Discuss Board Meeting
Raw transcript:
Eric-Jan: So Mark asked me to come up with a plan for this year.
Eric-Jan: but before making a plan, we as a board we have to. We have to re on goals and principles. I would say such a plan.
Eric-Jan: and talking about goals and principles to to me means.
Eric-Jan: What are we as a media weekly stakeholder group here, for
Eric-Jan: so it dies a little bit into the charge when the visuals were defined.
Eric-Jan: and I would say that we, as volunteers.
Eric-Jan: We want to fulfill the vision, purpose, and activities we defined in the Charter.
Eric-Jan: and we want to do it in a professional way.
Eric-Jan: Professional way for me means fallen, as we say, hold up voluntary, but not on
Eric-Jan: without obligation.
Eric-Jan: So
Eric-Jan: I mean so. The community
Eric-Jan: be a trustworthy, reliable board, and well organized.
Eric-Jan: so fitting legal obligations. Practice what for breeds
Eric-Jan: stuff like this stuff stuff like this?
Eric-Jan: So
Eric-Jan: in my plan there's room for improvement
Eric-Jan: to further professionalize.
Eric-Jan: So the the road to a profession to it even more professional cooperation in 2,023 calls for a plan
Eric-Jan: that is based upon a few
Eric-Jan: fundamental
Eric-Jan: subjects. Principles
Eric-Jan: first, I would say, activities for our community.
Eric-Jan: So we are very good at organizing conferences. Hackathon Something we are really good at
Eric-Jan: the bit depends should be based on organizational aspects.
Eric-Jan: Smoothie. A smoothie running organization.
Eric-Jan: with the clear division of roles
Eric-Jan: at a definition of rules serving, for example, ownership
Eric-Jan: of topics or areas.
Eric-Jan: I would say that we would have meetings with topics that are prepared, but
Eric-Jan: and discussed prior to the meeting itself
Eric-Jan: prior to meetings itself
Eric-Jan: with a balance agenda with technical and non-technical topics.
Eric-Jan: So these are some organizational
Eric-Jan: improvements.
Eric-Jan: The third
Eric-Jan: principal would be that it would be an action based plan.
Eric-Jan: So
Eric-Jan: people are really good at making P. But executing is is something different. Right? That
Eric-Jan: as for something different
Eric-Jan: that leads to the fourth
Eric-Jan: principle. That's what we what I call work in progress.
Eric-Jan: So before thinking of all of all kinds of new activities for this year.
Eric-Jan: I would say, Use this.
Eric-Jan: Use this quarter.
Eric-Jan: Use this quarter to execute what we've spent in the past, but it's still work in progress.
Eric-Jan: so I just grab some topics.
Eric-Jan: and from a financial point of view.
Eric-Jan: we, I I think we would. We need a financially sound corporation
Eric-Jan: so that it would require a treasure. So that's me. That is it financially in control.
Eric-Jan: which is not the case at the moment.
Eric-Jan: So we would have to know. Revenues cost
Eric-Jan: the Budget strong membership phase
Eric-Jan: fulfilled legal obligations.
Eric-Jan: Stuff like this compliance, governance, liability.
Eric-Jan: So not quite some work to be done there.
Eric-Jan: Communication wise. we. So for and if i'm talking about work in progress
Eric-Jan: communication where we still have to work on our online presence
Eric-Jan: with all my presence, I mean, I mean basically attractive websites. So the media wikipedia.org.
Eric-Jan: Still, I would say, need some something, some work to be done.
Eric-Jan: Very important still in progress is what we call legal obligations from our members for our members.
Eric-Jan: there's still some work to be done there, and
Eric-Jan: it's it's about time that we really
Eric-Jan: execute this.
Eric-Jan: And finally, as some unfinished and activities wrote, I wrote down reliable project backlog and related works things like this.
Eric-Jan: so we I could summarize this in work in progress from the past
Eric-Jan: before jumping to new into new activities.
Eric-Jan: So these are just some thoughts on how to further professionalize that good
Eric-Jan: let's be it. Let's say kind of a pre-plan or a draft plan.
Eric-Jan: not not a plan as a whole.
Eric-Jan: so
Eric-Jan: the first question would be. Would this be a a good approach
Eric-Jan: for for this year.
Mark: I I I think you brought up some. Really.
Eric-Jan: I can't hear you. Mark.
Eric-Jan: Am I the only one?
Markus: No, I can't hear him, either. I I mean we had the the the agreement. So he said it's good, and then he said something mark
Markus: well, there's something
Markus: No, it's still not.
Markus: You can. You can try to jesticulate. And yeah, yeah.
Eric-Jan: that's definitely one of my capabilities. My
Eric-Jan: on the
Eric-Jan: Could you? Could you reboot or restart, or
Mark: does that do it?
Markus: Yes, that's okay.
Mark: That that was a zoom setting. I wouldn't expect that.
Mark: So yeah, I can.
Mark: Eric. You You gave us a lot to queue on there. I I think that that's a
Mark: I I I think it's a good way to bring focus to everything that we're doing, and I think that's a good start. But.
Mark: man, it's a lot
Mark: i'm not sure if it's a little bit overwhelming.
Mark: no, no, it's it that's fine. and also I saw Bernard had his hand raise. What was there a question?
Bernhard: no, I was actually applauding. But
Bernhard: I I've I was
Bernhard: proposed. Maybe
Bernhard: maybe we should
Bernhard: talk about the financial aspects first.
Bernhard: because
Bernhard: I think this is the key of making us more professional.
Bernhard: because i'm thinking all of us
Bernhard: on the board
Bernhard: are quite busy people.
Bernhard: So
Bernhard: if we even have the funds for let's say, having someone
Bernhard: completely outside.
Bernhard: do some kind of community work for us.
Bernhard: for you know, on an hourly basis. It doesn't have to be much, you know. but if we can afford that.
Bernhard: Then we then we could have some kind of a stakeholder community manager who
Bernhard: who has the overview of what our tasks, who is on these tasks, and and we will annoy the people that are on these tasks.
Bernhard: Right so. And if this, if this is a paid outsider.
Bernhard: the chances are that you know we will not be struggling ourselves with this. But but first of first we have to clarify the financial aspect. I mean. I don't think this has to be necessarily much money. It could be someone, you know, working for 2 h a week or something like that. Yeah. So really, not not much, but
Bernhard: just to keep things going and and to stay on it all the time
Bernhard: could be an an idea if if we can afford that.
Mark: 1 one thing real quick before we continue discussion is that
Mark: I obviously overloaded this meeting. especially. I did not expect this from Eric, so I've overloaded this meeting
Mark: with that in mind.
Mark: Well,
Mark: the other 2 people that I wanted to hear from, though I
Mark: I will just say Marcus and Lex.
Mark: Or can you talk about this next next meeting?
Mark: Because it sounds like we're going to be focused on this this meeting?
Markus: Oh, yes, yes, definitely. I can present the report. Brian, I will need some figures from your side before that, because I think the report is to end up January. so i'll move on to to discuss this in the chat.
Markus: with you guys, and I can present it in an export meeting. That's like the full published report. No.
Mark: And and Lex is is I asked you to talk about your progress on MW. Steak. Is that okay? To put that off for now.
Mark: Okay, I assume you said yes, even though you're muted.
Lex: It's all right. Yes.
Mark: Yeah. Okay.
Mark: So okay. I just wanted to make sure that we didn't lose all this other stuff that I obviously
Mark: you know.
Mark: overwhelmed this way.
Mark: So
Mark: all right.
Mark: Returning to
Mark: Eric's thing here.
Mark: what
Mark: I I like what Bernard said about having
Mark: you know someone who's dedicated to basically the community aspect, or even just moving things along. We need a project manager of some sort here.
Mark: So what what? And I see, Eric? I see you nodding. What? What is the what are the thoughts about that.
Eric-Jan: Yeah? Well, he, she or gender neutral would have to have of course, Authority
Eric-Jan: and
Eric-Jan: that wouldn't go without saying that that that that could be established without it within our board. Right?
Eric-Jan: We and I tried to be intelligent people.
Eric-Jan: we have a strong opinion. We have strong
Eric-Jan: need a wiki DNA
Eric-Jan: it it would. It would be, an it wouldn't be an average board to work with.
Eric-Jan: and it would be another easy to
Eric-Jan: to
Eric-Jan: get the so to install the
Eric-Jan: appropriate
Eric-Jan: the appropriate
Eric-Jan: I did it just call it authority.
Eric-Jan: nor would it be easy to
Eric-Jan: to execute that authority. So this would.
Eric-Jan: Yes, so I would say this would wouldn't be an easy job.
Eric-Jan: It should result in the goals I mentioned right, so
Eric-Jan: so execute what we what we discussed that show ownership things like that.
Eric-Jan: And
Eric-Jan: what
Eric-Jan: I think that's up to us, and not up to a let's say, an office manager, or a board manager, or
Eric-Jan: any third person.
Eric-Jan: Nobody. We should be able to to to do this ourselves, I would say.
Bernhard: but I I was. I was thinking more of a of a kind of a secretary, you know. I understand, Secretary. So so nobody who who is in charge of of of deciding stuff. But some someone who
Bernhard: every week, you know, prepares an agenda for this meeting, and for the maybe week of stakeholders group meeting, and if, and as you know, Mark and Marcos and Brian, and and whoever you know what should be on the agenda, and then put something on the agenda, and then ask the people if they are prepared, or
Bernhard: or you know, Ask, You know this in that project. How is the status? What can we do to
Bernhard: Who should I ask you to follow up? Because we need movement? Because because currently, probably, Mark is quite busy with doing these things and on the side, and you know oh, tomorrow we have a meeting, so let's do something, and and I is perfectly understandable.
Bernhard: So so, so just someone who who takes off the administrative load a little bit from us for for for for a paid work. So you know, if you have 2 h a week for for paid job. You. You're going to do something, and and it's going to be valuable for us, I guess.
Mark: Marcus.
Markus: yeah. So I just wanted to remind us that we have somebody who pitched for the job in the board, and there is lex Not necessarily for the job as preparing the agenda, but for the job of following up on an action of the plans and stuff.
Markus: I don't think that's a discussion we should need here, but I mean we do have some some options on on that already, and I don't know if it's still
Markus: holds. But that would with with serve type close requirements. one. We would have somebody who takes on a take part of the job and and does has obligations, but Lex is also part of the board, so he can.
Mark: so. 1 one thing that Lex is made clear, and
Mark: I I think that we also need to address. And this is a good place because we're talking about hiding someone here is, we need to figure out.
Mark: You know how much money we're going to give someone and then give them.
Mark: You know
Mark: we need to allocate. Make sure we have money to pay them, and and
Mark: I I'm: I'm: sorry. I'm not properly summarizing this, but
Mark: it it's
Mark: you know it's basically we we have these things that we're gonna do we want to do? One of these that we're talking about right now is paying someone to be a
Mark: Jen. Well, General Secretary
Mark: and and we we
Mark: need to budget for that, I guess.
Mark: in in.
Mark: Just make sure that we're all bought into paying, you know, like how much money he needs to do there. So
Mark: it it, Lex. You've been quiet so you're unmuted. So
Mark: go ahead, chime in! What do? What do you? What do you think about all this?
Lex: No, as I said, the first thing is I I would have to deliver that website. I finished a big project by the end of the year. So now i'm fully engaged again on that.
Lex: And then Brian actually knows that because I pinged him with a couple of problems regarding the server.
Lex: Another thing is
Lex: very briefly, because I need to leave pretty soon.
Lex: it's about the conference coming up. But can you just give me
Lex: 5 min to talk about that later, whenever you
Lex: whenever that schedule
Mark: I I is. Is it? Is everyone okay with like talking about that now? I mean, yeah.
Lex: Well, the issue is, I want to actually go to Austin. But i'm not vaccinated, and, as I understand it.
Lex: the Us. Requires people from Europe or from the rest of the world to be vaccinated. So i'm not going to do that. So what I suggest is, can we gather a a little group in Europe and link the 2 conferences.
Lex: so that we have, you know. For example, Erica on we could come back to
Lex: and you could host that somewhere. You know that we have a little group there? I'm not sure how many of how many people in Europe are planning to go to the Austin.
Mark: Probably not many, and that's a that's a good.
Mark: I like the idea of having a
Mark: Co.
Mark: You know conference that would make it cheaper and easier for people who, you know, Don't, and it's a big flight. That's a lot of travel.
Mark: It would make it easier for people who want to, you know, take part
Mark: and have something. I'm not sure how to arrange that, though so.
Lex: but because if your laws don't change, i'm definitely not coming.
Lex: So, except if if the state of of Texas changes its laws.
Lex: Otherwise, I really I I have to take a rain check on this one.
Mark: Yeah. Well, i'm. I I don't know about the laws what Texas has, or any of that.
Mark: And and actually, that's not a Texas thing that would be a Federal thing. So
Lex: yeah, okay.
Mark: yeah, I that that's disappointing. But
Mark: I I do think you raise a good point about maybe getting group together there in Europe. So I I I think that's a good thing to table for now, and you know, let's
Mark: return to this other thing
Mark: that we're talking back there.
Cindy: I do have one other question related to the conference, which is i'm. Assuming that we, as the meeting stakeholders group.
Cindy: are financially fiscally sponsoring it again as we did with Smw. Con, and there is no indication of that on the Wiki page.
Cindy: They have a premier sponsorship by Wiki Tech.
Cindy: and so I've noticed that people are posting links to the conference page and various social media things. And so the Wiki tech logo gets used as the image.
Cindy: and I just think it will be awesome if we are going to physically back the sponsor. The conference, If we had
Cindy: a presence on the page, and it was obvious that it was us.
Mark: Who
Mark: that's been you, Brian, working with? Jeffrey on that? Is that right?
Bryan: what's I doing? The sponsorship
Bryan: chair or whatever. But I guess that it's just kind of picking the highest up image in there to post or something, so we need to put one higher.
Mark: Fair enough.
Mark: all right. So back back i'm sorry. Got sidetracked with lexus thing what?
Mark: What is the next steps for, you know I oh, first of all, first of all we need to figure out is this something that we want to do with? Which Bernard mentioned the
Mark: you know.
Mark: finding someone who could work, you know.
Mark: a couple of hours a week to do this organizational.
Mark: It sounds like organizational, secretarial sort of stuff.
Mark: is, is that something that we all agree should happen?
Cindy: I think we should do it as long as we can afford it. But, I I am still unclear about our finances, and i'm concerned about the fact that we don't even know if we collected all the sponsorship money from Smw. Con. So I think we need to have a better control on our finances before we take on.
Mark: So that's the the
Mark: That's a great point and and that's something that Eric mentioned as well that there's not, you know, as treasure, I think he does, he said he doesn't feel like he has the enough
Mark: of a grasp on on what's going on. So
Mark: I think that
Mark: that's the next step it sounds like, then is
Mark: you know what what her?
Mark: What is this money thing.
Mark: How? How does money work?
Eric-Jan: Well, it's it's not not that complex, I would say, Marcus. So first of
Eric-Jan: to be that I get proper access to our bank account
Eric-Jan: to, together with Brian, figure out.
Eric-Jan: for example, how S. And W. Current funding
Eric-Jan: resulted right?
Eric-Jan: So
Eric-Jan: this might be a tough job, but it it it it can be done and take some time. No problem, because i'm the
Eric-Jan: So I I like. I like to do things like this, but I would need proper access.
Eric-Jan: and which, of course, is quite noble for a treasurer.
Mark: Sure sure it's it's
Mark: what what problems did you have so far? I I mean a little worried. That Bank of America is going to give us a little trouble there. But what?
Mark: What?
Mark: How is that going so far, Brian? What do you think
Bryan: I would just need to have a meeting? I have a meeting with Eric on, and try to get him in.
Bryan: I think the big thing is, I don't know how normal companies do it. but
Bryan: there's credits and debits in the bank account, and I don't know how to
Bryan: connect that to
Bryan: sponsorship payments or anything else like that. I mean, the best I can do is kind of like.
Bryan: Guess it what
Bryan: you know
Bryan: exchange rates are, or something, and try to line up numbers. but they did did seem to be missing
Bryan: Smw. Con payments, but it could have gone through event bright. And then
Mark: so
Mark: Okay. So I think that it's clear. Then in the 5 min we have left it. That's the next step is to get a meeting between
Mark: you and the Eric, and get all this
Mark: straight down. Do I need to be in that meeting, or or
Mark: okay.
Mark: So you all can arrange. That is that right?
Eric-Jan: I think so. Brian. Yeah.
Mark: and then after that. we'll decide whether we have enough money to do, you know.
Mark: hey? A secretary and all this?
Mark: are you, Sarah? What I saw you taking some notes. Brian is. Eric was talking. I hope I hope you did. I hope I was right.
Mark: and in any case Eric has notes as well. So what a After that after the Secretary, because I think that's what we agree that we need is to have someone to manage this stuff.
Mark: what what is after that?
Bryan: well, there's a bunch of stuff that just cop
Bryan: postpone for people to do, I guess. Next.
Mark: Yeah.
Eric-Jan: yeah, that's what I called Work in Progress right?
Eric-Jan: Proposed, postponed, or working progress for things that we discussed last year.
Eric-Jan: That still has to.
Eric-Jan: They don't be tackled right?
Eric-Jan: I just gave some examples.
Mark: Yeah. So the the things that we're postponed that Brian was talking about was the MW. State org status update which Lex is gonna give us.
Mark: and then the the yearly report which Marcus was gonna tell us about.
Mark: And I think Marcus said there was some information you need
Mark: from
Mark: you, Brian.
Mark: I I think that's where we are right now, though. Is there anything that i'm missing? Because I and I think next week our next meeting, which should be 2 weeks from now. We'll be able to
Mark: follow up on whatever you you know. Make sure that the bank account is taken care of, and, Eric
Mark: hopefully, you'll have some more information about for us about the financial status and all that.
Mark: All right.
Markus: Yes. Sorry, Mark, to just to add.
Eric-Jan: what's all support? Is the legal obligations arise from from our members. Right?
Eric-Jan: so there are some. There are some members with with their memberships
Eric-Jan: that expect from us a report on what we've done
Eric-Jan: with their membership money right?
Eric-Jan: So this this
Eric-Jan: This is beginning to become a little bit more urgent.
Eric-Jan: because these are these are applications
Eric-Jan: expiring mid 2,022
Mark: Yeah.
Mark: All right. and and I. So yeah, you're right. We have we have some stuff to work on there?
Mark: So i'm gonna i'm gonna
Mark: I? I think that you know the next.
Mark: Yeah, i'll. I'll write up the agenda for next
Mark: meeting and send out the invite
Mark: And I think I think that's it for now.
Eric-Jan: Yeah, and i'll just send you. I'll just send you my short note right? And here.
Eric-Jan: so
Eric-Jan: yeah.
Mark: that sounds great. thanks a lot. You all I appreciate it, and
Mark: I I really appreciate the work you did. And, Eric, you know.
Mark: hold this all together because it gives it gives us selected you on here. So
Eric-Jan: yeah, the most properly the most difficult particles how to bring this most as as as as constructional as possible, right as possible, because we do a lot of
Eric-Jan: I do a lot of awesome things.
Eric-Jan: but we have to. We have some business to be finished.
Mark: Yeah, all right. Well, thank you. I think that's it. And i'll see you in 2 weeks.
Eric-Jan: Thanks to you all.
Eric-Jan: i'll get back to you, Brian.
Bryan: Okay, I'm: i'm texting you in the element right now. But yeah.
Bryan: if you meet this time tomorrow.
Eric-Jan: Yeper: yeah.
Eric-Jan: i'll reply, right? Okay, cool.
Mark: Alright. Bye.
Eric-Jan: bye, bye.