Talk:Meetings/2009-04-26/Agenda

Some thoughts

This is starting to look scary already... The important part is the administration section, which will need to be dealt with at this meeting; fundraising, PR and programmes could be discussed at later meetings if necessary due to time constraints, although it would obviously be better and quicker to discuss them face to face.

"Resolution to notify Companies House of new board members and officers" I think is unnecessary - this is a legal requirement, and will need to be done by the company secretary, so why do a resolution about it?

More coming over time... Mike Peel 06:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Good to start a discussion over this! I've added an early item - approval of the Agenda! It will be up to the new Board to decide what to discuss at the first meeting, and I wouldn't want to fetter that - so I'd take all of this as suggestions. I've suggested a few changes:

1. Combined noting election, vote of thanks, notifying CoHo together
2. I think we need to discuss roles before we elect Secretary, Treasurer at least - probably make sense to discuss all roles then elect
3. Some items should be decided over more than one meeting (e.g. Reserves policy) to allow some time to think, consider and allow community to input. I've changed these from "Discussion and resolution" to just discuss
4. I don't see the need to discuss WMF Fundraising drive at this stage - too early
5. Also I think 2010 AGM/UK Wikimedia Conference is too early to discuss AndrewRT 11:31, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I told you it would be scary! Some parts can be deferred if it's getting late. Notifying CoHo probably doesn't require a resolution, you're right, I wasn't sure about that so decided to err on the side of caution and include it. Secretary is a requirement (under our Articles, but not in law), Treasurer is not. The new board should be given the option to not have a treasurer if they want (they would be insane to do so, of course). I don't know about the rest of the candidates, but I would like to know what positions are on offer before deciding what to stand for (although, I intend to run for Chair, which I think really does need to be done straight away), so I would leave all elections other than chair until after the discussion. Depending on how frequently we decide to have meetings, it might be a good idea to resolve some things by written resolution if people aren't ready to vote during the meeting (delegate one person to receive any comments over the next week, amend the resolution if they aren't likely to be controversial and propose it, or otherwise decide to leave it until the next meeting) - the agenda can call that "discussion", I suppose, so I would support that change. I really think we should start talking about the important things ASAP. The Fundraising drive isn't really that far away and we need to negotiate with WMF about how they will direct donations to us (other chapters have been less than satisfied in the past with the prominence of links), what the WMF requires of us with regards to safeguards, etc., (that part should be easy enough - there are standard practices for these things that we can follow), what we'll spend the 50% that needs to be mutually agreed on, etc., etc.. That all takes time. Organising a conference also takes time and I think someone should be assigned the task of starting the planning for that ASAP. I don't intend these discussions to be very detailed, primarily they will be actioning someone to start work on them (perhaps just putting together a proposal for the board to approve at a future meeting, rather than actually doing anything yet). --Tango 14:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

I've just gone through and undone a load of changes - there is no reason for the agenda not to be as explicit as possible. It makes it easier to work through if everyone knows precisely what is happening at each stage. It also makes it easier for the chair to keep the meeting to time if they know what needs to happen in each item. --Tango 14:35, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

It's only scary if we try to do too much, too soon. I don't want to rein in your enthusiasm but I think this agenda is too long for an initial meeting - Board members are all volunteers remember and there is a danger of provoking burn-out and unhappiness among them which we all need to be on guard against. Trying to do too much can be counter-productive.AndrewRT 13:03, 20 April 2009 (UTC)