Reports 8Sep12

Below are the Board and Staff reports to the Board Meeting on 8 September 2012; see Agenda 8Sep12.

Templates for actions: {{done}} Done, {{cf}} Carried forward, {{canc}} Cancelled.

If something needs discussing for longer than a minute, then please add it to the Matters Arising section on the agenda.

Chris Keating (Chair, Fundraiser)

Chair

• Arranging facilitator & programme for 2013 Activity Plan discussion
• Progressing agreement regarding QRpedia

Fundraiser

• Handover of the day-to-day work for the fundraiser to Katherine pretty much completed

Outreach

• Further conversations with JISC and other colleagues regarding University Wikimedians in Residence - hope for progress at EDU-WIKI
• WWI and NMM projects stalled due to lack of my time. Floated the idea of a paid coordinator position for the WWI project (link.

Decisions needed

Michael Peel (Secretary, ConfCom, Tech)

For my work in progress, please see the scratchpad at User:Mike Peel/Workspace.

Secretary and Trustee duties

Done

• Have spent a significant amount of time working through emails and talking by telephone about various issues.
• Attended Wikimania on behalf of WMUK, and talked to many people there.
  • One specific highlight: have been contributing to discussion about the future of Wikimania scholarships
• Visited the Wikimedia Foundation (hopefully part-funded by WMUK assuming my hotel costs are reimbursed), and talked to staff there about many issues.

Decisions needed

• With our new structure of Committees, I would like to propose that we set out a requirement that only current members of Wikimedia UK can serve on a WMUK committee. This proposal is more aimed at encouraging our key volunteers to become members, rather than trying to discourage people from getting involved in our work.
• We need to modify Finance Policy 2012 to include
  • Deprecation. As a result of our 2012 audit, Jon recommends that we deprecate our assets on the basis of a lifetime of 3 years. I note that this lifetime may vary based upon the lifetime of our assets - e.g. mobile phones will deprecate on a shorter timescale, while books will deprecate on a longer timescale - but overall, 3 years is probably a good rule overall.
    • Specific proposal: To create section 6.4 to read "The value of any such asset will nominally be deprecated on a three-year basis for the purpose of monthly deprecation values. The specific value of the asset will be assessed each year prior to our financial audit taking place."
  • Trustee authorisation limits. We seem to have been assuming that funds delegated into our budget lines can be simply authorised based on the budget available, regardless of the specific activities that the funds have been allocated to, or amount of money that has been allocated. I would very much disagree with this approach. To formalise a better understanding of the delegation of budget responsibility, I would propose that:
    • Funds are specifically delegated to the initiatives that are explicitly described in the respective activity plan. Should an initiative not be specifically included in the activity plan, then the Board needs to approve such an expense.
    • The Board must be informed of any expenditure that exceeds £1,000, and the Board must be given a 24 hour period in order to raise objections to this expenditure. Should any trustee object to the expenditure, then a formal decision must be made about said expenditure.
    • The Board must formally approve of any expense that exceeds £5,000. (Note that this budget limit will naturally be increased by the Board over time.)
    • If the combined (rather than individual) expenditure that has been delegated to the Office exceeds the limits set out above in between Board meetings, then the Board must be made aware of the excess and given at least 24 hours to raise objections to spending the additional funds.

Conference Committee

Confcom

• ConfCom is proposing to become the "Conferences and Major Events Committee", and to look after major events, in cooperation with other relevant subcommittees
• Cross-fertilisation of committees desired; once the GLAM and Education subcommittees have established themselves, we will seek a member of each to join ConfCom or nominate a member of ConfCom to sit on the GLAM/Education committees
• Appeal to go out (towards date of next meeting) on UK mailing list for more volunteers to join ConfCom and/or the Wikimania 2014 working group
• Next ConfCom meeting to be held on 24 September; meetings are monthly and we are experimenting with meeting on a Monday evening
• Wikimania 2014 working group (led by Ed Saperia, reporting to Confcom) meeting weekly on a Sunday afternoon

WikiConference UK 2013

• Appeal has gone out to UK mailing list to seek provisional quotes for venues per board decision at previous meeting to hold WCUK 2013 outside London on 8 June 2013
• ConfCom will evaluate quotes and proposed venues as they come in (to ConfCom mailing list) and compile in a Google Doc, which will be shared with the board.

Wikimania 2014 bid

• Report to be completed by ES

Decisions needed

• The Conference Committee is requesting an extension to its role such that it also covers major events. A decision is needed to approve this extension of responsibilities.

Harry Mitchell

• Currently acting as chair of ConfCom; see below for report on that committee's activities
• Wikipedia Takes Coventry
• Would like to speak briefly about the organisation of this meeting

Technology

• Have set up a blog for GLAM-WIKI US.
• Board and office wikis updated to 1.19.2.
• Please see the description of the proposed Technology Committee, which we need to Discuss

John Byrne (Treasurer)

For finance reports see 2011-12 Audit page on Office

Glamcamp report:

GLAM-CAMP. Preparations for GLAM-CAMP proceeding, with the programme sorted, allowing for some unconference elements. Currently 30 attendees out of 40 places. Geonotice only just gone up & hoping for more local additions. Rather hard to get activists involved so far. We are paying some European flights. Total T&L should be less £5,000 to £7,000 . Purposes include planning content for the main conference next year, & updating the international GLAM community on developments in the field. TOURS There are two exhibition tours in the week before at the BM & BL. So far booking very slow, but Geonotice has gone up. Canada National Archives digitization idea seems to be getting approval on their side & AHRC. BL Wikipedian in residence is very likely to be funded for a further 6 months. Not much engagement with Wikipedian community so far, but some events coming up.

Roger Bamkin (Projects)

As we have agreed, not much progress on WMUK town Projects. I continue to ask that the board re-consider its position in a clear way.

Gibraltarpedia

I've created an updated copy of an MOU that Chris abnd I discussed. I'd like to get this approved in principle at the board meeting. If we can get any issues highlighted before the meeting then we should be able to solve these quickly. This should be available with board papers. Decision

John Byrne has mentioned that he would like to know more about Gib. We have few secrets so I'd be happy to talk the board through our plans. I guess this might take 20 mins plus questions. Since we spoke, we now have the support of the Catalans as well as the Moroccan contingent.

We have highlighted that there are three UK/GLAM related conferences next spring. This needs to be managed. John C is delaying starting work in Gib in order to help with this at first day of GLAM camp.

Monmouthpedia

As we said this has pretty much stalled and its a joint effort I think. John and I are meeting one of their senior managers on 31st in Monmouth with Steve Virgin and WestonSuperMarePedia interest group. So I may know more. I have warned MCC that they are due to give reports to us and WMF in line with our agreements but we'll see. It seems likely that the QRpedia agreement won't be ready to be both read, approved by the next meeting. Can the board agree a new position? I do not at present have a financial arrangement with Monmouth. I am trying to talk to Fae about John's remuneration from WMUK. Not sure that board appreciate that Chepstow and Raglan are included in our existing MOU.

Wales

I'm guessing that Robin is reporting through Chris or Jon?

QRpedia

We now have a logo, we are appearing at an exhibition in London, talk of Wolverhampton, Derby and Fremantle - we hear of other QRpedia GLAMs. Legal stuff is awaiting visibility of WMUK progress on this matter.

Other news

• I'm presenting at:

  Oxford University

  Calpe Conference (Gibraltar Museum)

  Leicester De Montfort on Wiki Towns

• Still no news of Estonia trip to Tartupedia
  • What's Tartupedia??? Mike Peel (talk) 20:59, 31 August 2012 (UTC)
    • Tartu is the second biggest town in Estonia. Estonia have an active, if small, Wikimedia chapter. Tartupedia is a spin-off of Monmouthpedia which is roughly outlined in their reports at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Eesti/Wikimedia_Eesti_News
• BBC want to feature Gibraltarpedia

• I have a business relationship with Steve Virgin

Jon Davies (Chief Executive; including Staff)

Stevie Benton (Comms)

Here's the communications report for the 8th September board meeting.