Agenda for January 2014 board meeting Meeting to be held at 2pm on Sunday 15th December at irc.starlink-irc.org #autscape Attendance: Apologies: 1. Ratifications: None 1.1 The decision made on the board mailing list to use payasyougopost.com as our main address and on our website (cost £60). Review in September 2014. 1.2 The decision made on the board mailing list to pay the extra £20 a year to payasyougopost to also use the above as our company address. 2. Proposals: 2.1 Theme Proposal: Autscape adopts one of the following shortlisted themes for the 2014 conference. A. Independent Living/Living in the Community B. Autistic empowerment C. Autistic autonomy D. Mapping the world of autism E. Expanding autistic horizons/Expanding autistic futures F. Autism through the lifespan G. Autistic Cultures H. Autism and Culture 2.2 Formal Programme Budget Proposal: That Formal Programme has a budget of GBP 1000 to cover (See Appendix A for breakdown): 1. presenters' accommodation (one night per presentation) 2. up to two essential carers for presenters 3. invited presenters' travel expenses 4. other exceptional expenses for any presenter 5. other costs directly related to the formal programme which are reasonable in the opinion of the formal programme coordinator Rationale: Programme is one of the biggest expenses Autscape has, therefore deciding on the budget is important for the setting of the fees. This budget has worked well for the past two years. 2.3 Registration dates Proposal: Autscape adopts the following registration dates for the 2014 conference: a) Registration opens on Thursday 8 May, ie 13 weeks before the last day of Autscape. b) Registration closes (advertised deadline) on 01 July 2014. 2.4 Registration Deadlines Proposal: Autscape implements a hard deadline for accepting paid-up bookings. (See Appendix B for background) 2.5 Capacity Proposal: Autscape should not attempt to fill venues to maximum capacity. (See Appendix C for background) 2.6 Place allocation Proposal: Autscape reserves some conference places for random allocation instead of first come first served with draws being held each week. (See Appendix D for rationale and method) 2.7 Fee structure changes 2.7.1 To have the following three fee categories: En-suite: The person booking choose the type of room (single/double/family) with en-suite facilities Standard: The person booking choose the type of room (single/double/family), but bathroom facilities are shared. Flexible: Autscape chooses the type of room, which may be shared with up to three people of the same sex in any part of the site. Flexible booking benefit the registrar by imposing fewer constraints on the room plan, and they benefit the participants by providing a cheaper option. This is better than making a certain room type cheaper as that tends to make that room type sell out early so people who need them can't have them. Carers have reduced prices as usual. The price for 'standard' place carers will be the one that is at or near cost. 2.7.2 Children are not charged an en-suite fee provided they are sharing with at least one adult. 2.7.3 The large non en-suite rooms at this venue are difficult to fill. The fourth and subsequent people filling these rooms should get a £20 discount each. 2.8 Venue Size Proposal: The board makes a decision regarding the potential size of the 2015 venue. This is needed so the research subcommittee knows what it is researching. 2.9 Fidelity Insurance Proposal: That Autscape extends its insurance cover to include fidelity insurance 2.10 Fundraising The fundraising subcommittee chair proposes we add Autscape to Give as you Live. (See Appendix E) 2.11 Sensory Room Budget The chair of the purchasing working group proposes we dedicate a separate budget for the sensory room of either A. 200 GBP or B. 500 GBP Rationale: We still need to rebuild our sensory equipment. A budget of 200 GBP would allow us to buy some larger items and a variety of smaller items. However, a large expensive item such as a projector would make a big difference to the quality of our sensory room. Unfortunately a good projector can cost anything from 200 GBP so this would take all of a smaller budget. The board therefore needs to consider the merits of buying a projector. 3. Follow ups: 3.1 DBS checks 4. Role reports (if applicable): 4.1 Chair (Martijn) 4.2 Treasurer/Outgoing Interim Treasurer (Peter/Stephen) 4.3 Company secretary (Debbie) 4.4 Venue co-ordinator (Elaine) 4.5 Web systems (Martijn) 5. Subcommittee, working group and any other reports (If applicable) 5.1 Formal Programme subcommittee (Martijn) 5.2 Alternative Programme subcommittee (Trish) 5.3 Fundraising subcommittee (Liz) 5.4 Research subcommittee (Peter) 5.5 Publicity subcommittee (Alastair) 5.6 Purchasing working group (Elaine) 5.7 Anybody else 6 AOB
Closed portion of meeting 7 Roles and responsibilities 7.1 Registrar (last year: Kalen) Candidates: Debbie 7.2 Assistant Registrar (last year: Debbie) Candidates: Stephen 8 Proposals 8.1 Bank account The treasurer proposes that we a) Change bank account signatories and b) add at least one more person to the web interface. Background: We have had two signing out of four for some time, and the treasurer sees no reason to change this. We do need to replace the two signatories who are no longer on the board. 9 AOB (For private part of meeting)
Appendix A Breakdown of how the budget has been calculated: 1. 8 x £58 = £464 2. 2 x £58 = £116 3. 2 x £200 = £400 4. £50 5. Any surplus from the above.
Appendix B Background for 2.4 Every year, we have late bookings and we submit several 'final plans' to the venue in quick succession. This causes the venue extra work, which is unfair on them since they often have volunteer staff themselves, and they often give discounts for our booking. We should respect the venue staff's time by having a hard deadline that honour unless there are exceptional circumstances to do otherwise. The advertised deadline can be before this so we can still allow for people who wait until the very last moment before deciding whether or not to come.
Appendix C Background for 2.5 Autscape aims to widen access to as many people as possible. The registrars have therefore attempted to accommodate people no matter what the cost. Part of their job is to make a room plan that takes into account people's individual preferences such as sensitivy to noise etc. The work to generate a room plan that satisfies everyone's requirements is small when the venue is lightly occupied, but escalates very rapidly as the venue approaches full capacity. Towards the end, adding a new person can cause dozens of changes and takes many hours of work. A simple simple solution is set a limit in advance for how full the venue should be, and to close booking when that limit is reached. As a side-effect, this change gives some allowance for the minor disasters that cause rooms to become unavailable (flooding, building works, etc.)
Appendix D Rationale and Method for 2.6 Rationale: A subgroup of Autscape participants that we would like to target find it very difficult to make decisions which means that they book late. In a first come first served system, they will always lose out. To rectify this, random draws will be held as follows: Method: 1) The first 60 places will be booked on a first come first served basis. 2) The remaining places are rationed so that a certain number of places become available each week, such that all places are available by the time booking closes. 3) At the end of each week, bookings are selected at random to fill the available places. People who booked during that week will be given a higher weighting so that late booking are favoured. 4) If there are more bookings than available places, the unselected bookings will be automatically rolled forwards into the next week's draw. 5) If somone does not pay for their booking, their place will be made available in the next draw. 6) If there are unfilled places after the advertised closing date and the board decide to extend registration, the system reverts to come first served.
Appendix E Rationale for 2.10 Give as you Live is a fundraising platform for UK charities and their supporters. Retailers (like Amazon, John Lewis etc.) sign up to the platform to donate a percentage of what shoppers spend with them to the charity of their choice. Charities sign up to the platform to receive automatic donations from shoppers who have signed up themselves. The charities receive the funds raised in a scheduled monthly payment. To make donations on purchases, shoppers just need to sign up to Give As You Live, select their favourite charity (e.g., Autscape), install a Give as you Live program on their computer, start shopping, and the money (up to 5% of the total online purchase) is donated to charity. I have used it for a few Amazon purchases and it is very easy to use. Having downloaded the Give as you Live program, the Give as you Live bar comes up on those retailers who have joined the fundraising platform. You click on that and purchase your products you would normally do. Why sign up? Autscape will generate funds from people shopping online from retailers who have signed up to Give as you Live. It is a very easy way to generate some additional funds. The amount of money per purchase is relatively small but is nevertheless one easy way to generate income. Why Give as you Live? There are other platforms available but this one won several awards in 2013 (‘Best Giving Platform’ and ‘People’s Choice Award’) and is easy to navigate and use. Are there any risks? As far as I can tell, there are no risks. If we decide to sign up, we only need to enter our charity details once. There is nothing to maintain, unless we change our details, of course. You can find the full terms and conditions here: http://www.giveasyoulive.com/legal Is there a charge? There is no charge for charities and there is no charge for shoppers to join Give as you Live. What do we need to do to sign up? This is the form that we would need to complete to sign up: http://www.charitiestrust.org/content/charities/add_your_charity_everyclick_/index.html Once signed up, we would then need to promote our presence on Give as you Live to the Autscape membership to encourage them to join Give as you Live and raise money for Autscape as they shop online. Give as you Live provide marketing resources and support with marketing if we need or want them.