Meetings/2009-06-02
Wikimedia UK Board meeting Tuesday 2nd June 2009, 8:30pm BST at #wikimedia-uk-board
Present: Michael Peel (MP) (Chair); Andrew Turvey (AT) (minutes); Steve Virgin (SV); Joseph Seddon (JS)
Apologies: Paul Williams (PW), Tom Holden (TH)
Absent: Zeyi He (ZH)
Minutes of the previous meeting
Approval of the minutes of the meeting of the 26th May was delayed to ensure all brought forward actions had been captured.
The following actions were carried forward:
- JS to send the tokens of our appreciation to the retiring Directors, tellers and external speakers.
ACTION: JS
- TH to contact the bank to notify them of the new directors, to change the signatories to any two of MP, AT and TH and to set up AT and MP on the online banking.
ACTION: TH
- PW will talk to SV and ZH to get them set up with an account on IRC and give them operator rights.
ACTION: PW 
Done
- MP has transferred ownership of wikimedia.co.uk to us; MP still to organise transfer of wikimedia.org.uk with current owner.
ACTION: MP Done
- AT will send the opt out email re Phorm once wikimedia.org.uk has been transferred.
ACTION: AT
- PW will continue to research what is needed to produce business cards for Wikimedia UK officials.
ACTION: PW
- PW to obtain the list of email recipients and send them the May newsletter
ACTION: PW Done
- PW agreed to start pushing membership and organise the Membership/Drive page. MP, AT, SV, JS agreed to send suggestions to PW by 9 June.
ACTION: MP, AT Done, SV, JS
- So that we can use it for members-only merchandising, AT agreed to send the email to the Foundation previously discussed asking for permission to use their trademarks.
ACTION: AT Done
- JS will discuss with Manchester Tourist Board on their support for a possible Manchester Wikimania Bid in 2013.
ACTION: JS
- MP to approach membership with regards to the membership list being on the Board wiki.
ACTION: MP Done
- TH to start discussion on the Board mailing list with regards to director access to paypal account.
ACTION: TH Done (by MP)
- TH to change paypal address to paypal@wikimedia.org.uk
ACTION: TH Done
- MP to set previous board members emails to forward to him.
ACTION: MP Done
- SV, MP, JS to collate press response template list
ACTION: SV, MP + JS
- ZH to prepare a timeline for WMUK initiatives.
ACTION: ZH
- TD agreed to contact the gazette on behalf of WMUK to solicit a pro-bono lawyer
ACTION: TD
- TH agreed to contact pro bono lawyer groups by email
ACTION: TH
Matters arising
SV agreed to email the WikimediaUK-L Mailing List to solicit views on "scenarios" that could be useful for the "press response template" mentioned above.
ACTION: SV
JS to copy the standard templates from OTRS.
ACTION: JS
JS has been in contact with WJBScribe, a lawyer who has offered to give pro-bono advice to the chapter. JS to clarify if this means formal written advice that can be relied upon or informal word of mouth assistance.
ACTION: JS
Reports
Secretary (AT)
AT has received an email from Steve Bowbrick, the BBC Radio 4 Blog Editor who spoke at the AGM regarding collaboration between the BBC and WMUK. SV agreed to pursue this as Director of Corporate Relations.
ACTION: SV
AT has also received an email from the Open Knowledge Foundation who were lined up to speak at the AGM but weren't able to in the end, also regarding possible collaboration. JS agreed to follow up.
ACTION: JS
Conferences (JS)
JS had previously emailed the Board regarding the Online Information 2009 (1-3 Dec, London) conference. They are inviting speakers and although the deadline is officially passed they are accepting late submissions.
The cost to attend is £400/day/person (£400 for the 3 days for registered charities). JS will confirm whether speakers have to pay this fee.
ACTION: JS
SV is already attending in a work capacity. In the event that speakers do have to pay the fee, SV will look into getting a slot in a fringe event instead.
ACTION: SV
Once this is established, JS, MP, AT will work on a submission
ACTION: JS, MP, AT
SV is also talking to the University of the West of England and the University of Leeds regarding holding a WMUK conference there.
Corporate Relations (SV)
SV has been in touch with a few leads:
- The Vega Science Trust, a not-for-profit publishing material on the internet; JS and SV will follow up with a call to discuss collaboration opportunities.
ACTION: JS; SV
- Bairds, a public affairs consultancy who may be able to help regarding funding for Welsh language projects. JS and SV will follow up to discuss collaboration opportunities.
ACTION: JS; SV
- The Red Maids school regarding the wikischools idea. JS and SV will progress
ACTION: JS; SV
HMRC response
The response is complete save for the appendix on the use of Wikimedia in education. It was agreed AT and MP would work on it together, send the final copy round the Board and send out.
ACTION: AT; MP
We have received two offers of help funding legal advice in connection with this issue - one from the WMF and one from a pro-bono lawyer. It was agreed we would respond to thank the people for offering, explaining the Board has decided to respond to HMRC ASAP; if this is not successful we may then seek legal advice so would be grateful for assistance then if it's still available. For the pro-bono lawyer we do need help with the chapters agreement so to ask if they would be prepared to advise us on that.
ACTION: AT
New chapters agreement
It was agreed that MP will provide the Chapter Agreement Committee with a link to Chapter Agreement Revision/Response with our current response. This may alter following legal advice.
ACTION: MP Done
Process to appoint the chapter-selected Board members of the Wikimedia Foundation in 2010
It was agreed AT should post this to the WikimediaUK-L mailing list to solicit views on this process and it should be discussed again next time.
ACTION: AT Done
Next Meeting
Next meeting was arranged for Tuesday 9th June, 8:30pm at #wikimedia-uk-board
Meeting closed at 23:00.