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)
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)
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)