Minutes of meeting of the Board of directors of The Autscape Organisation Meeting date: Saturday 15th November 2014 Meeting time: 3.00pm BST Meeting Chair: Martijn Present: Stephen, Martijn, Trish, Elaine, Peter, Debbie, Alastair, Kalen, Liz Apologies: None Meeting opened 3:07pm. 1. Request from the Honorary Secretary for directors to waive their right to formal notice of this meeting. Approved (8 for). A discussion on meeting scheduling followed and it was agreed that Peter set up a Doodle poll to find peoples' availability for the December meeting, after which the method would be reviewed. 2. Key role reports 2.1. Chair (Martijn). Nothing to report other than that which is being reported elsewhere. Martijn stated that he hoped there would be candidates for Chair in the closed part of meeting. 2.2. Treasurer (Peter). Peter thanks the Lingard family for the donation of GBP 1000 to Autscape from the late Gregory Lingard. We have also received GBP 45.35 from Charities Trust since we joined that scheme. (The first receipt was in June.) We have received notice that we need to do a Company Tax return for the financial year just finished. Peter has written to HMRC to ask if they intend for us to do one every year. It is unfortunate extra work but should be possible as the deadline is some months in the future. 2.3. Company Secretary (Debbie). Debbie will be working on the annual report over the next month or so and will be emailing the board about this as she wishes to make some changes. Liz and Kalen offered help with this. 3. Proposals 3.1. Venue. Stephen proposed we provisionally book one of A) Giggleswick School B) Kingham Hill School There was a discussion on outstanding information required and the merits of booking a known venue over a possibly better but unknown one. Responses from both schools are slow. Kingham is a potential option for 2016 regardless. See Appendix I for details. (Debbie left the meeting at this point.) Revised proposal: to book Giggleswick School as the venue for Autscape 2015, with booking dates subject to Elaine's discretion. Revised Proposal (Giggleswick for Autscape 2015) approved (8 for). 3.2. Facebook Page. Alastair proposed that Autscape create and maintain a 'Facebook page' to promote the Autscape organisation and related matters. This page will fall under the remit of the publicity subcommittee and thus be the responsibility of the publicity co-ordinator. The publicity co-ordinator may appoint other members of the Autscape organisation as administrators. There was a discussion about the exact expectations and ramifications of this and the proposal was reworded. See Appendix II for further details. Revised proposal: Alastair proposed that a ‘Facebook page’ be created to promote and relay information about the Autscape organisation. The page will be maintained by the publicity subcommittee and at least two members of the board will have administrative permissions over the page. The publicity co-ordinator may appoint other members of the publicity subcommittee to serve as administrators. Revised proposal above (Facebook page) approved (8 for). (Martijn volunteered to be one of the admins.) 4. Follow-ups 4.1. Future research requests (Stephen) Stephen reported he has not yet redrafted the amended Honorary Secretary job description to include handling these. 4.2. Personal Data Retention Policy (Martijn) No progress. 4.3. Guidance for splitting conference organisation from governance (Elaine) On hold until the venue has been booked. 4.4-4.7 deferred due to lack of time. 5. Remaining role reports 5.1. Web systems (Martijn). Nothing to report. Things are operating normally. 5.2. Honorary Secretary (Stephen). The Honorary Secretary reminded people that the Treasurer had indicated last month that our documents, while sufficient for our legal requirements, aren't easy to work with for a task the Treasurer does regularly. This indicates that our documentation could use improving. The Honorary Secretary has responsibility for producing and maintaining documents and requested that the Board advise him which documents he can produce to help them fulfill their responsibilities. 5.3. Programme Coordinator (Kalen). The Programme Coordinator reported that the Theme discussion has progressed well and she should be able to propose a (very) short list to the board between meetings or at the next meeting at the latest. 6. Any Other Business 6.1. Liz announced her pregnancy (due in May 2015) and therefore lack of availability May-July 2015 at least. Congratulations were expressed by members of the Board.
Closed part of the meeting 7. Role assignments. 7.1. Chair (Last year Martijn; Candidates: Martijn, Trish) Martijn was elected Chair (4 for Martijn, 2 for Trish). 7.2. Vice Chair (Last year Elaine; Candidates: Elaine, Trish) Trish was elected Vice Chair (5 for). 7.3. Treasurer (Last year Peter; Candidates: Peter). Peter was elected Treasurer (8 for). 7.4. Vice Treasurer (Last year none; Candidates: Stephen) Stephen was elected Vice Treasurer (7 for). 7.5. Web Systems (Last year Martijn; Candidates: Martijn) Martijn was elected as responsible for Web Systems (7 for). 7.6. Honorary Secretary (Last year Stephen; Candidates: Trish, Stephen) There was a discussion as to the suitability of Trish combining this with Vice Chair. Trish asked to continue the minutes regardless and offered general help to Stephen. Stephen was elected Honorary Secretary (6 for). Meeting closed 5:04pm.
Appendix I. Giggleswick and Kingham Hill venues Elaine is still trying to confirm with Kingham on bedrooms and single rooms/multiple occupancy as well as whether we have exclusive use. It has not been possible to make a site visit to Kingham in time for the decision about booking and some aspects may not become apparent without a visit. However it does appear a good option for investigation for 2016. Giggleswick is at least known. Despite not being ideal we know we have been able to run Autscape there. It is possible Giggleswick was at a disadvantage before in comparison to our only venue experience which was Ammerdown. Some of the issues may now be resolved - boarding houses have been refurbished, there are new facilities (theatre) and we may be able to better us the rooms and therefore work round the access difficulty with the hill. There were no room locks however houses did lock. It is however unclear whether the week of 9th would give us exclusive use - the other date definitely would not.
Appendix II. Autscape Facebook page Stephen said he would like to see this expanded to cover the power for the publicity subcommittee to create social media profiles that are felt by publicity and publications to be of benefit to Autscape, preferably with consultation of the board but not needing to go to the board for a vote. Autscape need to be aware of whether there is a significant risk that this could affect the company's reputation as this would mean we were unable to delegate to the subcommittee (Byelaw 4.4) All directors are obligated to act in the company's best interest. Presumably we would trust the Pub SC chair to act in Autscape's best interest when it comes to publicity. When making decisions, you have to assume general competence otherwise we couldn't ever do anything.There are also significant reputational benefits to creating social media profiles - which some might see as outweighing the potential risks. "Related Matters" needs to be carefully considered. If it becomes posts about other organisations or events etc then it could get contentious whereas simple Autscape information such as venue and registration would not be such an issue. In the case of the Facebook page the idea was for Chen to do the main management of it (he'd get that power from the Pub SC).