Wikimedia UK Board meeting
Tuesday 12th May 2009, 8:30pm BST at #wikimedia-uk-board
Present: Michael Peel (MP) (Chair); Andrew Turvey (AT) (Minutes); Paul Williams (PW); Steve Virgin (SV); Joseph Seddon (JS); Zeyi He (ZH) (part)
Apologies: Tom Holden (TH); Zeyi He for late arrival
Minutes of the previous meeting
The minutes of the meeting of the 5th May were approved with minor changes.
ZH joined the meeting
The following actions were carried forward:
JS to send a token of our appreciation to the retiring Directors, tellers and external speakers. AT will provide addresses.
ACTION: AT; 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
MP to set up a private wiki for sharing documents.
ACTION: MP
PW will talk to SV and ZH to get them set up with an account on IRC and give them operator rights.
ACTION: PW, SV, ZH
PW will investigate whether the domain www.wikimedia.org.uk can occur free of charge; if not, MP is authorised to pay the £23 transfer fee. MP will also follow up hosting for the www.wikimedia.org.uk domain.
ACTION: PW, MP
TH is following up the subscription fee received without a membership form.
ACTION: TH
AT is to respond to the pressure group whose letter had been received.
ACTION: AT
AT will investigate whether it is possible for UK domains to opt out of Phorm and, if so, send the opt out letter once the domain has been transferred.
Treasurer's Report
TH had nothing further to report.
Secretary's Report
AT had nothing further to report.
HMRC Response
TH has posted the letter on the wiki at [[Response to HMRC]]. AT had made some suggestions at [[Talk:Response to HMRC]]. AT agreed to expand these into an alternative wording, and the other members will comment on wiki for final decision at the next meeting.
The WMF has offered to fund the cost of a barrister's advice.
It was agreed that the Board would still send a response to HMRC after the next meeting rather than delaying it to wait for formal advice.
ACTION: AT
Draft New Chapter Agreement
The meeting went in camera. Details of decisions and actions are noted in the confidential minutes
ACTION: MP
MP agreed to circulate to other Board members the comments on the agreement received from Tango42.
ACTION: MP
Newsletter
It was agreed to send May the newsletter out on 20th, and to move the date progressively earlier in the month. PW agreed to start drafting and to assign sections.
ACTION: PW
Website
MP agreed to set up email addresses for initiatives@wikimedia.org.uk and volunteers@wikimedia.org.uk to forward to ZH & PW respectively.
ACTION: MP
PW agreed to send round instructions for registering with OTRS
ACTION: PW
It was agreed that personal addresses in the form firstname.lastname@wikimedia.org.uk would be cancelled once people are no longer working for the chapter – e.g. For former board members.
Initiatives
ZH asked for suggestions as to how she could fulfil her role. AT, JS, PW, SV and MP agreed to send at least one suggestion to ZH before the next meeting.
AT suggested the Board adopt a “timeline” similar to the one used by the interim Board and target completing three initiatives by the time of the next AGM.
ACTION: AT, JS, PW, SV and MP
Cultural partnerships
MP agreed to email a summary on this topic around the Board members for discussion at the next meeting.
ACTION: MP
Process to select chapter seats on the Foundation Board
MP agreed to email a summary on this decision around the Board members for discussion at the next meeting.
ACTION: AT
Any Other Business
ZH mentioned she had held discussions with people at her university to discuss running campaigns to encourage people to edit Wikipedia. She agreed to send a note with details round the Board.
ACTION: ZH
JS mentioned that a new Wikimedia mailing list has been launched for Wikimedians in Ireland. If they proceed to form a chapter, we need to make an arrangement for WM-UK members who are residents of Northern Ireland to participate in the Irish chapter should they wish. It was agreed we'd include this news in our newsletter and support the development of the mailing list or any future chapter in any other way we could.
PW asked if he could have business cards printed for his role. It was agreed this could be paid by the chapter. PW will research this and follow up with TH.
ACTION: PW
Meeting closed at 22:46