Agenda for September 2010 committee meeting 1. Announcements 1.1. Having been appointed interim Chair at the last meeting, Kalen wishes to announce that she is no longer willing to continue in that role beyond this meeting. 2. Ratifications 2.1. Minutes of August meeting (posted 9/09/10) 2.2. Since the August meeting, the committee voted to ask Aspects Care Ltd to do our CRB checks at a cost of £5 per application 3. Proposals 3.1. To co-opt Stephen Miller as a director of Autscape and member of the current management committee with effect from the end of this meeting (subject to any provisions agreed in 4.1 below). 3.2. The venue situation is that we have a firm offer of Ammerdown (22 Aug), and a reasonably strong offer from Stonar School (dates to be decided at the end of the month). Ammerdown will be more expensive than this year, by a significant margin. Stonar is much cheaper - on a par with Emmaus. Should we: a) Pick Ammerdown. This is a safe but expensive choice. b) Pick Stonar. This is an unknown but much cheaper option. c) Ask Stonar if we (meaning at least someone representing programme and registrar) can do another venue visit and that we decide on list immediately afterwards. d) Not commit to the about but instead look around for more venues. The venue coordinator recommends (c). 3.3. If any difficulty should arise in executing 2.2 above, to delegate Yo to find a suitable CRB umbrella organisation and initiate the process provided the cost does not exceed £100. [The figure is intended to allow for an expanded board (due to cooptions) and an administration charge up to £10 per application] 3.4. To refocus Autscape-plan as a general list for notification and consultation of those interested in Autscape as an organisation. [With the intention of posting meeting announcements and notification of the posting of the minutes to the plan list only and encouraging current SC members to join so that they are informed without clogging up the Chat list or Announce] 3.5. The Company Secretary would like guidance as to whether the committee is comfortable with proceeding with allowing under 18s to join sc-youth on the basis of the information she posted on 8/9/10 (titled 'Children') and the subsequent discussion [see Appendix A] or whether the committee would prefer her to seek specific legal advice on this issue (which would cost money - probably £100-200) before proceeding. 3.6. To ask the Company Secretary to set up a register of directors' interests. [Directors would be asked to provide basic information about: their long-term/permanent financial or personal relationships with other directors which could potentially cause conflicts of interest; and about any non-Autscape related associations between themselves and external organisations with whom Autscape has or might have dealings. This would be available to all directors in our files and entries would be brought to the attention of the board during meetings where an entry appears (in the opinion of the Company Secretary) to be relevant to a given discussion or vote.] 3.7. Subcommittee membership. Autscape prefers, whenever possible, to promote inclusivity and encourage involvement in the organisation. However it should be noted that Autscape is under no obligation to allow unelected non-directors to serve on subcommittees. Therefore, the board wishes to clarify that: 3.7.1. membership of subcommittees is only open to Autscape members 3.7.2. membership of subcommittees is at the discretion of sc-chairs provided (a) that their decisions are reasonable and in the interests of Autscape; and (b) any decision to deny membership, sanction, suspend or remove an sc-member is reported to the Chair (or the full board in the absence of a Chair). [Any Autscape member who feels they have been treated unfairly has recourse by means of making a complaint. The board intends to clarify the policy governing complaints in the near future.] 3.8. Chat list moderation. [This item is intended to provide interim powers until full rules can be drafted] 3.8.1. To appoint one or more moderators for the Autscape chat list who should act in that capacity as impartially as possible and in the interests of Autscape as a whole 3.8.2. To give moderators the power, at their discretion, to moderate the entire list and to hold all posts on a specific topic for up to 24 hours pending a decision by the board on the appropriate next steps 4. Approvals 4.1. Draft General Confidentiality Policy 5. Roles and responsibilities 5.1. Chair: no candidates 5.2. 2012 venue search coordinator: Kalen 5.3. Registrar: Kalen, Trish 5.4. Vice Chair: no candidates 5.5. Vice Treasurer: no candidates 5.6. Assistant Company Secretary [Kalen is already Vice Company Secretary i.e. responsible for taking over if Yo is incapacitated. This role is for someone who would like to assist Yo with her workload in this role on an ongoing basis.]: no candidates 6. Key position progress reports (matters not covered earlier) 6.1. Venue coordinator 6.2. Treasurer 6.3. Company Secretary 6.4. Chair 7. Any other business Appendix A The Company Secretary's original post referred to in 2.4: Elaine has asked me about the issue of under 18s joining the sc-youth email list. Since this issue last came up I have done quite a lot of research and the situation has also changed with the new government. To the best of my current understanding this is the situation. An enhanced CRB check would be required for someone moderating interactive electronic communication likely to be used wholly or mainly by children or vulnerable adults. This applies to all Autscape's lists anyway and we are working on getting all of us enhanced CRBs anyway. Sc-youth is not mainly aimed at children but would like to have the option to allow child members. Neither Autscape generally, nor any of our lists are required to register with the ISA as the situation stands (this could change again in the future). IMO if we intend to allow under-18 members of sc-youth it would be good practice for us to CRB check the chair of sc-youth (but that is compulsory anyway for other reasons). There is no requirement for all adult members of sc-youth to be CRB checked. However it is good practice for us to have some sensible procedures in place with safeguarding in mind. I think it is necessary to ensure that we know who all the adult members of sc-youth are (i.e. that one or more committee member has met this person or interacted extensively with them online and can verify that they are who they say they are). We should not allow new members to join the sc without some basic checks (e.g. for someone no-one has met, asking them for their real name and address and writing to them snail mail to verify the application). I would recommend that the chair of sc-youth make a clear rule that members of the sc are not allowed to email other members of the sc about sc-youth business off the email list. Ideally I would like to find a way to prevent the email addresses of members being visible to other members - this would prevent an adult member from knowing the email address of a child member, Peter- can this be done? If it is not possible then we need to consider whether there is any other way in which we can protect child members from off list contact with adult members they don't otherwise know. Less ideal, but probably adequate, would be to make it regularly clear on the list that such emails are unacceptable and that any member of the sc who receives an offlist message from any other member who they don't otherwise know should forward it to the list chair. Once those steps have been taken I see no reason why under 18s cannot join youth-sc (even prior to actually getting the CRBs since this isn't a requirement in relation to allowing children to join). In further discussion: Peter clarified that it is possible to hide email addresses (though this makes posts anonymous unless members remember to identify themselves in the post). The possibility of moderating all posts was discussed but Yo suggested that this is unnecessary provided email addresses are hidden and the SC adopts a clear policy advising members not to post their email address/other contact details in the text of their messages. Yo further clarified that Autscape is not expected to absolutely guarantee the safety of all children. We are expected to take reasonable steps and act responsibly. Therefore, since sc-youth is not primarily aimed at under 18s, Yo argued that moderating all messages (a burden on the sc chair) would be excessively cautious.