Reports 11Feb12

Below are the Board reports to the Board Meeting on 11-12 February 2012; see Agenda 11Feb12.

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.

Board

All board

1. All board members to look at the Executive Committee proposed definition, and to ask members for input.

Roger Bamkin (Chair)

Actions

1. RB, AT, JD to decide on success points on a successful Wikimania bid Done
2. RB and JD to prepare a draft on Metrics by 3 jan Carried forward
3. RB to invite WMDE/WMF/WMNL trustees/execs to give feedback on the WMUK board, and to assemble a summary paragraph for the annual report.
4. Closing off the Wright Challenge - 90% done Carried forward

Other stuff

• January - "Wikipedia & Me" - reserve for Fiona at the Herbert
• January - Library Camp North West - Unconference on Libraries in Manchester - remeet Simon Bains
• January - QRpedia Paper accepted for New York Conference. Lori has been asked to present.
• Met Anna ??? re exciting major project based around the Domesday Book
• January - QRpedia paper reject by Museum Next Conference in Barcelona because they had two in their final programme. Nice one Alex.
• February - Presentation to Welsh Gov, Monmouth CC and other public bodies re Crowd Sourcing and QRpedia
• February - SMART UK Event at Westminster Conference Centre to show off QRpedia. Links for Wikimedia UK too with Science Museum and Crown Sourcing
• 3 February - Ruben Demos and Anna from Wikimedia Austria visit Derby QRpedia

Coming up

• 6 February - MonmouthpediA steering committee meeting and Welsh University
• 7 February - Presentation in Chepstow re MonmouthpediA
• 11 February - Board meeting
• ? February - Meeting with John Rylands Library re partnership with Manchester University
• ? February - Meeting with ??? re partnership.

Michael Peel (Secretary)

Split into roles:

Board

• Membership approvals - one batch approved on 24 January, next batch to be approved at this meeting. Please see in-camera report for list of names and locations.
• Need to know attendance numbers, and number of votes, for Annual Conference 2011 AGM Minutes (AT recorded these) Discuss
• Participated in the hiring of events organiser
• Will be attending the Finance meeting 2012 on 18-19 Feb
• Lots and lots of emails worked through...
• Budgets that I am (nominally) responsible for:
  • 2012 Developer budget: To be expanded.
  • 2012 Travel Grants budget: Wikimania and Finance Meeting sponsorships are in progress. We need to make a decision about the Chapters Meeting sponsorship. Discuss
  • 2012 Grants budget: To be fleshed out shortly.
  • 2012 Event Tech: This is not currently covered by a budget line. Should it be? The current draft covers some things that we have already purchased, but also a number of additional items. This may come under other budget lines somehow. Discuss

Grants

• Microgrants/Microphone needed approved, but the funds have not yet been spent.
• Microgrants/World War I resources pending
• Microgrants/Core Contest (prizes) under discussion - likely to approve shortly.
• Microgrants/Wikinews reporter IDs new today, under discussion
• WikiSym Scholarships - being closed off (only outstanding thing is transferring money for SanFran hotel to WMF)
• WikiConference India Scholarships - now closing off (still pending expense claims)
• Need to reformat Microgrants to incorporate standard grants.
• Need to set up a page for operating Microgrants/BL photocopies

Administrative

• Reports/2011/November, Reports/2011/December, Reports/2012/January (including SOPA) - need completing and sending out. Reports/2012/February being prepared. Task needs transferring to office.
• Need to improve Minutes 27Aug11, Minutes 19Nov11, Minutes 14Dec11 and get Minutes 1Nov11 online Carried forward (Not had time to improve layout and verbosity of these)
• Keeping track of budget expenditure at [1] (office only - can we open this up?) (Needs updating.)

Sysadmin

• Normal maintenance and backups carried out.

Volunteer

• OTRS workshop - completed, went well, came in under budget. See OTRS workshop/Wrap-up. Harry will be organising a follow-up event in the next 3 months or so, aimed at newbies.
• Wiki Loves Monuments brainstorm - handed over to Harry since I won't be able to make it due to the fundraising meeting.
• Geocamp - on back burner at the moment, will pick up again once we have events organiser in place.
• Closing off Britain Loves Wikipedia Doing... - two prizes now awarded, with the rest in progress. Need to give Jon info about this.

Actions

• MP to rework Minutes 27Aug11 for approval at the next meeting. Carried forward
• JD, MP, SV and CK to assemble a first draft of the Annual Report by February for the Board to review it. Carried forward not due yet

Andrew Turvey (Treasurer)

Main activity has been:

Actions

1. AT - In camera minutes of 2 February 2011
2. AT - written legal advice onto wiki
3. AT to transfer the funds for the £10k grant to WMDE to support the Toolserver
4. AT to contact WMF board member Jan-Bart to discuss how to locate new trustees.
5. RB, AT, JD to decide on success points on a successful Wikimania bid
6. AT and JD to organise the pensions scheme

Chris Keating (incl Fundraiser)

Actions

1. JD, MP, SV and CK to assemble a first draft of the Annual Report by February for the Board to review it. Not started - will liaise

Fae (and GLAM programme)

Actions (all open)

1. Fæ to compile a briefing for partners on issues and expectations surrounding in-residency projects.
2. MP/Fæ Blogs or reports from the recent India scholarships to be received and published, may require re-prompting.
3. Fæ/JD/PW Trustee training recommendation
4. Fæ/JD/RS Strategy 2 day
5. JD/Fæ Horniman Museum approach
6. Fæ with GTF 1 to establish GLAM Task Force 2 (it's time)

Martin Poulter (incl Education budget)

Actions

1. Strategy, publicity & event preparation for Wikimedia Universities Programme: aiming for a conference in the Easter holiday. A host institution has been identified: now waiting agreement from the institution on finances. Doing...
2. Follow up on scholarly society contacts, including Food Standards Agency (FSA will get back to us after they have recruited new staff): ongoing Doing...
3. MLP to put together a full proposal on a Wikipedia trainers course, assessment and accreditation program, in coordination with Fæ and Jon. - in progress Doing...
4. MLP to talk to Candy regarding training the trainers Carried forward
5. MLP to finish off spreadsheet of education contacts and share with Jon in case MLP goes under a bus Carried forward

Steve Virgin (incl Wikimania Bid)

Actions

1. Seeking sign off for a Case Study for ARKIVE - thinking approach Andy Mabbett to write it if we get ARKIVE agreement Carried forward
2. Set up small scale Back Stage Pass Events based around Science Museum archive at Wroughton near swindon - purpose to find volunteers from the University of Bristol Societies that can work with this (open to all W'pedians of course as well) - attempting to use link up to consolidate the relationship with the Univ of Bristol and begin one with Science Museum (this end of M4) Carried forward
3. JD, MP, SV and CK to assemble a first draft of the Annual Report by February for the Board to review it.
4. Worked with JB on Charity Commission rationale (vis sign off and publication of documentation) - 2-3 calls - JB - available to Board members in mail Done
5. Spotted another PR agency 'manipulating entries' from a non-Neutral Point of View - in discussion with RB and RS

Volunteers

Andy Mabbett

1. AM to provide JD with an estimate for the costs of a web-streaming system.

Staff

Jon Davies (CEO)

Actions

Report to Board.

For the day-to-day nitty gritty see my weekly reports and feel free to email me about them.

In summary

A very busy few months building the foundations of the year ahead, principally meeting people, learning as much as I can and creating an office that can serve the community and deliver our ambitious plans. Thanks to those who have offered friendly advice and Richard for being a great colleague despite having to move house etc.

Here are the key elements that I would like to discuss and response to action points:

Actions outstanding from previous board.

1. RB, AT, JD to decide on success points on a successful Wikimania bid

Overtaken by events

2. JD/Office to look into a software solution to track actions and plans.

On back burner – we need some actions to track first and some staff to be tracked.

3. JD and SV to redraft job description for Comms staff.

Done

4. AT and JD to prepare a draft 2012-13 budget by 3 Jan.

Done

5. RB and JD to prepare a draft on Metrics by 3 jan.

See 2 – should all integrate.

6. JD, MP, SV and CK to assemble a first draft of the Annual Report by February for the Board to review it.

Poise to do my bit when I know what is needed.

7. JD to set up the process of a trustee induction for new trustees by February.

Agreed support programme. Fae to detail times/places etc.

8. AT and JD to organise the pensions scheme

Working on this.

Matters for discussion:

Office space.

The office has proved successful, attracting a lot of visitors and volunteers. We will soon have four staff for four desks and this will make us appear a lot less hospitable. Looking forward a year I think we need to engineer a modest one-off expansion. I believe we have found a suitable location at Development House with good facilities, well located and at an economic cost. I would not like to move. However we will need another couple of desk spaces. In March the fourth floor is set to be re-organised and at this point we can change our shape a little. I am proposing that we take on another couple of desks (but not phones or ethernet ports). This will allow us to continue to welcome visitors and volunteers and offer intern and training posts as appropriate. Altogether more capacity and efficiency. This is a helpful synchronicity as after this re-organisation the space will be let and our room for manoeuvre will become more limited. I would also have more bargaining power with the management for the introduction of a bean bag/sofa area on the fourth floor that they are considering and would be good for our use. The annual costs will be an extra £8,000. This can be met from our contingency fund.

Proposal: That we hire two more desk spaces for the financial year 2012-13, the money to be taken from contingency.

Office equipment.

I am pleased that we have the laptop, chrome book and projector for event and volunteer use. This is a trend we should continue. In the meantime the costs of setting up the office are higher than we had predicted. I would like to propose that given the delay for one month in the recruitment of the events post and two months in the comms post we transfer £2500 of this underspend (approximately (£7130) to the office equipment budget to buy their laptops and any other equipment needed.

Proposal: that £2500 is transferred from the Comms and Events salary lines to the office equipment line to equip the office.

Financial protocols – progress report.

We have made good progress on the institution of professional financial protocols. Two issues are holding us back: The opening of the Unity Trust , dual signature electronic banking account. The implementation of the SAGE accounting system. I hope to have good progress to report on these soon.

These are the outstanding issues to report: Separate signatures for current and savings accounts: Delay until after the Board elections when we will know who is available.

Two staff present at opening of post - done now whenever possible but arrival of Events and Comms people will make this possible.

Criminal and financial checks for staff and trustees – can start with staff – Trustees after the elections.

Monthly reconciliations and reporting to Wikis etc – awaiting SAGE

Gift Aid collection – plan agreed. Application to be made . First receipts June at the earliest.

Pensions – see separate section.

Expenses reporting on Wiki – awaiting SAGE.

Richard Symonds (Office Manager)

Actions

1. RS to assist with chasing and clearing the backlog of outstanding submission of expense claims. Carried forward
2. RS to include disputed transactions in the weekly backlog reports. (???? Victuallers 17:10, 3 January 2012 (UTC) Carried forward

Refers to paypal donations that have been disputed on paypal for some reason by the donor - e.g. if they accidentally donated twice. Mike Peel 18:50, 3 January 2012 (UTC))