's notable that he responded to the advert but then didn't come to the board interest day and didn't put himself up for election. I would be interested to hear his explanation for why this was the case.
I presume this decision was taken at the last board meeting on 9-10 February. It's very disappointing that the draft minutes of the last board meeting still haven't been published, a week and a half after the meeting. I asked when this would be published over a week ago and was told that a reasonably final draft was available on Sunday. Chapter policy says that "Volunteers are encouraged to ... hold the Trustees and staff to account, through public and private discussion". [2] It's impossible to do this if we're not even allowed to see on a timely basis the decisions that are being made by the board.
Regards,
Andrew
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Finance_Policy [2] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Policy
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:
We received 13 final applications. From this six were shorlisted to attend our board interest day. Two stood for election, one was elected and one subsequently co-opted. Greyham, as Chris explained, emerged over the last couple of months as we had a vacancy.
Are your chapter thinking of a similar exercise? If so would be happy to liaise.
Jon
On 17 February 2013 09:28, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:38 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.comwrote:
Thanks Chris for the context, some of which appears to have been omitted from the governance review. I am a bit surprised by that.
I'm guessing that Greyham didn't respond to the call to the community ;-)
How many responses did you receive from the advert in the Third Sector?
I think the review notes we engaged in a proactive trustee search exercise, though it doesn't go into any more detail.
Jon D would know the answer, but I think answer was somewhere in the dozens.
Chris
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- *Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169 tweet @jonatreesdavies
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
In a charity, the role of trustees does not have to be identical, and indeed diversity is an excellent thing. A board doesn't have to have everyone intensely familiar, or in fact interested, in the culture. A good board has a mixture of people to combine expertise, external insight and internal cultural insight.
Treasurer is a highly technical role, and one that benefits from specific experience.
Given the current makeup of the board, I am sure that it will be able to establish an effective working practice where Greyham is able to contribute his expertise and "community" members will be able to provide the necessary prompting r.e. openness.
The standing example of this is Saad, who to my knowledge is not a community member, but has contributed a lot of expertise and guidance in board activities/decisions.
Tom
On 20 February 2013 11:17, Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.comwrote:
Thanks Chris & Jon for providing the context.
Clearly Grayham will bring some valuable experience to the board and it's great to have him involved. However, it's less clear how he will meet the other requirements of being a trustee, in particular understanding the Wikimedia culture of openness and volunteer leadership. Has the board arranged anything for his trustee induction to fill these gaps?
In particular, the Treasurer plays a key role in ensuring that certain standards of openness and accountability set out in the Finance Policy, such as: [1]
"The key principles underlying this policy are ... financial reporting is clearly expressed and highly transparent" "Individual expense claims are normally published on the office wiki (Administrator) with a summary of the claims posted on the public wiki" "Office expenses and the Chief Executive's expenses are published on the public wiki in summary form" ** "Monthly financial reports to be published on the public wiki"
** Interesting to see this was watered down at the last board meeting, although it's unclear if even the watered-down version has ever been implemented.
Is Grayham planning to introduce himself to the community or engage on this list or on the wiki? It's notable that he responded to the advert but then didn't come to the board interest day and didn't put himself up for election. I would be interested to hear his explanation for why this was the case.
I presume this decision was taken at the last board meeting on 9-10 February. It's very disappointing that the draft minutes of the last board meeting still haven't been published, a week and a half after the meeting. I asked when this would be published over a week ago and was told that a reasonably final draft was available on Sunday. Chapter policy says that "Volunteers are encouraged to ... hold the Trustees and staff to account, through public and private discussion". [2] It's impossible to do this if we're not even allowed to see on a timely basis the decisions that are being made by the board.
Regards,
Andrew
[1] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Finance_Policy [2] http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Volunteer_Policy
On Mon, Feb 18, 2013 at 9:24 AM, Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.ukwrote:
We received 13 final applications. From this six were shorlisted to attend our board interest day. Two stood for election, one was elected and one subsequently co-opted. Greyham, as Chris explained, emerged over the last couple of months as we had a vacancy.
Are your chapter thinking of a similar exercise? If so would be happy to liaise.
Jon
On 17 February 2013 09:28, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.comwrote:
On Sat, Feb 16, 2013 at 10:38 PM, John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.comwrote:
Thanks Chris for the context, some of which appears to have been omitted from the governance review. I am a bit surprised by that.
I'm guessing that Greyham didn't respond to the call to the community ;-)
How many responses did you receive from the advert in the Third Sector?
I think the review notes we engaged in a proactive trustee search exercise, though it doesn't go into any more detail.
Jon D would know the answer, but I think answer was somewhere in the dozens.
Chris
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- *Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169 tweet @jonatreesdavies
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990.
Visit http://www.wikimedia.org.uk/ and @wikimediauk
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
-- Andrew Turvey -- 07403 216 991 @AndrewTurvey https://twitter.com/#!/AndrewTurvey http://www.facebook.com/andrew.turvey http://en.wikipedia.org/User:AndrewRT http://englishwikipedian.blogspot.co.uk/
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 20 February 2013 11:17, Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com wrote:
I presume this decision was taken at the last board meeting on 9-10 February. It's very disappointing that the draft minutes of the last board meeting still haven't been published, a week and a half after the meeting. I asked when this would be published over a week ago and was told that a reasonably final draft was available on Sunday. Chapter policy says that "Volunteers are encouraged to ... hold the Trustees and staff to account, through public and private discussion". [2] It's impossible to do this if we're not even allowed to see on a timely basis the decisions that are being made by the board.
Publishing draft minutes is quite unusual for a board - most I'm aware of don't publish minutes until they are formally approved at the next meeting (which can be months later) - so I'm not sure a week and a half really qualifies as untimely. I doubt the minutes say much, any way. The discussion was presumably in camera, so there will just be the final decision in the public minutes and we've already been told about that.
So, transparency doesn't seem to be an issue here. Proper board recruitment processes do seem to be an issue, though - it doesn't sound like they even interviewed anyone else... When Saad and I were co-opted, we had been through the election process and secured the support of members (just not as much support as other candidates), so the board could have reasonable confidence that we were appropriate choices. When you are co-opting someone that has been completely uninvolved before, a much more thorough review process is required and it doesn't sound like that happened in this case.
(To be clear - Greyham sounds like a very good choice, but I see no evidence that he was the best choice available.)
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:17 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 February 2013 11:17, Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com wrote:
I presume this decision was taken at the last board meeting on 9-10 February. It's very disappointing that the draft minutes of the last board meeting still haven't been published, a week and a half after the meeting. I asked when this would be published over a week ago and was told that a reasonably final draft was available on Sunday. Chapter policy says that "Volunteers are encouraged to ... hold the Trustees and staff to account, through public and private discussion". [2] It's impossible to do this if we're not even allowed to see on a timely basis the decisions that are being made by the board.
Publishing draft minutes is quite unusual for a board - most I'm aware of don't publish minutes until they are formally approved at the next meeting (which can be months later) - so I'm not sure a week and a half really qualifies as untimely. I doubt the minutes say much, any way. The discussion was presumably in camera, so there will just be the final decision in the public minutes and we've already been told about that.
The minutes will, or should, note if there were any conflicts of interest. e.g. *if* Greyham applied due to the direct personal approaches, that should be noted.
How is that a conflict of interest? On Feb 20, 2013 1:44 PM, "John Vandenberg" jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:17 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 20 February 2013 11:17, Andrew Turvey andrewrturvey@googlemail.com
wrote:
I presume this decision was taken at the last board meeting on 9-10 February. It's very disappointing that the draft minutes of the last
board
meeting still haven't been published, a week and a half after the
meeting. I
asked when this would be published over a week ago and was told that a reasonably final draft was available on Sunday. Chapter policy says that "Volunteers are encouraged to ... hold the Trustees and staff to
account,
through public and private discussion". [2] It's impossible to do this
if
we're not even allowed to see on a timely basis the decisions that are
being
made by the board.
Publishing draft minutes is quite unusual for a board - most I'm aware of don't publish minutes until they are formally approved at the next meeting (which can be months later) - so I'm not sure a week and a half really qualifies as untimely. I doubt the minutes say much, any way. The discussion was presumably in camera, so there will just be the final decision in the public minutes and we've already been told about that.
The minutes will, or should, note if there were any conflicts of interest. e.g. *if* Greyham applied due to the direct personal approaches, that should be noted.
-- John Vandenberg
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
Just to respond to Andrew and Tom D's points (and I largely agree with Tom M)
- Greyham's experience includes working with a number of volunteer-driven organisations, including the Association of Church Treasurers, which a pretty much entirely volunteer organisation. When I was discussing the idea of co-option with him we spoke about our volunteer culture at some length. I am sure other trustees did the same. I think it's fair to say the Board wouldn't co-opt anyone who they thought would be a poor fit with our values as an organisation. I am not sure if he's subscribed to this list - I will check!
- Tom - the Articles give the Board discretion about who to co-opt in the event of a casual vacancy, so long as the Board is unanimous. I think that, particularly given the circumstances, we did the right thing to use that discretion. As you indicate in your post, it would have been possible for us to create another process to go through, but I don't think that would have been helpful.
Thanks,
Chris
On 20 February 2013 20:02, Chris Keating chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com wrote:
- Tom - the Articles give the Board discretion about who to co-opt in the
event of a casual vacancy, so long as the Board is unanimous. I think that, particularly given the circumstances, we did the right thing to use that discretion. As you indicate in your post, it would have been possible for us to create another process to go through, but I don't think that would have been helpful.
I didn't say you shouldn't have used co-option. I didn't even say you should create a new process. You should just follow normal, prudent processes for making a decision. You wouldn't make major procurement decisions without getting multiple quotes. In the same way, you shouldn't make major recruitment decisions without interviewing multiple candidates.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org