Minutes of meeting of the Board of directors of The Autscape Organisation Meeting date: Sunday 1st April 2012 Meeting time: 2.00pm BST Present: Elaine, Kalen, Martijn, Peter, Stephen, Trish and Yo 1. Ratifications 1.1. The board voted unanimously to ratify the decision taken on list on 19/3/12 to increase the budget for accountancy services to GBP 700. 2. Proposals 2.1. The board approved the Annual report with the understanding that this approval includes advance approval of corrections recommended by the accountants. (Unanimous) 2.2. The board discussed the day fees and considered the following options: (a) No change (b) Option B (see appendix A) (c) Option C (see appendix A) The treasurer explained that there wasn’t a huge difference between options B and C, but both are lower than the previously approved fees. The board decided to approve Option B as the revised fee structure for non-residential (day) fees. (4 for option B, 1 for option C, 2 abstentions) 2.3. The board decided to delegate the annual decision about whether it is appropriate to renew/obtain a PVSL for Autscape to the company secretary and authorise any necessary expenditure for this purpose (approximate cost less than GBP100 annually). (Unanimous) The company secretary reminded the board that delegating something to an individual or subcommittee gives them the power to do it. It does not prevent them from bringing the issue back to the board should unexpected complications arise. She suggested that it is not sensible for the board to micromanage everything. Delegation involves some degree of trust that the person concerned will use their common sense and bring things back to the board if necessary. 2.4. Insurance. It was clarified that the wording of the proposal means there should be three people who authorise it, one of which must be the company secretary or the treasurer. The treasurer confirmed that the usual cost of these expenditures is in the low hundreds (GBP). The board decided to delegate the annual renewal/ obtaining of (a) event insurance; and (b) trustees indemnity insurance to either of the company secretary or treasurer with the agreement of two other directors and authorise the necessary expenditure. The purchase, provider and cost to be reported to the board at the following meeting. However, it is noted that, if there are to be any material changes to the terms of an insurance policy, approval of the full board is required under Bye-law 4.4. (Unanimous) 3. Follow ups 3.1. Purchase of autscape.info. The treasurer reported that he had contacted L. Arnold, who is agreeable to the transfer of autscape.info. He also has .com, .net, .co.uk, .eu as well as .info. He therefore queried whether this changed what domains he should be acquiring from him. The company secretary said some of those were on the list of ones we wanted, some weren't. But if L. Arnold has them she thought it made sense to acquire them all from him since they have previously been registered. The treasurer added that if he lets them lapse, they'll be acquired by a domain hog - if we ever want them after that, it'll cost more to get them. Therefore the board decided to acquire all the Autscape domains L. Arnold has, approve the necessary expenditure and delegate the task to Peter (Unanimous). 3.2. Transfer of autscape.org and autscape.org.uk domains. Peter confirmed that, as of the previous week, we now own autscape.org and we have an SSL certificate. 3.3. Registration of #autscape on Starlink-IRC. Martijn said that this channel is now officially registered with the Starlink-IRC network (as can be seen by the presence of the CStar bot here) which makes it impossible for others to take over. He can also give others operator powers but he will have to sort that out later. The board decided to delegate to Martijn the authority to organise, automate and delegate the technicalities of running the channel as appropriate. (6 for) 3.4. Chair of sc-research subcommittee. The chair reported that she had not made any progress on this but she had noticed Debbie was more active lately and she would approach her to find out whether she feels able to take over. 3.5. Echo feasibility report. The chair reported that their was insufficient progress to make a report in time for this meeting and it is unlikely that she will have it ready before the June meeting although she still hopes that we will be able to make a clear decision on whether to go ahead with the project well before this year's Autscape. 3.6. Draft chat list guidance. Following some discussion it was decided to delegate this task to Martijn who would consult with Yo and Trish. 3.7. Preliminary delegation of the on site team and site manager (who will hopefully also be the person to manage the team beforehand). The chair reported that the following directors have expressed interest in being on the on site team: Elaine, Yo, Stephen and Trish. The following directors had not yet made it clear whether they wish to be part of the on site team: Peter and Martijn. In response Peter stated that he did not wish to. The chair recommend that we invite Debbie and Katja and approve any of the above named individuals who wish to join the on site team. This was agreed nem con. The chair undertook to report on the board list when she has a full team. 3.8. Cancellation and Payment policies. The board decided to readopt last year’s cancellation policy with updated dates (see Appendix B for text). (Unanimous) The board noted that the payment policy adopted last year remains in force. 4. Subcommittee progress reports. 4.1. Formal programme subcommittee (invitations, schedule) The subcommittee chair reported that she had sent a few emails but she needed to make further progress on invitations. The schedule is done to the extent that it can be without knowing all the presenters or being able to as them about their preferences. The latter is easiest to do with an online questionnaire which requires the SSL certificate issue to be sorted. That has been sorted now. 4.2. Alternative programme subcommittee (call for leisure activities, budget, alternative programme intentions). The subcommittee chair reported that things continued to be slow but they had started to get some movement now. The call for alternative programme activities had gone out but there had only been one response so far so. She was considering trying the chat list but was open to other suggestions. There had also been some discussion over what to do about a sensory showroom. 4.3. Fundraising subcommittee (Trefoil grant application, funding strategy). The subcommittee chair reported that she had completed the Trefoil grant application and it had gone for editing. The funding strategy will be coming after she had consulted the company secretary. The treasurer reported that the Virginmoneygiving site was still waiting for the HMRC Charities application. 4.4. Research subcommittee (sc membership, childcare research progress and timing of decision, transport research progress, venue research progress). The chair (coordinating in the absence of a subcommittee chair) reported that the subcommittee membership had not increased but the existing members have slightly increased output. She had been told that there was a list of childcare providers and quotes posted to the list some months ago, but she had only ever seen a list that does not have quotes, so she will have to search the archives, which she had not yet had the time to do. Hopefully she will be able to get it all in order to make a proposal within the next 2 weeks either to be decided immediately on list or at the May meeting. Venue research progress is not going well. 4.5. Publications and publicity subcommittee (website wording inc. venue, advertisement deadlines, poster production, publicity planning, generic description). The subcommittee chair reported that progress was slow. The ad in AuKids magazine had been submitted and they were now working on the venue information. Posters were still not done but he didn't think that was much work. No other progress. In response to a question regarding the deadlines of other ads he said that there weren't any left. We had also advertised in Asperger United and we considered the NAS 'Communication' but that was far too expensive. 4.6. Working group reports Echo. The working group chair referred to her report at 3.5. Newsletter. The working group chair reported that work had started thanks to Kalen and Debbie for drafting a request. He needed to redraft that now which he will do in the next couple of days. Tech. The working group chair had nothing to report. Purchasing. The working group chair said he had made enquiries into opinions on what to buy for merchandise which helps decide the budget. He got some feedback on that and he will start looking into costs. He will not be requesting a budget for merchandise this meeting. 5. Key position progress reports (matters not covered earlier) 5.1. Webmaster (updating website, certificate issues, registration system). The webmaster said that some of the SSL stuff was covered earlier. People should tell their browser not to retain the expired certificate as a trusted exception. In Firefox, go to preferences, then Advanced/Encryption/View Certificates/Servers and delete it from the list. He had also started work on the registration system, but he was behind where he wanted to be at this point. He had received some sensible requests for changes, in particular, to incorporate some questions which were in the questionnaires into the registration system. This is to stop people from getting the booking in and then not co-operating when extra information is needed. He was asked when he expected to have the registration system completed and he thought about a week or two. 5.2. Venue coordinator 2012 (planned venue visits, venue information for sc pub). The venue coordinator said progress was being made coordinating with SC-pub, but as Martijn pointed out, this is going slowly. Things went a little chaotic when planning the venue visit, due to availabilities changing mid-way through organising it, and in the end no dates that actually worked for everyone who needed to go. Information came in a little too late to really make changes without mucking about the venue. He currently had several pages of notes that he was trying to find time to organise into any sort of format that's useful to anyone, and getting the relevant parts to the people who need them. The company secretary questioned whether a venue visit was planned and he said it had taken place two weeks ago. The company secretary then said it would have been helpful if the board list had been told that. That would have given an opportunity for those not going to ask those going to do/look out for particular things, and asked if there will be a report. He replied that he was working on it. 5.3. Treasurer (actions taken under delegated authority, virginmoneygiving, bank account, HMRC, accounts and accounting advice). The treasurer reported that he had visited the accountants in London and given them our accounts, board meeting minutes, AGM minutes and other relevant documents. They expect to be able to get the work done in time so we shouldn't get fined. The company secretary asked what arrangements have been made with them regarding the actual filing of the accounts/annual report. He replied that they will do it as it can't be filed on-line if it's a company limited by guarantee. The company secretary asked him to contact her via email as they needed to communicate about this. He also reported that the HMRC Charities application is in progress and Virgin Money Giving are waiting for this. The company secretary asked if the new bank account was fully operational and he replied that he was waiting for the password. He had contacted them during the week and they sent out the username in return. He needed to phone them to get a temporary password, but he couldn't do that until Monday. He said he would like to keep the old account open until after Autscape and then close it. 5.4. Company Secretary (actions taken under delegated authority, annual report, info@ guidance, policies and job descriptions, files, postholding). The company secretary reported that the annual report was now done and approved. Info@ guidance was still outstanding, as are most of the other jobs on this list. She had also been working on executing the decision made in the closed meeting last month, but encountered some minor problems which she just needed to have sufficient time to sort out. 5.5. Chair (actions taken under delegated authority, general progress, any other matters). The chair reported that all the outstanding minutes have been approved and they should be on the website soon. Some consistent practice regarding use of material generated by Autscape participants, including those who use the chat list, has recently become much clearer and may need to be written into a policy or guidance. Progress this month has been poor but she hoped everyone can get back on task straight away. 6. There was no other business Meeting closed at 16.50 BST APPENDIX A Option A: Adult £80 – 1 day, £160 – 2 or more days Child 14-17 £70 – 1 day, £140 – 2 or more days Child 6-13 £45 – 1 day, £90 – 2 or more days Child 0-5 £30 – 1 day, £60 – 2 or more days Carer/PA £45 – 1 day, £90 – 2 days, £135 – 3 or more days Professional £100 – 1 day, £200 – 2 or more days Option B: Adults - £55 for one day, £110 for two days, £160 for three days 14-17 - £50 for one day, £100 for two days, £145 for three days 6-13 - £30 for one day, £60 for two days, £85 for three days 0-5 - £20 for one day, £40 for two days, £55 for three days Professional - £70 for one day, £140 for two days, £205 for three days Carer - £45 per day Option C: Adult standard: GBP 60, 120 and 150 for 1, 2, 3+ days respectively. Low income: GBP 10 off. Child 14-17: Same as adults. Child 6-13: GBP 30, 60 and 80 for 1, 2, 3+ days respectively. Low income: No discount Child 0-5: GBP 20, 30 and 40 for 1, 2, 3+ days respectively. Low income: No discount Babes-in-arms: Free Carers: GBP 40, 80 and 120. for 1, 2, 3+ days respectively. APPENDIX B Cancellation policy If you cancel on or before 16th June, you get all your money back less any directly incurred costs (eg. stamps, postal order fee etc). If you cancel on or before the 30th June but after 16th June, there will be an administration fee of GBP 20 in addition to the directly incurred costs. No refund will be due for cancellations after 30th June.