Minutes of Autscape Management Committee Meeting Date: Sunday January 25 2009. Present: Debbie, Larry, Martijn, Peter, Ruth, Selina, Trish, and Yo Absent: Robin Observing: Icefire and Kitt The meeting started at 10:14 and ended at 12:46. There was a break from 11:16 am to 11:31 am. 1.0 Ratify decisions taken on list 1.1 Approval of December Minutes 2.0 Proposals 2.1 The committee agreed that subcommittee chairs were to aim to email their progress report to the committee list a week before the meeting. The proposal was accepted by a vote of six for, two against. ACTION: Debbie is to remind people a week before the reports are due in. 2.2 It was agreed to send an email to the chat, plan and announce lists detailing the dates, theme and location of Autscape 2009 but not name of the venue. ACTION: Debbie is to send this email. 2.3.1 The committee agreed to give presenters one day's funding during Autscape. 2.3.2 This item proposed that only one person worth of funding be given for each presentation. However, this item did not get voted on, as the discussion shifted towards the newly proposed 2.3.3. 2.3.3 The proposal to fund presenters' carers in addition to funding presenters was discussed. During the emerging discussion, some members felt they should not be in a position of having to assess people's medical conditions to decide if a presenter really needed a carer. The worry of opening Autscape to claims of discrimination was raised. Some worried about the cost to Autscape of agreeing to this proposal especially as so many Autscape participants are disabled. The idea of partly funding carers was suggested but not discussed. Others felt that a presenter might not be able to attend if a needed carer did not receive funding and that by not funding carers we were not presenting equal opportunities to all. The proposal was rejected by a vote of two for, five against, one abstention. The chairman commented that the result does not preclude voting again at a future meeting if the legal situation is clarified and if (and only if) we have the budget we may have to do it anyway. Discussion of this topic was moved to the main committee list. 2.4 The proposal to set the next committee meeting within three days of the last one was accepted. Debbie was chosen to collaborate people's availability and decide when the meeting should be was Debbie. 2.5 It was agreed to draft a data protection policy, that the tech subcommittee be asked to write this draft and Peter to be responsible for making sure the draft is written. 2.6 It was agreed to set the childcare budget to 1,500 pounds. However, we need to check this with the treasurer who was not present at the meeting. 2.7 It was agreed that the programme subcommittee would submit their wording of the theme description and call for proposals to the main committee by Sunday 1 February. The main committee would have a 24-hour vote on it. At this point, the agenda was re-ordered slightly in order to maximise the participation of committee members whose availability might be limited later in the meeting. 4.1 It was approved that the programme subcommittee be delegated the task of setting the closing date for the call for proposals. 4.2 The committee approved of the programme subcommittee's theme wording, which is "Effective Living". 2.8 The committee agreed to consult the chat list about that list's confidentiality. However they decided to wait for some time so that the incident which prompted this discussion would not be given undue prominence. ACTION: Larry to post committee approved wording to the chat list after an appropriate delay. 5.0 Progress Reports During the progress reports, a topic relating to progress reports not on the agenda was raised. In order to keep non-committee members up to date, the progress reports emailed in advance to the committee list could be attached to that meeting's minutes. This could not happen this month, as people did not know in advance it would happen and some personal information was contained in one of them. No firm conclusion was reached on this. 5.1.6: Debbie reported that the plan is to move to the new host within two weeks, subject to outside disruptions and Ian who controls the autscape.org domain. While we move to the new host there will be a brief period when people's posts to Autscape lists will be delayed (but not lost). 5.1.2 Yo reported that the constitution group has sent all the direct details back to the solicitor and the subcommittee was currently discussing possible changes to objects (i.e., aims). 5.1.5 Larry had nothing to report regarding the publicity subcommittee. 5.1.7 Peter needs to get the day rates from the venue. 5.5 Trish sent a revised version of the "general committee member" description to the committee list last night. Not everyone had had a chance to study it yet. There was no other business to be discussed and the meeting closed.