Hi all,
At the last meeting, Tango made the good suggestion that I start sending out summaries of the board meetings, including the interesting points and questions that we would like your views on. This email is the first of those - I'll endeavour to send these out closer to the board meeting in future (i.e. within ~ 24 hours of the meeting).
The bullet point summary of the interesting parts of the meeting (and some points from previous meetings) is: - Seddon is in discussion with the Manchester Tourist Board with an eye to bidding for Wikimania 2013 in Manchester - Seddon and Steve Virgin are looking for potential locations for the WMUK conference to be held with our next AGM - Steve is also pursuing leads for collaboration with companies/other non-profits/schools - We now have a Paypal account which you can donate to - see http:// uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Donate - We will be sending our response to HMRC soon. We're also soliciting pro bono lawyers.
We'd like your views on the following questions:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
How many of the Board should have access to the Paypal account? We ask this because Paypal lets anyone with access to the account make transactions (e.g. buying things off eBay), and if we set up a direct debit link to our bank account this potentially means that there is a way around the current system requiring two signatures for expenditures. Something similar exists with access to the account via online banking. Would it be worth us making a resolution that states that approval from the board (either via a board meeting, or email) must be obtained prior to any outgoing transactions via online banking or paypal?
Thanks, Mike Peel
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
How many of the Board should have access to the Paypal account? We ask this because Paypal lets anyone with access to the account make transactions (e.g. buying things off eBay), and if we set up a direct debit link to our bank account this potentially means that there is a way around the current system requiring two signatures for expenditures. Something similar exists with access to the account via online banking. Would it be worth us making a resolution that states that approval from the board (either via a board meeting, or email) must be obtained prior to any outgoing transactions via online banking or paypal?
Has anyone asked Paypal about this? We aren't the only charity with a paypal account, and it is standard practice for charities to require multiple signatures for transactions, so we can't be the first people to have this problem.
On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
Everybody (member or not) must have access to the register of members of the company at the registered address (section 116 of the Companies act 2006). Thus the membership can have no expectation of privacy. It would seem a little odd to prevent members of the board from checking that the register is correct.
This does mean that you should separate out the information you need to include in the register and the other information (e.g. email addresses) you may hold on members. Especially anything that could be subject to the data protection act. You may consider limiting access to that information.
Cheers,
Andrew
2009/6/6 Andrew Walker keggers@gmail.com:
On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:07 PM, Thomas Daltonthomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
Everybody (member or not) must have access to the register of members of the company at the registered address (section 116 of the Companies act 2006). Thus the membership can have no expectation of privacy. It would seem a little odd to prevent members of the board from checking that the register is correct.
You have to have a good reason for requesting to see it, though (but only a judge can say a reason isn't good enough). Basically what we're deciding here is whether being on the board is a good reason for knowing who the members are, and I would think it is.
This does mean that you should separate out the information you need to include in the register and the other information (e.g. email addresses) you may hold on members. Especially anything that could be subject to the data protection act. You may consider limiting access to that information.
That's a good point. Mike calls it the "Register of Members", which suggests it is just the legally required information. Perhaps he could clarify what information would be on the wiki? (I'm happy with all the information being there.)
On 6 Jun 2009, at 16:02, Thomas Dalton wrote:
This does mean that you should separate out the information you need to include in the register and the other information (e.g. email addresses) you may hold on members. Especially anything that could be subject to the data protection act. You may consider limiting access to that information.
That's a good point. Mike calls it the "Register of Members", which suggests it is just the legally required information. Perhaps he could clarify what information would be on the wiki? (I'm happy with all the information being there.)
The document as it currently stands contains the official Register of Members, the Register of Directors, the Register of Charges and the membership details. The contents of the first and last are described at http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Membership/Process#Data_retention
Mike
On 06/06/2009, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
When, however, officers of the company cease to have their role, privacy could be compromised. What safeguards are in place?
Accounts can now be closed on private wikis, and there isnt really anything else that can be done apart from making directors sign a privacy agreement, which may or may not already be in place. Alternatively we could just brain wash them...
Regards
mark
On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.comwrote:
On 06/06/2009, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
When, however, officers of the company cease to have their role, privacy could be compromised. What safeguards are in place?
Wikimedia UK mailing list wikimediauk-l@wikimedia.org http://mail.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediauk-l WMUK: http://uk.wikimedia.org
On 06/06/2009, Mark (Markie) newsmarkie@googlemail.com wrote:
Accounts can now be closed on private wikis, and there isnt really anything else that can be done apart from making directors sign a privacy agreement, which may or may not already be in place.
Mmm a privacy agreement, signed and kept on record, would be my suggestion.
Alternatively we could just brain wash them...
Or that
2009/6/6 Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.com:
On 06/06/2009, Mark (Markie) newsmarkie@googlemail.com wrote:
Accounts can now be closed on private wikis, and there isnt really anything else that can be done apart from making directors sign a privacy agreement, which may or may not already be in place.
Mmm a privacy agreement, signed and kept on record, would be my suggestion.
Is a formal privacy agreement required? We're talking about personal information, I would think that is protected anyway under privacy laws. Yet another thing we could do with having a lawyer on hand for...
2009/6/6 Martin Peeks martinp23@googlemail.com:
On 06/06/2009, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
2009/6/6 Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net:
How widely available should the Register of Members be amongst the
> Board? We now have an internal board wiki which we currently have the > Register of Members on, such that it is available to all of the > Board. Does anyone have any objections to this?
I see no problem with that. All officers of the company obviously have a duty to respect the privacy of members, I trust the board to fulfil that duty.
When, however, officers of the company cease to have their role, privacy could be compromised. What safeguards are in place?
I don't see how them leaving their roles would make any difference. The duty to respect privacy doesn't end when you leave the company.
wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org