[Linux-aus] Minutes of Council Meeting Face to Face, 2nd-3rd March 2013
Kylie Willison
kmw at bridgeonline.com.au
Sun Mar 10 18:16:58 EST 2013
Hi Kathy
Just wondering if my Regional Delegates Program report was tabled.
Thanks, Kylie
On 10/03/2013 4:59 PM, Kathy Reid wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> Please find below the minutes of the Council Face to Face meeting held
> last weekend,
> Kind regards,
> Kathy
>
>
> Minutes - Linux Australia Council Face to Face
>
> 2nd-3rd March 2013, Quest Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
>
> Meeting opened 0950hrs 2nd March
>
> Present: Mr Joshua ‘El Presidenté’ Hesketh, Mr Hugh Blemings, Mr
> François Marier, Ms Kathy Reid, Mr Clinton Roy, Ms Bianca Gibson, Mr
> Josh Stewart
> All Council members were present and quorum was achieved.
>
> For clarity, Mr Joshua Hesketh is referred to as El Presidenté.
> It was noted that this was against his will. El Presidenté’s wishes were
> overriden by majority of the Council.
>
>
> Action item summary
>
> * ACTION: Whitelist the members for the council email list so that we
> don’t have to spend time moderating the Council email list
> * ACTION: Kathy to get in contact with James Iseppi to figure out how
> we get the LCA signup sheets into MemberDB.
> * ACTION: We would like for subcommittees to have a spiel on their
> website for people UPDATE from Kathy: This was around the
> Subcommittees having something on their website to promote Linux
> Australia membership - for instance where say WordCamp runs, we want
> WordCamp to have a link for people to sign up for Linux Australia
> membership.
> * ACTION: Kathy to check the constitution and make a decision and
> approve foreign members if required.
> ACTION COMPLETE - The constitution does not prevent foreign citizens
> being members of LA.
> * ACTION: MemberDB needs to handle expired members. On the expiry
> email that goes out, make it VERY CLEAR that it won’t remove people
> from mailing lists, and tell people how to remove themselves.
> * ACTION: MemberDB needs functionality for emailing members
> * ACTION: We need someone to do announcing/posting to lists
> * ACTION: Kathy to chat with Peter Lieverdink and James Polley to
> identify way forward for making amendments to MemberDB to facilitate
> the expiry process
> * ACTION: El Presidenté to import information into mailman from
> MemberDB or vice versa. This action is postponed until members renew
> their membership to avoid annoying people.
> * ACTION: MemberDB changes required to automate things. Until we have
> that functionality in MemberDB, ensure all new members are added to
> the announce mailing list manually.
> * ACTION: Kathy to add the manual workaround to process documentation
> * ACTION: Get a CSV export from Zookeepr from web team James Iseppi to
> add to announce mailing list.
> * ACTION: Someone to add a statement to the mailing list subscription
> page around proper conduct on the mailing lists.
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo
> * ACTION: All Council members to become more familiar with the
> constitution https://www.linux.org.au/constitution
> * ACTION: Clinton to finish AGM Minutes
> * ACTION: Once the AGM Minutes are finalised, someone to work with
> John Ferlito and Terry to submit to office of fair trading
> * ACTION: Someone to ensure Ghosts is being organised, currently with
> LCA2014 Perth team
> * ACTION: Set dates for the linux.conf.au 2015 bid process and execute
> the bid process by end of March. Now’s the time to start asking
> questions and start reviewing, shortlisting and selecting.
> * ACTION: El Presidenté to update the email that is sent to
> Subcommittees regarding reporting to advise that the information is
> made public on the Linux Australia webpage.
> * ACTION: Follow up expressions of interest with potential
> subcommittees to get them to formalise their actions and possibly
> submit formal subcommittee formation requests.
> * ACTION: Clinton to let LCA2014 know that it would be a good idea to
> have a ZooKeepr keeperer.
> * ACTION: El Presidenté to send credit card forms to Westpac
> * ACTION: Kathy to organise business cards for Council members
> * ACTION: Clinton to review previous grant request submissions to get
> a better feel for which requests were approved and which ones were
> denied to identify trends.
> * ACTION: Francois to reimburse Leon Brooks for opensource.org.au
> * ACTION: Steven Walsh to delegate this domain to linux.org.au
> * ACTION: Josh and Francois to communicate with the Sydney Joomla
> group and request a budget, and clarify that Linux Australia events
> keeps the profit from events that are run under Linux Australia’s
> auspices.
> * ACTION: Josh and Francois are to request a budget from Tim Plummer
> and the Sydney Joomla Day team
> * ACTION: El Presidenté to chase monitoring mailing list for Alistair
> Irvine
> * ACTION: Clinton to speak with Shaun Nyquist to gather more details
> about Shaun’s Vietnam travel grant request.
> * ACTION: Mail needs to be redirected to Kathy. Kathy to send John
> Ferlito her address.
> * ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter to sort out MemberDB initial email so
> it points to the right website for members to change their password.
> * ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter about Google Analytics
> * ACTION: Website refresh and hackfest. Will this be high value? Defer
> until we know what other action items are on our list.
> * ACTION: Kathy to upload the Stakeholder Mapping drawing
> * ACTION: The Media and Communications Subcommittee Charter needs to
> be reviewed by Council, then the interested parties should propose
> to Council to form the Media and Communications Subcommittee
> * ACTION: Set up mailing list for Media and Communications
> Subcommittee. Clinton to be the point of contact, Kathy to be on the
> mail list also
> * ACTION: Get photos of Council Members
> * ACTION: Photos of Council Members to go up on web page
> http://linux.org.au/council
> * ACTION: We need an FAQ for dealing with journalists and put it on
> the website
> * ACTION: We need to build a stakeholder picture of journalists to get
> a better picture of what they do, which area they work in. Would
> this be a good thing to outsource to a PR company?
> * ACTION: We need to understand what the community reads - there is a
> touchpoint here with the upcoming member survey. What do members of
> the open source community actually read. What do our prospective
> members read?
> * ACTION: Kathy to set up list of journalist and media contacts
> * ACTION: Clinton to create a list of LUGs/tech mailing lists
>
>
>
> El Presidenté welcomed delegates and opened the meeting.
>
>
> 1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes of meeting 14 Feb 2013
>
> Moved as correct by El Presidenté, seconded Bianca, passed unanimously
>
>
> 2. Review of previous action items
>
>
> Moderation of requests to ctte at linux.org.au
>
> ACTION: Whitelist the members so that we don’t have to spend time
> moderating the Council email list
>
>
> Document travel agency details
>
> UPDATE: Documented on wiki, complete
>
>
> 3. Items for discussion
>
>
> Round table with blue sky vision thinking for Linux Australia
>
> The vision and activities the Council want to be working on this year
> include;
>
> * Becoming more than just Linux and being the organisation that
> represents open technology
> * Becoming more involved in lobbying the government on open technology
> issues
> * Supporting user groups and facilitating development and growth there
> * Extending the grants program and doing better outreach in this space
> * Enabling user groups and people to do cool things
> * Making Linux Australia more relevant to people who are not currently
> members - and extending our reach beyond our current community
> * Encouraging outreach to younger people and universities to get
> people interested in Linux Australia who might not otherwise want to
> be involved. This also involves supporting other organisations that
> are doing cool stuff, and including officially endorsing some
> efforts by other organisations.
> * Increasing our public profile and public voice - and be consulted
> more on open technology issues.
> * Fight against software patents and TPPA
> * Better representing member needs - including running a member survey
> * Better defining the member lifecycle and targeting action at
> different points in the lifecycle
> * Run excellent conferences, but make sure the conferences don’t
> conflict.
> * We want to do better communication with stakeholders and the
> stakeholder environment
>
>
> The Council discussed the particular skills and attributes they bring to
> the table and the roles they would like to play within the team.
>
>
> SWOT Analysis
>
> Council undertook a SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses,
> opportunities and threats to help guide and prioritise actions for the
> year.
>
>
> Memberships
>
> Discussion was held around how new members are approved.
> ACTION: Kathy to get in contact with James Iseppi to figure out how we
> get the LCA signup sheets into MemberDB.
> ACTION: Subcommittees to have a spiel on their website for people
> Discussion was held around whether people who are not Australian
> citizens can be members of Linux Australia?
> ACTION: Kathy to check the constitution and make a decision and approve
> foreign members if required
>
> Discussion was held around cleaning up MemberDB. Points raised included
> the lack of consistency between mailing lists and MemberDB, and
> downsides of expiring members such as a reduced membership base.
>
> DECISION: It was decided that MemberDB would be cleaned up this year by
> running an expiry process.
>
>
> Membership tiers
>
> Discussion was held around whether Linux Australia needs different
> membership tiers, possibly with paid memberships. There is no current
> financial imperative to do this. Council was also mindful that if people
> pay money to be a member of Linux Australia they will have higher
> service expectations. The key reason for paid memberships would be to
> allow people who want to make more of a contribution to be able to do
> so. General consensus that paid membership tiers are not required at
> this stage.
>
> MOTIONmoved by El Presidenté that we;
> 1. Have a single free membership tier
> 2. That memberships are expired/renewed annually via an online mechanism
> before 1st October in accordance with Clause 4(e) of the Constitution
> Seconded by François, carried unanimously
>
> It was noted that we need to ensure that we make memberships ‘inactive’
> rather than removing them entirely in case membership data is completely
> lost. Are there privacy principles that need to be upheld. This may need
> to be researched in more depth. It was noted that this will require some
> MemberDB changes.
>
> ACTION: MemberDB needs to handle expired members. On the expiry email
> that goes out, make it VERY CLEAR that it won’t remove people from
> mailing lists, and tell people how to remove themselves.
> ACTION: MemberDB needs functionality for emailing members
> ACTION: We need someone to do announcing/posting to lists
> ACTION: Kathy to chat with Peter Lieverdink and James Polley to identify
> way forward
>
>
> Mailing lists
>
> It was agreed that there should be more correlation between MemberDB and
> the mailing list. Any new member gets subscribed to la-announce - they
> can unsubscribe and still be a member of LA. We need to ensure everyone
> is a member to start with and then can unsubscribe if they want to be.
> We discussed whether we should just have an la-members mailing list
> which is consistent with MemberDB, but this created more overhead.
>
> It was agreed that we need a method to contact all members that is not
> mailman dependent, and that we need to audit the mailing list and ensure
> that every current member in MemberDB is on the announce mailing list,
> and ensure that all new members are subscribed to the announce mailing
> list, and that members may unsubscribe from mailing lists.
>
> ACTION: El Presidenté to import information from mailman to MemberDB or
> vice versa
> ACTION: MemberDB changes required to automate things. Until we have that
> functionality in MemberDB, ensure all new members are added to the
> announce mailing list annually
> ACTION: Kathy to add the manual workaround to process documentation
> ACTION: Get a CSV export from Zookeepr from web team James Iseppi to add
> to announce mailing list.
>
> Council discussed mailing list policy, and whether we need a brief
> statement on the mailing list subscription page to state we have the
> ability to remove posts or ban members if content is inappropriate.
> ACTION: Someone to add a statement to the mailing list subscription page
> around this.
> http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo
>
> Council decided that we would wait until after membership expiry/renewal
> before auditing the membership of the email list. It was noted that
> privacy requirements are better for opt in than opt out - if people are
> interested they will opt in. People who aren’t interested won’t know
> about it.
>
>
> Constitution
>
> Discussion was held on what value it adds to change it. A number of pros
> and cons were debated, and it was decided to leave it ‘as is’ at the
> moment.
>
> ACTION: All Council members to become more familiar with the constitution
> https://www.linux.org.au/constitution
>
>
> AGM Minutes
>
> In progress.
> ACTION: Clinton to finish AGM Minutes, work with John Ferlito and Terry
> to submit to office of fair trading
>
>
> linux.conf.au
>
>
> LCA2013
>
>
> Debrief is being planned for late March, getting dates is difficult.
> Financial position is unknown at this time and will be confirmed during
> debrief. Final accounts are not settled as yet. Discussions regarding
> the venue - staff costs on top of the hall hire for ushering due to
> legal requirements. B&G accommodation costs need to be sorted.
>
>
> LCA2014
>
>
> Ghosts will be held around the 27th April. Coming along nicely. Working
> with venue around dates. Clinton will be the liaison, and other Ghosts
> will be in attendance.
>
>
> LCA2015
>
>
> Expressions of interest have been received already, even without the
> call for Expressions of Interest going out.
>
> ACTION: Set dates for the linux.conf.au 2015 bid process and execute the
> bid process by end of March. Now’s the time to start asking questions
> and start reviewing, shortlisting and selecting.
>
>
> Subcommittees
>
>
> Admin team
>
> Admin team report filed in November. Admin team don’t need to report too
> often. Hosting agreement under negotiation.
>
>
> linux.conf.au
>
> Last report by 2013 filed in July, good to get an update from them at Ghosts
>
>
> Newcastle LUG
>
> Filed a report in September. No activity to report.
>
>
> Mirror team
>
> Michael Still is leaving the Mirror Team. Council noted his excellent
> contributions to date. Under control at the moment, team can do a call
> for participation if required. Next report end of May.
>
>
> PyconAu
>
> Reporting set to bimonthly. Planning going well for 2013.
>
>
> Webteam
>
> Last report March 2012, next report due March 2013.
>
>
> WordCampMelbourne
>
> Reporting set to bimonthly.
>
>
> Retired subcommittees
>
> Council reviewed a number of retired subcommittees. Discussion held
> around putting in previous subcommittees to Drupal, and whether to put
> old ones in so we have a historical record. Discussion around who is
> responsible for checking reports. Council is happy for events to run as
> Subcommittees.
>
> Discussion around multiple bids for the same event. Process is generally
> if you want to run one, check in with the LA Council, so that we know
> about it and can determine objectively.
> Another way to do this is to have an Events Subcommittee made up of
> Ghosts of previous events to provide advice to Council. Designed to
> produce successful conference - and say advise on who should run the
> next conference. Do we have a subcommittee that parents subcommittees -
> ie all of them. As long as it was understood that they are
> recommendations and that Council could override. Have we reached the
> point where we actually need this? Council decided this was not yet
> required.
>
>
> Subcommittee budgeting
>
> Discussion around budgeting to break even on a per-person basis without
> sponsorship, and then as sponsors come on board add in extra schwag and
> benefits for the event. This should be a key principle of funding
> events. PyconAu has been very good in valuing exactly different
> sponsorship deals.
>
>
> Subcommittee process
>
> Subcommittee policy is documented at
> https://www.linux.org.au/policies/sub-committee
> Discussion around whether we have any issues with current Subcommittee
> process, and tracking activities of subcommittee. Discussion around the
> reports from Subcommittee and whether we’re still happy for them to go
> straight to the Linux Australia home page.
>
> Feed of subcommittee reports is at;
> http://linux.org.au/subcommittees/reports/feed
>
> ACTION: El Presidenté to update the email that is sent to Subcommittees
> regarding reporting to advise that the information is made public on the
> Linux Australia webpage.
>
>
> Review of potential subcommittees
>
> ACTION: Follow up expressions of interest with potential subcommittees
> to get them to formalise their actions and possibly submit formal
> subcommittee formation requests.
>
> ACTION: Let LCA2014 know that it would be a good idea to have a ZooKeepr
> keeperer.
>
>
> Insurance
>
> Insurance definitely covers subcommittees
>
>
> Budget, banks, finance and treasury
>
> Council was informed of the expenses policy
> http://linux.org.au/policies/expense
>
> Expense claims should be logged with Treasurer, Francois.
>
> Although LA is in a strong financial position, it’s going to be a tight
> year financially. No specific action is required currently to address
> this, we just need to be aware of this when deliberating financial
> decisions. We have sufficient reserves currently without curtailing
> grants or other expenditures.
>
>
> Credit cards
>
>
> * Francois needs one
> * Kathy needs one
>
>
> ACTION: El presidenté to send the credit card forms to Westpac
>
>
> Sponsorships, donations and grants
>
> General feeling to prefer grants over donations - so that there is a
> return on the investment. Discussion around outreach around getting more
> donation requests - something simple like just having business cards
> available so that you can provide contact details when say you’re at a
> conference.
>
> ACTION: To organise business cards for Council members
>
> Discussion held around whether we should we review previous grants?
> There is a grants page on the site at;
> http://linux.org.au/projects/grants. Council also discussed whether we
> should focus on more grants this year due to our strong financial position.
>
> ACTION: Clinton to review previous travel and study submissions to get a
> better feel for which requests were approved and which ones were denied
> to identify trends.
>
>
> Documentation and processes
>
> ACTION: Mail needs to be redirected to Kathy. Kathy to send John Ferlito
> her address.
>
> Utbox - fax to email - provided free
> Council noted their thanks to Utbox for provision of this service.
>
> ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter to sort out MemberDB initial email so it
> points to the right website for members to change their password.
>
>
> Outreach
>
> DECISION: Regarding Eventifier - each event to make own decision, we
> will not provide as an umbrella service.
>
> ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter about Google Analytics
> ACTION: Website refresh and hackfest. Will this be high value? Defer
> until we know what other action items are on our list.
>
>
> Evangelism
>
> Discussion around what activities we want to do here. We shouldn’t aim
> to do a million things. We can publish on the mailing lists about what
> we do and cross-pollinate things.
>
>
> Stakeholder mapping
>
> The Council mapped key stakeholders in and around the community in terms
> of importance and influence and prioritised according to the amount of
> effort that should be spent engaging the stakeholders. We prioritised
> the effort that should be spent engaging various stakeholders based on
> influence and importance.
> ACTION: Kathy to upload the Stakeholder Mapping drawing to Council docs area
>
>
> Media and Communications Subcommittee
>
> Discussion around the Media and Communications Subcommittee Charter and
> how this Subcommittee adds value to Council. They could assist in
> writing promotional material. We would need to ensure the integrity of
> communications sent out in our name. We discussed whether the
> Subcommittee could produce a newsletter each month and maintain a list
> of journalist and user group contacts. Council could then fill the gaps
>
> ACTION: The Charter needs to be reviewed by Council, then the interested
> parties should propose to Council to form the Media and Communications
> Subcommittee
>
> ACTION: Set up mailing list for Media and Communications Subcommittee.
> Clinton to be the point of contact, Kathy to be on the mail list also
>
> Council welcomed Brianna Laugher as the contact for the Media and
> Communications Subcommittee. We discussed having a monthly newsletter.
> Expectations of the Media and Communications Subcommittee were
> discussed, noting the amount of work that could possibly be involved,
> and needing to constrain this.
>
> The draft charter for the Media SubCommittee was reviewed.
> http://wiki.linux.org.au/Roles_and_things
>
> Council discussed the role of Media SubCommittee
>
> * Newsletter
> * Press releases
> * Maintaining a list of journalists
> * Maintaining a list of mailing lists
> * Maintaining a list of Calls for Papers
> * Sourcing feedback from the community
> * Assisting with Social Media - Twitter, Facebook.
>
>
> Council discussed some of the the things that could be in the Newsletter
>
> * Calls for Papers
> * Upcoming events
> * Highlights of blogs and social media posts
> * LUG of the month
> * Podcast of the month
> * Links to the minutes
> * Links to videos of confs
> * Highlight community member / interview
> * NO CLIPART!
>
>
> MOTION: Kathy moved that the Media and Communications Subcommittee be
> instantiated based on the current charter. Seconded by Bianca, passed
> unanimously.
>
> ACTION: El Presidenté to give Brianna access to the Media Portal on the Wiki
> ACTION: El Presidenté to set up reporting for the Media and
> Communications Subcommittee on Drupal
> ACTION: Kathy to set up list of journalist and media contacts
> ACTION: Clinton to create a list of LUGs/tech mailing lists
>
>
> 4. Review of correspondence
>
>
> opensource.org.au (Leon Brooks)
>
> ACTION: Francois to reimburse Leon Brooks
> ACTION: Steven Walsh to delegate this domain to linux.org.au
>
>
> AV Co-ordinators report
>
> Report was thorough. El Presidenté has thanked Paul for his report. No
> further action required on this matter.
>
>
> Subcommittee request for Sydney Joomla Group from Tim Plummer
>
> Request was approved in principle, some further information is required
> to progress.
> ACTION: Josh and Francois to communicate with the Sydney Joomla group
> and request a budget, and clarify that Linux Australia events keeps the
> profit from events that are run under Linux Australia’s auspices.
> ACTION: Josh and Francois are to request a budget from Tim Plummer and team
>
>
> Request for monitoring mailing list from Alistair Irvine
>
> Request for mailing list approved
> ACTION: El Presidenté to chase monitoring mailing list for Alistair Irvine
>
>
> Request for Vietnam Open Source Training from Shaun Nyquist
>
> Grants policy requires that members have two weeks to provide feedback.
> DECISION: Council will defer decision until members have had an
> opportunity to provide feedback in line with Grants policy. Decision to
> be made at next teleconf.
> ACTION: Clinton to speak with Shaun Nyquist to gather more details about
> the request
>
>
> Sponsorship request from BarCampMelbourne from Ben Dechrai
>
> Request withdrawn, no further action required.
>
>
> 5. Media training
>
>
> Council welcomed Brad Howarth as the Media Trainer for the day. Brad
> provided his very accomplished career background in technology
> journalism. Brad is driven by wanting to help people become interesting
> storytellers, so helps people articulate technology stories and the
> passion behind them. He has a very strong media training background.
>
> http://au.linkedin.com/in/bhowarth
>
> Council received a presentation from Brad around how to deal with the
> Media, advice for working with journalists, and participated in mock
> interview training. Consensus this was good value.
>
> ACTION: Get photos of Council Members
> ACTION: Photos of Council Members to go up on web page
> http://linux.org.au/council
> ACTION: We need an FAQ for dealing with journalists and put it on the
> website
> ACTION: We need to build a stakeholder picture of journalists to get a
> better picture of what they do, which area they work in. Would this be a
> good thing to outsource to a PR company?
> ACTION: We need to understand what the community reads - there is a
> touchpoint here with the upcoming member survey. What do members of the
> open source community actually read. What do our prospective members read?
>
>
> 6. Deferred
>
> * Awards
> * Member survey
> * Member services
>
>
> MEETING CLOSED 1730hrs 3rd March
> NEXT MEETING via teleconference Thursday 15th March 1945hrs
>
>
> 7. Matters discussed in camera
>
> Five matters were discussed in camera, and cannot be made public at this
> time due to the need for privacy and confidentiality.
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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