Minutes of June 2018 meeting


Minutes of meeting of the Board of directors of The Autscape Organisation

Meeting date: 26th June 2018

Meeting time: 14:00 BST

Meeting Chair: Martijn

Present: Heta, James, Jenny, Jeremy, Larry, Martijn, Peter, Trish

Apologies: Elaine

No observers.

Meeting opened: 14:04


1. Approvals

1.1. Minutes of the May 2018 meeting posted to the list on 25th June 2018.
     Approved, 7 for.


2. Ratifications

No ratifications.


3. Proposals

3.1. The organising committee propose that the organiser fee for the
     Autscape Conference 2018 be set at £100. See rationale at Appendix A.

     As Peter and Martijn were also organisers they had due regard to the
     following

       How to deal with a conflict of interest

     and declared a conflict of interest and abstained.

     Carried, 6 for.

3.2. The Company Secretary proposes that the board approve the annual report
     and directors report for 2016/2017 posted to the list on 26th June.

     Subject to the following amendments: insert name Peter Myers, insert
     apostrophe on first page, change unrestricted reserves to general
     unrestricted reserves.

     Carried, 7 for.

3.3. Bursary policy amendment. The Registrar proposes that non-residential
     participants receiving a bursary pay a minimum of:

     £20 for one day
     £40 for two days
     £50 for longer (that's in line with the amount full time participants pay)

     Carried, 8 for.


4. Follow-Ups

None.


5. Role Reports

5.1. Chair (Martijn)
     Nothing to report

5.2. Company Secretary (Elaine)
     No report submitted

5.3. Honorary Secretary (Elaine)
     No report submitted

5.4. Treasurer (Jeremy)
     The independent examination is currently under way

5.5. Event Manager Autscape 2018 (Kalen)
     Report submitted by Kalen:

     Organisation of the Autscape event is progressing. The proposers have
     been informed of whether they were accepted and most have booked. I
     have started on timetabling. Registration has been reopened. We would
     like to increase the number of places, but I don’t know if that has
     gone in as a proposal or if that’s something we need to ask about. The
     hiring of the projector Debbie asked about is underway, and we’ve had
     an involved discussion about how to fit a fire drill into the
     timetable.

     A comment was also submitted on behalf of Debbie; There are a few
     residential places left. Booking for single days will open very soon.
     Some non-residential places are being held back until it's known which
     presenters are on which day. 5 full-time places are being held to end
     for those who need extra time to decide - there will be a random draw
     for those.

     The chair suggested we leave the matter of increasing places to the
     discretion of the organising committee and the board agreed.

5.6. Membership Secretary (Jeremy)
     Nothing to report

5.7. Fundraising coordinator (Jeremy)
     Nothing to report

5.8. Tech coordinator (Martijn)
     Progress on the new system has halted and will have to wait until Peter
     has time again. I continue to maintain the old system, having just done
     another series of system component updates.

5.9. Lists coordinator (James)
     There has been the expected increase in Community List posting with
     Autscape approaching. The discussions have been lively and interesting,
     with no moderator issues arising (apart from some posts being too big
     and hitting the filter.)

5.10. Venue search coordinators (Peter and Debbie)
      My workload at work has gone up substantially, which means I'm not
      keeping up with Autscape commitments. I won't be standing for election
      at the next AGM, and I'd like to hand over venue search to someone
      else.


6. Any Other Business

6.1. Peter mentioned a vote on list which was not ratified re an amnesty for
     cancellations. This had not completed voting when it became irrelevant
     due to the organising committee being able to secure another boarding
     house to take the pressure off the demand for places.

6.2. Heta mentioned that she had applied for a bursary, and in the process
     found the instructions and the form slightly discouraging and difficult
     to follow. She wondered if others have had the same experience. She
     also asked how many applications have been received, and whether these
     are likely to have the expected effect on our unrestricted reserves.

     The chair of the Bursary committee replied saying that so far there has
     been 7 applications and he was expecting at least 3 more. Over £1000
     had already been given out but he didn’t expect us to allocate all the
     allocated money. He also said that people were being assisted if they
     had difficulties applying. It was decided to start a discussion on list
     regarding accessibility to bursaries.

6.3. Jeremy noted that only 14 presentations were advertised on the relevant
     webpage, and queried how many cancellations there have been from
     presenters whose proposals were accepted.

     Martijn replied that there were 2 he could think of and these would not
     be replaced and the organisers had already chosen more than usual so it
     shouldn’t affect the overall programme. He will clarify this on list.

Meeting closed at 16:59