Final January Minutes Minutes of meeting of the Board of directors of The Autscape Organisation Meeting date: Saturday 7th January 2012 Meeting time: 2.00pm BST Present: Kalen, Peter, Trish and Yo Apologies: Debbie, Elaine and Stephen Late: Martijn Following a request by the company secretary, directors waived their right to formal notice of this meeting. 1. Announcements 1.1.Debbie has resigned as a director of Autscape. 2.Ratifications 2.1.The board ratified its decision that the theme for Autscape 2012 will be 'Similarities and Diversities'. (4 for, 0 against) 3. Follow-ups 3.1.The board discussed the purpose of the Autscape chat email list and decided to draw up some guidance to be formally proposed at a future meeting. 3.2.It was noted that the paperwork for opening the new bank account is progressing around the signatories. 3.3.The board discussed the Autscape 'map' created the company secretary and asked her to sent the file to the board email list for directors to download. Martijn entered the meeting 4.Appointments 4.1.Research subcommittee chair. There were no volunteers for this role. The board deferred the appointment to the board email list and, in the interim, the Chair will assume responsibility. 5. Proposals 5.1.The board discussed a proposal that Autscape should create an 'on-site' team to actually organise and run the Autscape conference at the event. The team may (or may not) include all the directors but may also include other individuals appointed to the team by the directors. In response to directors' questions, the company secretary reminded the board that 'organiser rebates' are legally a reimbursement of expenses for having to attend Autscape for those volunteers who have to be there in order to actually run it. Therefore, should the proposal be approved, these rebates should be applied to individuals on the 'on-site' team (whether or not they are directors) and should not be applied to directors who are not participating in the 'on-site' team. The board decided to create an 'on-site' team as proposed (5 for, 0 against). 5.2.The board instructed the treasurer to provide a proposed fee structure to the directors to be available 1 week in advance of the February meeting, in order to be able to vote on a fee structure at the February meeting. (5 for, 0 against). 5.3.The board appointed Peter (5 for, 0 against) to take responsibility for booking and administering transport arrangements and set the remit for this role as to: Book Autscape-provided transport for Autscape 2012 Liaise with the transport provider Ensure information about both Autscape-provided transport and public transport options are provided to participants Manage day to day matters relating to transport provision at the event The board specifically excluded from the remit of the person appointed: taking responsibility for ensuring that individuals actually arrive successfully at Autscape. It remains Autscape's policy that this is the responsibility of the individual participant. The board agreed that the person appointed shall have the authority: Once the board has approved specific provider(s), to book transport on behalf of Autscape and to liaise as necessary with provider(s) To collect relevant information from participants and pass that on to the provider. To appoint individuals to run transport provision at the event 5.4.The board agreed in principle (5 for, 0 against) to appoint an individual to take responsibility for booking and administering childcare arrangements and set the remit for this role to be: To book childcare provision for Autscape 2012 To liaise with the childcare provider To ensure information about childcare is provided to participants To manage day to day matters relating to childcare at the event The board agreed that the person appointed shall have the authority: Once the board has approved a specific provider, to book childcare on behalf of Autscape and to liaise as necessary with the provider To collect relevant information from participants and pass that on to the provider in a manner consistent with Autscape's participant confidentiality policy and data protection requirements. If appropriate, to appoint individuals to manage day to day matters relating to childcare provision at the event. An appointment to this role will be made at a later date. 6. Subcommittee progress reports. 6.1.Formal programme subcommittee (presenter numbers, carer places, call for proposals, theme 2013). The sc chair reported that the call for proposals was nearly ready, but it needed integration with the website. The webmaster agreed to do it asap so it could go out the date after the meeting with a deadline of 12th Feb for decision making in March. The chair of sc pub said they could help with the distribution. The chair also reported that presenter numbers and carer places had not been decided because they are budget dependent and some information was lacking until today. The 2013 theme decision is on hold until the Call for Proposals is out of the way. 6.2. Alternative and leisure programme subcommittee (sc membership, task list and timetable for the year). The sc chair reported that there hadn't been many requests to join the sc so she was going to put out a call on the chat list. She was also planning to get the Call for Leisure out now that the Call for Proposals has been finalised. 6.3.Fundraising subcommittee (sc membership, task list and timetable for the year). There was no report due to the absence of the sc chair. 6.4.Research subcommittee (sc membership, task list and timetable for the year, venue and childcare research). Chair Sep-Jan Debbie. The sc chair had reported on list about childcare and hopefully the new sc chair will be able to pick up where she left off. 6.5.Publications and publicity subcommittee (sc membership, task list and timetable for the year, advertisement deadlines, publicity planning). The sc chair reported that he needed to work out an advertising budget and he was going to contact Communication regarding some form of advertising. 6.6.Working group reports Newsletter, Purchasing, Tech. There was no report due to the absence of the wg chair. Echo. The wg chair reported that although it was too late for an Echo this year she hoped to get a feasibility study completed before Autscape so it could be mentioned there. 7.Key position progress reports (matters not covered earlier) 7.1.Webmaster (updating website, proposal forms, timetable for updating registration systems). The webmaster reported that he had some updates which he will do today and some new updates from the chair (as per 6.1. above) which he will do asap. Furthermore he would like to keep vaguely the same structure for the bookings system as last year but he would like to remove the PayPal surcharge to cut down the work. A prerequisite is that the new bank account needs to be set up which is progressing well. 7.2.Venue coordinator 2012 (planned venue visits, venue information for sc pub). There was no report due to the absence of the venue coordinator. 7.3. Treasurer (bank form, tax return, annual report/accounts, fee proposal). The treasurer reported that the bank form for the new account with CAF was doing the rounds with the new signatories. He anticipated finishing the accounts paperwork tomorrow and he shall send the CC39a to the Company Secretary. He will be sending out expenses cheques on Monday and he will be collecting together all the accounts paperwork to send to the accountants next week. He asked that he be informed of any unclaimed expenses asap. 7.4.Company Secretary (files, annual report, info@ guidance, policies and job descriptions). The company secretary reported that she hadn't had time to get to the files and she couldn't do the annual report until she had the accounts. She had done the map at a basic level and will improve it as and when time permits. She had also done some reviewing of the website and prompting along with her usual routine jobs. She also hoped to get to reviewing the job descriptions and drafting policies eventually. 7.5.Chair (general progress, any other matters). The chair thought that progress was sluggish but forward. She was working on a list of deadlines which she will send to the list asap. 8.Any other business 8.1.Peter asked if the voting for the elections at the AGM will be basically the same as for the AGM just gone as he felt it measured popularity and was not a good mechanism for ranking people for their fitness for the post. The company secretary said that she did see his point but explained that she had considered nearly all the alternatives and the system was devised to meet a lot of complicated criteria and there wasn't a lot of flexibility. 8.2.Trish asked if Debbie would be staying on as Registrar. The chair said the post had not been reassigned at the moment. Meeting closed at 15.48 BST