[Linux-aus] Minutes of Council Face to Face, 8-9th March 2014, Hobart, Tasmania

[Bianca Gibson]

On 8 April 2014 23:04, Linux Australia Secretary <secretary at linux.org.au>wrote:

>  Joshua welcomed all members of Council and thanked them for giving up
> their time for the weekend, and also thanked the members of Council for
> their service on Council.
>

I also thank you all.


>    -
>
>    Undertake more outreach to university students
>
>
Definitely an area for improvement.


>
>
>    -
>
>    Better document roles and responsibilities of Council members to aid
>    succession planning
>
>
That would be useful, particularly for bringing in more people. I think OCM
would be hard to document because so much of it is doing whatever needs
doing and the time can go up and down a lot. I sometimes did very little
and did heaps on some of my uni breaks.


>
>
>    -
>
>    Become more involved in lobbying activities such as submissions to the
>    TPP.
>
>
I'd like to see more of that. Since council only sometimes has the
expertise, it may be good for council to organise community members to
lobby, rather than doing it themselves. Similar to how we did the TPP
submission, but preferably nudged along quicker.


>
>
>    -
>
>    Undertake succession planning for Council 2015
>
>
We've been really weak on this in the past.


>
> Council revisited the question of whether Linux Australia should charge
> for membership, and how frequently we should do expiry.
>

By my reading council's main interest is to drive members to take an active
interest and participate more? Is it also intended to be a substantial
revenue stream?
If charging more than a small, token amount I strongly recommend there be a
student discount. I'd also like to see pensioner and low income discount.


>
>  The concept of LA’s relevance over time was discussed.
>

I think we will continue to be relevant.
Conferences are the main thing we do.
I've heard some people questioning the value of attending conferences with
easy access to information online. However, I think if you asked people
'what is LCA to you?', 'what is pycon au to you?' a lot of the responses
would revolve around people, community, networking, socialising. That can't
be replaced with online content.
Since our events are very community oriented I think they are much less
likely to become irrelevant than most tech conferences.
I do look forward to the content, but it's the people that get me really
excited about the conference.


>
>  Council discussed whether our values are relevant.
>

Yes.


> Comment was made around whether ‘privacy’ should be added to the values
> given the rise of concerns around surveillance and data collection.
>

Hm, maybe.


>
> Council discussed whether we should just move a motion to put the Code of
> Conduct in place for mailing lists, as it provides a clear path forward for
> mailing list conduct.
>

I think there should be some policy around mailing list conduct shown to
all list members. We also need to iron out the internal procedures for
dealing with incidents, we're not good at it.


>
>  Council discussed at length whether the Mailing List Policy should have
> a clause stating that off list communications should remain private.
>

I think off list communications in response to or relating to content on
the mailing list are within scope.


>
>  Council considered whether there should be community Moderators for the
> mailing lists, and whether the Moderators would have to be members of
> Council.
>

Moderators need to be trusted community members (as judged by council), but
I see no need for them to be council members.


>
>  MOTION by Joshua Hesketh that
>
> a new mailing list be created called policies at linux.org.au
>
> to which policy discussions may be referred.
>
> SECONDED by Christopher Neugebauer
>
> CARRIED unanimously
>

Please publicise this wider and more clearly than in the middle of giant
long minutes.


>
> MOTION by Christopher Neugebauer that financial assistance programs such
> as the Regional delegates Programme for LCA be moved to the budget of the
> relevant conference to administer
>
> SECONDED Hugh Blemings
>
> CARRIED unanimously
>

The RDP was renamed to Linux Australia travel grants.
I'm glad this has been moved, I found myself considering the grants to be
part of the conf budget in my head when it wasn't in the books.


>
>
> It is likely that there will be submissions called for in regard to...
>

Council should be open to, and make it clear that they are open to,
collaborating with community members to make submissions or lobby in other
ways around relevant causes.

Thanks for all your work council, you're awesome!

Cheers,
Bianca
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