Talk:Non-board committees

Volunteer?

Other committees such as the ARC are volunteer driven, unless we consider that trustees are not volunteers. Should these other committees be recognized as a volunteer committee with delegated powers and a separately defined scope, rather than making it seem that they are not volunteer committees? --Fæ (talk) 15:15, 7 May 2014 (BST)

The board committees have their own separate charters, which I think is right given their very different roles. So, while you are right that those are indeed volunteer (trustee) led, it makes sense to deal with them separately. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:34, 7 May 2014 (BST)

My point was not whether to deal with them separately, but to recognise that the wording drives a procedural wedge between "volunteer committees" that welcome volunteer participation and "delegated committees" which in practice do not appear to attract volunteers.

For the sake of historic context, "sub-committees", i.e. committees that may have delegated powers, were not originally expected to be wholly composed of trustees and employees. In fact we originally hoped to not need more than one or two trustees on these committees so that several other interested members of the charity could take a more leading role without being trustees. For example, the Governance Committee and the Audit and Risk Committee have no named non-trustee observers, indeed despite my offering twice to do so, I have been unable to become an "observer" on the ARC, yet we deliberately wrote the terms of that committee to enable observers with relevant experience to contribute and remain involved. This is a poor practical measure of the transparency and accountability of the charity to its members. --Fæ (talk) 16:04, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Yes, I was aware from recent postings that you have volunteered your services on the Audit and Risk Committee. While the policy does allow non-trustees to be appointed as observers to Board Committees, the Board has not exercised its power to do so. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2014 (BST)

You were recently asking for suggestions as to how the charity might measure transparency. I suggest you add this one to it, it is a pretty obvious direct measure. --Fæ (talk) 16:19, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Recognized?

The documents lists four volunteer committees which are recognized by the board. Are there minutes of a board meeting that document this happening? --Fæ (talk) 15:15, 7 May 2014 (BST)

If I remember rightly, the December board. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 15:30, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Checking Minutes_7Dec13, I can see that there were some minutes about who was going to join various committees, but there does not seem any vote where all four committees which are noted as recognized here, had their scopes/charters approved, nor their full membership approved (though I doubt the board of trustee intends to require that anyway).

As the charter for committees like the GLAM committee remains a draft, I would doubt that the board would want to be on record (in this document) as recognizing it, until the charter were published, with an active group of named members, and minutes being published on-wiki. --Fæ (talk) 16:41, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Have tweaked the wording. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:48, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Closing committees

I wonder whether the reference to closing committees be made more explicit. We cannot stop volunteers from forming groups to discuss the charity's activities (or indeed, whatever they want to discuss). What we can do is something like: recommend committees cease their activities, withdraw staff and board support, and discontinue requests for board reports. Sjgknight (talk) 15:59, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Well, a group that meets 'to discuss the charity's activities' or to do things outside the auspices of the charity is free to do whatever they want, but isn't a Committee for our purposes and, as you say, will have no (or at least less) support and will not have the formal advisory role and direct line to the CE and board that committees have. Of course, that may be fine, that may be what the group in questions wants, and that's not to say that they can't still do good work. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:09, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Should've been clearer, I'm thinking of groups which are committees, but which it is felt should no longer retain that status. I think we'd want to be clear about what closing down means (as above) in part because we don't want to give the impression that we (the board/staff) are in the business of setting up/closing down committees (which we of course are not). Sjgknight (talk) 16:13, 7 May 2014 (BST)

I recommend a procedural close that is not subject to a "narrative" work-around. For example "Any committee failing to meet or publish minutes for 6 months will default to being closed, and requires a fresh vote of trustees to be recognized with an approved scope again." This probably already applies to some of the named committees. --Fæ (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Committee selections (or elections)

The proposal sets committee size limits at 5 or more, and fewer than 13. Pragmatically this is unlikely to be an issue e.g. for the education committee (on which I sit), but is it something we’re happy to formalise, and would we like to include something in this (or leave it to the committees individually) regarding selection processes if more people wish to join Sjgknight (talk) 16:10, 7 May 2014 (BST)

I have sat on committees with active members hovering at 3 or 4. Sometimes these are the most productive and useful operational committees for making proposals and recommendations. Setting a lower limit at 5 may mean having people adding names to make up the numbers, but in practice do not attend meetings. I note that the ARC only has 4 members, as an example, and when I was part of it, it only had 3 members. --Fæ (talk) 16:14, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Those actual figures come from the earlier 2012 proposal, made I believe by Mike Peel. While I'm not wedded to them, it does perhaps make sense to ensure that a committee doesn't end up being one-person-and-a-dog, and neither does it end up being so all-inclusive that most of the people who are allegedly members actually don't have enough time or perhaps interest to turn up to meetings. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:22, 7 May 2014 (BST)

If you are going to retain this restriction at 5, even if you are not wedded to it, do you expect that committees that regularly publish minutes with 4 or fewer named attendees to close? --Fæ (talk) 16:32, 7 May 2014 (BST)

As I said, this is a tentative proposal. What would be your own suggestion for improving it? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:44, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Say less, and more in plain English rather than legal English (for example the heavy use of "shall be", particularly for aspects that are not controlled by the board of trustees or are non-controversially logical). "Committees determine their membership" is fine. When the board reviews a committee's "remit", they can suggest the proposed document define membership, which covers what happens if there is a lack of active members in the future. No need to define all that in this document, it just creates bureaucracy that is likely to drain creativity from our organization. --Fæ (talk) 17:24, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Is 5 too large for a lower limit? Would 3 be better? --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:52, 7 May 2014 (BST)

Committees and other bodies

This looks like a very good draft for thinking about the GLAM/education/tech committees (and other committees of that ilk). I wonder, though, whether the grants committee and the (dormant?) conference committee are a somewhat different beast, and ought to fall under another charter and possibly title. For example, I sit on the grants committee, but it doesn't ever meet (in person or by phone), it advises on individual grants but not on the bigger operational-strategic level (although perhaps it should do this), it has a fairly small fixed size which welcomes feedback from other interesting members, etc. The conf-com will be slightly different, but of a similar type. The quick solution to this is just to call those two something else, and deal with the 'Committees' now and other things later. Sjgknight (talk) 16:51, 7 May 2014 (BST)

We haven't discussed this yet, but it would make sense for the grants committee to operate on the same footing as the other volunteer committees. I rather think it should meet regularly, should advise the CE on the how the grants program aligns with our strategic goals, and that it should report quarterly as well. --MichaelMaggs (talk) 18:49, 7 May 2014 (BST)