Agenda for December 2014 board meeting
Meeting to be held at 1pm on Thursday 11th December at
irc.starlink-irc.org #autscape
Attendance:
Apologies: Debbie, Elaine, Liz
1. The Honorary Secretary requests the board waive right to formal notice
of this meeting.
2. Ratifications:
2.1. The decision to vote for booking Giggleswick from Friday 21st to
Monday 24th of August 2015, in light of a changed offer of
availability of dates.
3. Proposals:
3.1. The Programme Coordinator proposes we adopt Exploring Autistic Space as
the theme for Autscape 2015.
3.2. The Honorary Secretary proposes we adopt the Honorary Secretary job
description posted to the board list on November 15th (See Appendix A
for details).
3.3. Stephen proposes that we replace the currently delegated chat list
moderation powers of item 3.8.2 in the meeting of September 2010 with
the following (See Appendix B for background):
.1 To delegate the power to moderate the entire list and to hold all
post on a specific topic pending a decision on the appropriate
next steps, and the power to take the list off moderation if they
feel the situation has resolved itself with a simple cooling off
period, to chat list moderators.
.2 To delegate the power to decide on appropriate next steps to members
of the board, on a majority decision outside of a formal board
meeting (i.e. via the board's e-mail list).
.3 To limit the time frame in which the members of the board may make a
decision to one of:
i) 48 hours
ii) 72 hours
iii) 1 week.
.4 Should no decision be possible within the time limit, the chair has
the power to either extend the limit further or make an executive
decision to resolve the situation.
.5 If the chair declares a conflict of interest in the decision, then
the delegated power falls to the vice chair instead.
4. Follow ups:
4.1. Annual Report
4.2. Personal Data Retention Policy
4.3. Guidance for splitting conference organisation from governance
4.4. Outstanding Minutes
4.5. Website Files
4.6. Newsletter
4.7. Facebook page
5. Role reports:
5.1. Chair (Martijn)
5.2. Treasurer (Peter)
5.3. Company Secretary (Debbie)
5.4. Web systems (Martijn)
5.5. Honorary Secretary (Stephen)
5.6. Programme Coordinator (Kalen)
6. Any Other Business
(Closed portion of meeting)
7. Role Assignments
7.1. Venue Coordinator (Last year: Elaine; Candidates: Elaine)
8. Subcommittee and Working Group Chairs
8.1. Fundraising SC (Last year: Liz; Candidates: )
8.2. Research SC (Last year: Peter; Candidates: )
8.3. Publicity and Publications SC (Last year: Alastair; Candidates: )
8.4. Purchasing WG (Last year: Elaine; Candidates: Elaine)
(End of closed portion of meeting)
Appendix A - Proposed Honorary Secretary job description
Job Description
The Honorary Secretary will be elected from amongst the directors. An
individual serving as honorary secretary for Autscape may or may not also
hold other committee roles. The honorary secretary will carry out and take
day to day responsibility for the administrative tasks needed to facilitate
board meetings including preparation of agendas and minutes. They will also
be responsible for managing research and media requests relating to
Autscape. Ultimate responsibility for ensuring that the administrative
responsibilities set out in company law and the articles of association are
properly carried out remains with the company secretary.
The Role
Autscape’s Honorary Secretary is responsible for:
*preparing minutes of Autscape board meetings reasonably promptly
following each meeting;
*asking the meeting chair to approve the minutes;
*seeking agenda items from directors in good time before each board
meeting;
*keeping a record of delayed/deferred items and ensuring these are
included in appropriate agendas;
*preparing and circulating a written agenda in good time before each
board meeting;
*including with the agenda copies of relevant documents which may be
required by the board to assist its decision making;
*supporting the board in its record keeping;
*managing research and media requests.
Supporting the Board
The honorary secretary assists the company secretary by helping to ensure
that directors have the right information to enable them to make informed
decisions and fulfil their responsibilities.
Appendix B - Background for 3.3
The moderator powers, delegated 3.8.2 in the meeting of September 2010, do
not currently work as intended. This is because once moderation is inacted,
the board has a limited time to make a decision. While the board sometimes
makes decisions on list, legally speaking only decisions made at a board
meeting 'count' - Decisions made on the list are not actually in place
until they're ratified.
Therefore, legally speaking the board makes decisions on a monthly basis,
while moderation decisions need to be made within a couple of days.
The powers currently delegated to the moderators of the autscape chat list
(3.8.2 September 2010) assumes that the board will be able to make a
decision within a couple of days, when the current legal framework we
operate under prevents this unless the decision is unanimous.
Furthermore, in item 3.8.2.3 it specifically reserves the power to make an
executive decision to resolve the situation if the board is unable to do so
(which is the case for all decisions that don't happen to fall pretty much
the day before a board meeting), which is not helpful to this problem in
cases where the chair has a conflict of interest.
As such, I do not believe the powers delegated to moderators of the chat
list are currently fit for purpose for the organization structure that
Autscape currently possesses.
The intent of the following proposal is simply to make the moderation
powers actually work within the timeframe in which the board makes
decisions, by delegating the further action decision to a seperate
management group which simply happens to consist of all board members...
And to get a vote on if we want to extend the amount of time we have to
actually make decisions on this considering it took most of the initial 48
hours for the board who weren't following the events in the chat list to
really catch up on what was going on.
This shouldn't have taken as long as it did, but I was thinking about the
problem from the wrong angle - What additional powers do the moderators
need to make moderation work, rather than how do we delegate powers so that
the intention of September 2010 3.8.2 actually works in practice.