Council Meeting 09 May 2013

KathyReid — Sat, 11 May 2013 05:09:02 +0000

Thu, 2013-05-09 19:50 - 21:05

Council Minutes Thursday 09 May 2013

Present:

Mr Joshua ‘El Presidente’ Hesketh, Mr Josh Stewart, Ms Kathy Reid, Mr Clinton Roy, Mr Hugh Blemings

Apologies:

Mr Francois Marier, Ms Bianca Gibson

Quorum was achieved

Meeting opened at 1950hrs

1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes and note any omissions or errata

MOVE that the minutes from 24 April are correct

MOTION MOVED by El Presidente, SECONDED by Kathy, passed with one abstention (Clinton)

2. Log of correspondence

Membership - In the period since last meeting 24th April, there have been 5 applications for membership of LA. These have all been approved except from one applicant, who has yet to provide her last name as per the constitution. Membership stands at 2928 according to MemberDB.

Insurance policy renewals from HIMAN BHINDI at oamps

Hugh advised that the policies are ready to pay. Discussions currently in progress regarding specific inclusions and coverage limitations.

Request from Open Food Web from KIRSTEN LARSEN and next actions
(we postponed part #2 of her request at last meeting)

Discussion was held on whether we should fund development of open source software.

MOTION MOVED by El President that Linux Australia fund the Open Food Web project with a grant of $2000, SECONDED by Hugh, passed unanimously

Sponsorship prospectus for GOVHACKAU from PIA WAUGH in response to our initial sponsorship enquiry

Discussion held around sponsorship prospectus, in particular the large amount. General agreement that it would be a positive association, and in line with values. General consensus that sponsoring a ‘Linux Australia’ prize would be of more value. General discussion around liking requirement of mashups to be released under an open source license.

MOTION MOVED by El Presidente that Linux Australia sponsors GovHackAU at the Gold $5k level total sponsorship, with a preference for the sponsorship to partly go towards a prize. This sponsorship denotes Linux Australia’s support for the open government movement.

SECONDED by Hugh, passed unanimously

SLUG Subcommittee changes from TIM ANSELL

MOTION MOVED by El Presidente that Council accept the changes to SLUG’s Subcommittee, and additionally notes the fine efforts of Tim Ansell, Patrick Elliott-Brennan

SECONDED by Kathy, passed unanimously

LA Privacy policy enquiry from PETER LAWLER (to linux-aus list, Secretary CC’d, brought to Council for further discussion)

Council noted thanks to Peter for bringing this to our attention, and it will be discussed in the context of broader policy and constitutional reviews at a later date.

Grant request from ROBERT FELDMAN for Rails Girls Brisbane

General consensus that this is in line with Linux Australia’s values and diversity. Council noted that our Grant policy stipulates a two week feedback period. Given the timeframes, strong consensus for support for the event, lack of dissenting opinion on the linux-aus lists and strong merit of the application, Council decided to approved the grant request in the amount of $500.

MOTION MOVED by Clinton Roy to approve grant request for $500 SECONDED by Kathy, passed unanimously

Drupal South request to become a Subcommittee from JOSH WAIHI

Council discussed the relationship between DrupalCon and Drupal South

DEFER to Council list for informed decision and discussion

DrupalGov Canberra request to become a Subcommittee from CHRIS SKENE

DEFER to Council list for informed decision and discussion

3. Review of action items from previous meetings

(Refer Trello for action items and please update current status before meeting)

Shaun Nyquist - Clinton has liaised with Shaun regarding this request. Discussion around whether it is within Linux Australia’s remit to foster open source within south-east Asia. The need is not urgent. Noted that this request was sent to linux-aus list in late February.

DECISION to defer approval of grant request until current state of budget can be confirmed with Treasurer.

4. Items for discussion

Call for Subcommittee Participation

El Presidente drafted one, has sought feedback.

ACTION: El Presidente to put on Google Docs

LCA2013 wind up update

Wound up, no further action. Council noted that the conference returned a profit of approx $AUD46k

LCA2014 update

Dates announced

Papers committee is in progress

Noted that MeetUp is big in Perth and Brisbane

LCA2015 bid process

With El Presidente to action

2014 Rusty Wrench nominations

Deferred until later in the year

AUIGF update

ACTION: El Presidente to follow up via a phone call, will wait for a chat before putting a logo up

Sponsorship of accounting software

Concerns were raised about whether investing here would be useful to LA specifically.

DEFERRED for discussion with Francois.

Subcommittee Spiel for child events to have on their site

El Presidente to put on Google Drive

PyCon AU update

Schedule announced, progressing well

ZooKeepr hackfest to be held during PyCon AU’s sprints

Media subcommittee and Newsletter update

Kathy to reach out to Don Knowles re a LUG article

ACTION: Media Subcommittee to send out a deadline for articles to be submitted to media@linux.org.au for the next newsletter

Noted that Twitter is becoming a strong engagement channel

TASLug elections

DEFERRED until official notification received from TASLug

5. Items for noting

Nconnects invoice received for teleconf facilities

Kennards storage - need to put under another credit card

Discussion around what is actually left in storage - and whether it’s worth keeping or whether it should be disposed of?

ACTION: Kathy to renew for a month or so and then chat with Peter / Donna to see whether it’s worth storing.

6. Other business

Meeting closed 2105hrs

Council Meeting 24 April 2013

KathyReid — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 10:13:49 +0000

Wed, 2013-04-24 19:45 - 21:00

Council Minutes Wednesday 24th April

For the purposes of clarity, Josh Hesketh is referred to in minutes as El Presidente. For the purposes of humour, Kathy Reid is referred to as Madame Secretary.

Meeting opened 1945hrs

Present: Mr Joshua Hesketh, Mr Hugh Blemings, Mr Francois Marier, Mr Josh Stewart, Ms Kathy Reid

Apologies: Mr Clinton Roy, Ms Biance Gibson

Quorum was achieved

1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes and note any omissions or errata

MOVE that the minutes from 28th March are correct

SECONDED by Madame Secretary, passed unanimously

NOTED that the meeting scheduled for 11th April did not reach quorum and that it was rescheduled by consensus to Wed 24 April.

2. Log of correspondence

Membership - In the period since last meeting 28th March, there have been 5 applications for membership of LA. These have all been approved except from one applicant, who has yet to provide her last name as per the constitution. Membership stands at 2921 according to MemberDB.

Insurance policy renewals from HIMAN BHINDI at oamps

Paperwork has been sent by Hugh 23 April, has been received and has been passed to relevant insurers for processing. Waiting to hear back from the insurers.

Request from Open Food Web from KIRSTEN LARSEN and next actions

Request was discussed in terms of precedence, alignment with values of Linux Australia etc. Awaiting response from Kirsten to Brianna. Comfortable with hosting request, further information needed around developer time, licensing implications.

NOTED that Microsoft Word documents / .docx format is not ideal for a grant submission to Linux Australia :-)

MOTION Council to work with Admin Team to provide appropriate VPS to Open Food Web

SECONDED by Madame Secretary, passed unanimously

Decision on second part of project - funding developer time - is postponed until further information is provided, specifically a response to Brianna Laugher’s questions on the linux-aus mailing list

Request for Linux and Android information from DARREN MOORE

Kathy responded to Darren directly, no further action required

Information from BRIANNA LAUGHER regarding inaugural Australian Internet Governance Forum http://www.igf.org.au/. What next actions should we take to promote this?

Council noted their thanks to Brianna for passing this on. Strong support for this initiative. Noted that Internet NZ is an event partner. General consensus that we would like to support and promote this to our community. Discussion around formally approaching auDA to offer support and assistance, all in agreement. Possibly also one for the Media Team to assist with.

ACTION: El Presidente to work with Madame Secretary to draft an official letter of support to auDA

3. Review of action items from previous meetings

(Refer Trello for action items and please update current status before meeting)

Action items were reviewed for progress and next actions taken and actioned items noted as complete.

4. Items for discussion

LCA2013 wind up update

Generally under control

LCA2014 update

Progressing, Ghosts is this weekend

PyCon AU update

Progressing very well. Could use more assistance but is still progressing very well with thanks to Chris’ efforts.

Shaun’s travel request, update

With Clinton to chat with Shaun.

ACTION: El Presidente to follow up with Clinton and Shaun

Media subcommittee and Newsletter update

Council newsletter and getting this going - we have a draft at
http://wiki.linux.org.au/MediaTeam:Newsletter/2013April#Media_and_Communications_Subcommittee

ACTION: Madame Secretary to liaise with Brianna to seek review on draft

ACTION: Madame Secretary to send to Council for feedback also

TASLug elections

Under control

GovHack and promoting this to the wider community

General support indicated for this initiative, Linux Australia would like to assist/sponsor.

ACTION: El Presidente and Madame Secretary to work on a letter of support to GovHack

Hardware Freedom Day and putting this on a wider calendar of events

Noted, we can put this on the calendar of events in the future

Peter Lieverdink’s resignation from webteam and admin team

Council were unanimous in their deep gratitude for all of Peter’s efforts.

ACTION: Hugh to follow up a thank you gift for Peter

Committees

We need to do a call for volunteers for sub-committees, admin, webteam, mirror team essentially. General call for help on the webteam.

ACTION: El Presidente to do a call for volunteers for the Sub-committees.

Bianca taking a break

Council noted Bianca’s efforts with thanks

Joomla Day Sydney subcommittee

MOVE: That the Joomla Subcommittee is instantiated to run Joomla Day Sydney led by Tim Plummer as per email 19th February

MOVED by El Presidente, SECONDED by Francois, passed unanimously

5. Items for noting

Banking situation now mostly sorted: 4 signatories (Francois, Josh, Kathy, Hugh), 3 debit cards (Josh, Kathy, Francois), 3 token holders (Josh, Francois, Kathy), 2 account admins (Josh, Francois).

LCA2014 account is now “2 to sign” just like other LA accounts (with the exception of LCA2013).

6. Other business

DrupalGov Canberra

Council noted the request from CHRIS SKENE which didn’t make it on to the agenda prior to the meeting. In general all supportive.

ACTION El Presidente to speak with Chris Skene and have a chat about specifics

AUUG windup

ACTION: Hugh to work with them in terms of any handover tasks

Meeting closed 2100hrs

Next meeting: Thursday 9th May 1945hrs

Council Meeting 28 March 2013

KathyReid — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 12:26:07 +0000

Thu, 2013-03-28 19:49 - 20:38

Council Minutes Thursday 28th March 2013

Present: Mr Joshua ‘El Presidente’ Hesketh, Mr Hugh Blemings, Mr Clinton Roy, Ms Bianca Gibson, Mr Josh Stewart, Ms Kathy Reid

Prior apology: Mr Francois Marier

Meeting opened 1949hrs

1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes and note any omissions or errata

MOVE that the minutes from 14th March are correct

MOVED by Joshua Hesketh, SECONDED by Clinton Roy, passed unanimously

2. Log of correspondence

Membership - In the period since last meeting 14th March, there have been 10 applications for membership of LA. These have all been approved. Membership stands at 2917 according to MemberDB. One membership was cancelled at the request of the member, in line with constitutional provisions.

Request for TasLUG to become a Subcommittee of LA by CRAIGE MCWHIRTER

Council noted that at this stage TasLUG won’t need a bank account, this could be reviewed if required in the future. Council noted that in future Subcommittee requests should be subject to public consultation via the linux-aus mailing list if appropriate.

MOTION by Kathy Reid that TasLUG formally become a Subcommittee of LA

SECONDED by Joshua Hesketh

Passed unanimously

ACTION: Someone to set up the TasLUG Subcommittee reporting on Drupal and work with TasLUG to use MemberDB to hold their elections.

Request for Video and Streaming Subcommittee of LA by TIM ANSELL

Council discussed a number of issues around the Subcommittee, with the intent of ensuring that it is community focussed, helps to build a community of expertise and advice for LA events with a focus on collaboration.

MOTION that the Video and Streaming Subcommittee is instantiated with the following conditions;

That the activities of the Subcommittee occur on a public mailing list under lists.linux.org.au

That the documentation of the Subcommittee occurs on a publicly editable wiki to be supplied by Linux Australia

That the AV lead for the present year’s linux.conf.au event is a standing member of the Subcommittee

That the Subcommittee is open to anyone who wishes to become involved

MOVED by Joshua Hesketh

SECONDED by Josh Stewart

Passed unanimously

3. Review of action items from previous meetings

Action items were reviewed on the Trello board, key ones to follow up were;

LCA2015 Expressions of interest - with Joshua Hesketh

LCA2013 details need updating on the linux.org.au site - with Kathy Reid

4. Items for discussion

Code of conduct and terms and conditions

ACTION: Review current code of conduct and terms and conditions

LCA2013 Debrief

Josh had debrief with Canberra team, went very well

Michael Still and Joshua will take feedback to 2014

LCA2014

Ghosts will happen last weekend of April

ACTION: Kathy to make contact and offer advice and assistance with organising action items and tools

PyCon AU

Registrations are open, and all is on progress

Media subcommittee

ACTION: Joshua Hesketh to add himself to the Media Subcommittee list

Council newsletter

ACTION: Kathy to respond to Brianna to help progress it

Membership process tweaking

DEFERRED

5. Items for noting

6. Other business

Wiki space for Geelong bid - make it so, ensure it’s as public as possible

ACTION: Kathy to contact web team to make it happen.

Closed at 2038hrs

El Presidente absent for first April meeting, Hugh Acting Presidente.

Two additional items were discussed in camera and cannot be disclosed at this time due to privacy and confidentiality.

Council Meeting 14 March 2013

KathyReid — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 20:20:08 +0000

Thu, 2013-03-14 19:50 - 20:41

Council Minutes Thursday 14th March 2013

Meeting opened 1950hrs

1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes and note any omissions or errata
2. Log any correspondence for discussion or receipt
3. Review state of action items from previous meetings
4. Discuss starred items
5. Note any unstarred items
6. Other business

1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes and note any omissions or errata
MOVE that the minutes from Council Face to Face 2-3rd March are correct
MOVED by Joshua Hesketh, passed unanimously

2. Log of correspondence

LCA2012 - Regional Delegates’ Programme Report received from KYLIE WILLISON

Council noted the thoroughness of the report. Council noted that the name ‘Regional Delegates’ may not be the ideal name for this programme in the future. Discussion that the report would make an ideal press release, and would be a good task to work with the Media Subcommitee.
ACTION: Clinton to forward on to Brianna Laugher of the Media Subcommittee after seeking permission from the authors.

LCA2015 - Expression of interest from LCA Auckland from CHERIE ELLIS

Council noted with thanks the expression of interest. Noted that Council needs to put together a timeline for bids. Council were pleased with the high number of expressions of interest.

Membership - In the period since last meeting 3rd March, there have been three (3) applications for membership of LA. These have all been approved. Membership stands at 2906 according to MemberDB.

Noted

Request for grant information from KIRSTEN LARSEN from OPENFOODWEB

Noted, information on Grants Programme has been provided. Council is awaiting further information from the grant applicants in line with the Grants Policy.

3. Review of action items from previous meetings

Clinton

Has started transcribing AGM video for minutes
Has not spoken with SHAUN NYKVIST re his Grant request
Brianna has been granted access to the Media Portal on the Wiki

Joshua Hesketh

Will follow up MemberDB in the next week or so
Spoke with OSDC

Josh Stewart

Budget for Sydney Joomla Day Team - budget template has been done but awaiting sending this to Sydney Joomla Day Team
Budget template is in a pretty good start and has been sent to Hobart bid team.

Bianca

Will take some of the generic action items

Kathy

Need to chase James Iseppi re memberDB and linux.conf.au signups
ACTION: Kathy to add the manual workaround to process documentation
ACTION: Send Kathy your postal address
ACTION: Kathy to set up list of journalist and media contacts

Discussion around how we handle Action Items for Council Meetings so that we can more easily move through the agenda. Trello is really good for doing this. Update action items into doing and done columns. Discussion around doing, done column. Archive at phone conference. Discussion around whether we just add new action items into Trello.
DECISION: We are all happy to do this

4. Items for discussion

Awards

Council noted that awards and recognition is something that is an opportunity for improvement within the community. Many people work very hard in the community without a lot of recognition. Noted that awards is a difficult area to get right and to be consistent. Different levels of achievement should come with different levels of recognition.
DECISION: We will recognise achievements in the newsletter via the Media and Communications Subcommittee

Newsletter

Media and Comms Subcommittee are pretty keen and eager.
ACTION: Clinton to email admin team to set up the mailing list

Member survey

General discussion that this would be very valuable. Noted that the real value in the questions is having them static over a few years to identify trends. Discussion around whether we need to offer an incentive for filling in the survey. Discussion around having a Golden Ticket prize - ie all LA conferences for a year. Preference to use an open source survey tool. Noted that we should consult community on what questions should be in here. Discussion on having survey tool available for all conferences run under LA auspices.
ACTION: Clinton to send email to linux-aus to identify possible questions.

Member services

Deferred

5. Items for noting

Ghosts in occurring in April, action list was reviewed
Discussion around LCA2014 budget and some amendments required
Joshua discussed further ties with OSDC. No actions arising.

6. Other business

Joshua Hesketh will be here for 28th March teleconf, but April is out, at least until mid-late April
Document Freedom Day - noted for 27th March
ACTION: Kathy to write supporting statement and post through to Clinton and Bianca
Newsletter
When should we aim to get one out - we don’t want to impose deadlines on the Media and Communications Subcommittee. Would like to get this moving though.

MEETING CLOSED 2041hrs
NEXT MEETING 1945hrs Thursday 28th March

7. Items discussed in camera

2 items were discussed in camera.

Council Meeting 2-3 March 2013 (face to face)

KathyReid — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 10:06:17 +0000

Sat, 2013-03-02 09:50 - Sun, 2013-03-03 17:20

Minutes - Linux Australia Council Face to Face
2nd-3rd March 2013, Quest Docklands, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Meeting opened 0950hrs 2nd March

Present: Mr Joshua ‘El Presidenté’ Hesketh, Mr Hugh Blemings, Mr François Marier, Ms Kathy Reid, Mr Clinton Roy, Ms Bianca Gibson, Mr Josh Stewart
All Council members were present and quorum was achieved.

For clarity, Mr Joshua Hesketh is referred to as El Presidenté.
It was noted that this was against his will. El Presidenté’s wishes were overriden by majority of the Council.

Action item summary

ACTION: Whitelist the members for the council email list so that we don’t have to spend time moderating the Council email list
ACTION: Kathy to get in contact with James Iseppi to figure out how we get the LCA signup sheets into MemberDB.
ACTION: We would like for subcommittees to have a spiel on their website for people UPDATE from Kathy: This was around the Subcommittees having something on their website to promote Linux Australia membership - for instance where say WordCamp runs, we want WordCamp to have a link for people to sign up for Linux Australia membership.
ACTION: Kathy to check the constitution and make a decision and approve foreign members if required.
ACTION COMPLETE - The constitution does not prevent foreign citizens being members of LA.
ACTION: MemberDB needs to handle expired members. On the expiry email that goes out, make it VERY CLEAR that it won’t remove people from mailing lists, and tell people how to remove themselves.
ACTION: MemberDB needs functionality for emailing members
ACTION: We need someone to do announcing/posting to lists
ACTION: Kathy to chat with Peter Lieverdink and James Polley to identify way forward for making amendments to MemberDB to facilitate the expiry process
ACTION: El Presidenté to import information into mailman from MemberDB or vice versa. This action is postponed until members renew their membership to avoid annoying people.
ACTION: MemberDB changes required to automate things. Until we have that functionality in MemberDB, ensure all new members are added to the announce mailing list manually.
ACTION: Kathy to add the manual workaround to process documentation
ACTION: Get a CSV export from Zookeepr from web team James Iseppi to add to announce mailing list.
ACTION: Someone to add a statement to the mailing list subscription page around proper conduct on the mailing lists. http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo
ACTION: All Council members to become more familiar with the constitution https://www.linux.org.au/constitution
ACTION: Clinton to finish AGM Minutes
ACTION: Once the AGM Minutes are finalised, someone to work with John Ferlito and Terry to submit to office of fair trading
ACTION: Someone to ensure Ghosts is being organised, currently with LCA2014 Perth team
ACTION: Set dates for the linux.conf.au 2015 bid process and execute the bid process by end of March. Now’s the time to start asking questions and start reviewing, shortlisting and selecting.
ACTION: El Presidenté to update the email that is sent to Subcommittees regarding reporting to advise that the information is made public on the Linux Australia webpage.
ACTION: Follow up expressions of interest with potential subcommittees to get them to formalise their actions and possibly submit formal subcommittee formation requests.
ACTION: Clinton to let LCA2014 know that it would be a good idea to have a ZooKeepr keeperer.
ACTION: El Presidenté to send credit card forms to Westpac
ACTION: Kathy to organise business cards for Council members
ACTION: Clinton to review previous grant request submissions to get a better feel for which requests were approved and which ones were denied to identify trends.
ACTION: Francois to reimburse Leon Brooks for opensource.org.au
ACTION: Steven Walsh to delegate this domain to linux.org.au
ACTION: Josh and Francois to communicate with the Sydney Joomla group and request a budget, and clarify that Linux Australia events keeps the profit from events that are run under Linux Australia’s auspices.
ACTION: Josh and Francois are to request a budget from Tim Plummer and the Sydney Joomla Day team
ACTION: El Presidenté to chase monitoring mailing list for Alistair Irvine
ACTION: Clinton to speak with Shaun Nyquist to gather more details about Shaun’s Vietnam travel grant request.
ACTION: Mail needs to be redirected to Kathy. Kathy to send John Ferlito her address.
ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter to sort out MemberDB initial email so it points to the right website for members to change their password.
ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter about Google Analytics
ACTION: Website refresh and hackfest. Will this be high value? Defer until we know what other action items are on our list.
ACTION: Kathy to upload the Stakeholder Mapping drawing
ACTION: The Media and Communications Subcommittee Charter needs to be reviewed by Council, then the interested parties should propose to Council to form the Media and Communications Subcommittee
ACTION: Set up mailing list for Media and Communications Subcommittee. Clinton to be the point of contact, Kathy to be on the mail list also
ACTION: Get photos of Council Members
ACTION: Photos of Council Members to go up on web page http://linux.org.au/council
ACTION: We need an FAQ for dealing with journalists and put it on the website
ACTION: We need to build a stakeholder picture of journalists to get a better picture of what they do, which area they work in. Would this be a good thing to outsource to a PR company?
ACTION: We need to understand what the community reads - there is a touchpoint here with the upcoming member survey. What do members of the open source community actually read. What do our prospective members read?
ACTION: Kathy to set up list of journalist and media contacts
ACTION: Clinton to create a list of LUGs/tech mailing lists

El Presidenté welcomed delegates and opened the meeting.
1. Confirm accuracy of previous minutes of meeting 14 Feb 2013
Moved as correct by El Presidenté, seconded Bianca, passed unanimously
2. Review of previous action items
Moderation of requests to ctte@linux.org.au
ACTION: Whitelist the members so that we don’t have to spend time moderating the Council email list
Document travel agency details
UPDATE: Documented on wiki, complete
3. Items for discussion
Round table with blue sky vision thinking for Linux Australia
The vision and activities the Council want to be working on this year include;

Becoming more than just Linux and being the organisation that represents open technology
Becoming more involved in lobbying the government on open technology issues
Supporting user groups and facilitating development and growth there
Extending the grants program and doing better outreach in this space
Enabling user groups and people to do cool things
Making Linux Australia more relevant to people who are not currently members - and extending our reach beyond our current community
Encouraging outreach to younger people and universities to get people interested in Linux Australia who might not otherwise want to be involved. This also involves supporting other organisations that are doing cool stuff, and including officially endorsing some efforts by other organisations.
Increasing our public profile and public voice - and be consulted more on open technology issues.
Fight against software patents and TPPA
Better representing member needs - including running a member survey
Better defining the member lifecycle and targeting action at different points in the lifecycle
Run excellent conferences, but make sure the conferences don’t conflict.
We want to do better communication with stakeholders and the stakeholder environment

The Council discussed the particular skills and attributes they bring to the table and the roles they would like to play within the team.
SWOT Analysis
Council undertook a SWOT analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to help guide and prioritise actions for the year.
Memberships
Discussion was held around how new members are approved.
ACTION: Kathy to get in contact with James Iseppi to figure out how we get the LCA signup sheets into MemberDB.
ACTION: Subcommittees to have a spiel on their website for people
Discussion was held around whether people who are not Australian citizens can be members of Linux Australia?
ACTION: Kathy to check the constitution and make a decision and approve foreign members if required

Discussion was held around cleaning up MemberDB. Points raised included the lack of consistency between mailing lists and MemberDB, and downsides of expiring members such as a reduced membership base.

DECISION: It was decided that MemberDB would be cleaned up this year by running an expiry process.
Membership tiers
Discussion was held around whether Linux Australia needs different membership tiers, possibly with paid memberships. There is no current financial imperative to do this. Council was also mindful that if people pay money to be a member of Linux Australia they will have higher service expectations. The key reason for paid memberships would be to allow people who want to make more of a contribution to be able to do so. General consensus that paid membership tiers are not required at this stage.

MOTION moved by El Presidenté that we;
1. Have a single free membership tier
2. That memberships are expired/renewed annually via an online mechanism before 1st October in accordance with Clause 4(e) of the Constitution
Seconded by François, carried unanimously

It was noted that we need to ensure that we make memberships ‘inactive’ rather than removing them entirely in case membership data is completely lost. Are there privacy principles that need to be upheld. This may need to be researched in more depth. It was noted that this will require some MemberDB changes.

ACTION: MemberDB needs to handle expired members. On the expiry email that goes out, make it VERY CLEAR that it won’t remove people from mailing lists, and tell people how to remove themselves.
ACTION: MemberDB needs functionality for emailing members
ACTION: We need someone to do announcing/posting to lists
ACTION: Kathy to chat with Peter Lieverdink and James Polley to identify way forward
Mailing lists
It was agreed that there should be more correlation between MemberDB and the mailing list. Any new member gets subscribed to la-announce - they can unsubscribe and still be a member of LA. We need to ensure everyone is a member to start with and then can unsubscribe if they want to be. We discussed whether we should just have an la-members mailing list which is consistent with MemberDB, but this created more overhead.

It was agreed that we need a method to contact all members that is not mailman dependent, and that we need to audit the mailing list and ensure that every current member in MemberDB is on the announce mailing list, and ensure that all new members are subscribed to the announce mailing list, and that members may unsubscribe from mailing lists.

ACTION: El Presidenté to import information from mailman to MemberDB or vice versa
ACTION: MemberDB changes required to automate things. Until we have that functionality in MemberDB, ensure all new members are added to the announce mailing list annually
ACTION: Kathy to add the manual workaround to process documentation
ACTION: Get a CSV export from Zookeepr from web team James Iseppi to add to announce mailing list.

Council discussed mailing list policy, and whether we need a brief statement on the mailing list subscription page to state we have the ability to remove posts or ban members if content is inappropriate.
ACTION: Someone to add a statement to the mailing list subscription page around this.
http://lists.linux.org.au/listinfo

Council decided that we would wait until after membership expiry/renewal before auditing the membership of the email list. It was noted that privacy requirements are better for opt in than opt out - if people are interested they will opt in. People who aren’t interested won’t know about it.
Constitution
Discussion was held on what value it adds to change it. A number of pros and cons were debated, and it was decided to leave it ‘as is’ at the moment.

ACTION: All Council members to become more familiar with the constitution
https://www.linux.org.au/constitution
AGM Minutes
In progress.
ACTION: Clinton to finish AGM Minutes, work with John Ferlito and Terry to submit to office of fair trading
linux.conf.au
LCA2013

Debrief is being planned for late March, getting dates is difficult. Financial position is unknown at this time and will be confirmed during debrief. Final accounts are not settled as yet. Discussions regarding the venue - staff costs on top of the hall hire for ushering due to legal requirements. B&G accommodation costs need to be sorted.
LCA2014

Ghosts will be held around the 27th April. Coming along nicely. Working with venue around dates. Clinton will be the liaison, and other Ghosts will be in attendance.

LCA2015

Expressions of interest have been received already, even without the call for Expressions of Interest going out.

ACTION: Set dates for the linux.conf.au 2015 bid process and execute the bid process by end of March. Now’s the time to start asking questions and start reviewing, shortlisting and selecting.
Subcommittees
Admin team
Admin team report filed in November. Admin team don’t need to report too often. Hosting agreement under negotiation.
linux.conf.au
Last report by 2013 filed in July, good to get an update from them at Ghosts
Newcastle LUG
Filed a report in September. No activity to report.
Mirror team
Michael Still is leaving the Mirror Team. Council noted his excellent contributions to date. Under control at the moment, team can do a call for participation if required. Next report end of May.
PyconAu
Reporting set to bimonthly. Planning going well for 2013.
Webteam
Last report March 2012, next report due March 2013.
WordCampMelbourne
Reporting set to bimonthly.
Retired subcommittees
Council reviewed a number of retired subcommittees. Discussion held around putting in previous subcommittees to Drupal, and whether to put old ones in so we have a historical record. Discussion around who is responsible for checking reports. Council is happy for events to run as Subcommittees.

Discussion around multiple bids for the same event. Process is generally if you want to run one, check in with the LA Council, so that we know about it and can determine objectively.
Another way to do this is to have an Events Subcommittee made up of Ghosts of previous events to provide advice to Council. Designed to produce successful conference - and say advise on who should run the next conference. Do we have a subcommittee that parents subcommittees - ie all of them. As long as it was understood that they are recommendations and that Council could override. Have we reached the point where we actually need this? Council decided this was not yet required.
Subcommittee budgeting
Discussion around budgeting to break even on a per-person basis without sponsorship, and then as sponsors come on board add in extra schwag and benefits for the event. This should be a key principle of funding events. PyconAu has been very good in valuing exactly different sponsorship deals.
Subcommittee process
Subcommittee policy is documented at https://www.linux.org.au/policies/sub-committee
Discussion around whether we have any issues with current Subcommittee process, and tracking activities of subcommittee. Discussion around the reports from Subcommittee and whether we’re still happy for them to go straight to the Linux Australia home page.

Feed of subcommittee reports is at;
http://linux.org.au/subcommittees/reports/feed

ACTION: El Presidenté to update the email that is sent to Subcommittees regarding reporting to advise that the information is made public on the Linux Australia webpage.
Review of potential subcommittees
ACTION: Follow up expressions of interest with potential subcommittees to get them to formalise their actions and possibly submit formal subcommittee formation requests.

ACTION: Let LCA2014 know that it would be a good idea to have a ZooKeepr keeperer.
Insurance
Insurance definitely covers subcommittees
Budget, banks, finance and treasury
Council was informed of the expenses policy
http://linux.org.au/policies/expense

Expense claims should be logged with Treasurer, Francois.

Although LA is in a strong financial position, it’s going to be a tight year financially. No specific action is required currently to address this, we just need to be aware of this when deliberating financial decisions. We have sufficient reserves currently without curtailing grants or other expenditures.

Credit cards

Francois needs one
Kathy needs one

ACTION: El presidenté to send the credit card forms to Westpac
Sponsorships, donations and grants
General feeling to prefer grants over donations - so that there is a return on the investment. Discussion around outreach around getting more donation requests - something simple like just having business cards available so that you can provide contact details when say you’re at a conference.

ACTION: To organise business cards for Council members

Discussion held around whether we should we review previous grants? There is a grants page on the site at; http://linux.org.au/projects/grants. Council also discussed whether we should focus on more grants this year due to our strong financial position.

ACTION: Clinton to review previous travel and study submissions to get a better feel for which requests were approved and which ones were denied to identify trends.
Documentation and processes
ACTION: Mail needs to be redirected to Kathy. Kathy to send John Ferlito her address.

Utbox - fax to email - provided free
Council noted their thanks to Utbox for provision of this service.

ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter to sort out MemberDB initial email so it points to the right website for members to change their password.
Outreach
DECISION: Regarding Eventifier - each event to make own decision, we will not provide as an umbrella service.

ACTION: Kathy to talk to Peter about Google Analytics
ACTION: Website refresh and hackfest. Will this be high value? Defer until we know what other action items are on our list.
Evangelism
Discussion around what activities we want to do here. We shouldn’t aim to do a million things. We can publish on the mailing lists about what we do and cross-pollinate things.
Stakeholder mapping
The Council mapped key stakeholders in and around the community in terms of importance and influence and prioritised according to the amount of effort that should be spent engaging the stakeholders. We prioritised the effort that should be spent engaging various stakeholders based on influence and importance.
ACTION: Kathy to upload the Stakeholder Mapping drawing to Council docs area
Media and Communications Subcommittee
Discussion around the Media and Communications Subcommittee Charter and how this Subcommittee adds value to Council. They could assist in writing promotional material. We would need to ensure the integrity of communications sent out in our name. We discussed whether the Subcommittee could produce a newsletter each month and maintain a list of journalist and user group contacts. Council could then fill the gaps

ACTION: The Charter needs to be reviewed by Council, then the interested parties should propose to Council to form the Media and Communications Subcommittee

ACTION: Set up mailing list for Media and Communications Subcommittee. Clinton to be the point of contact, Kathy to be on the mail list also

Council welcomed Brianna Laugher as the contact for the Media and Communications Subcommittee. We discussed having a monthly newsletter. Expectations of the Media and Communications Subcommittee were discussed, noting the amount of work that could possibly be involved, and needing to constrain this.

The draft charter for the Media SubCommittee was reviewed.
http://wiki.linux.org.au/Roles_and_things

Council discussed the role of Media SubCommittee

Newsletter
Press releases
Maintaining a list of journalists
Maintaining a list of mailing lists
Maintaining a list of Calls for Papers
Sourcing feedback from the community
Assisting with Social Media - Twitter, Facebook.

Council discussed some of the the things that could be in the Newsletter

Calls for Papers
Upcoming events
Highlights of blogs and social media posts
LUG of the month
Podcast of the month
Links to the minutes
Links to videos of confs
Highlight community member / interview
NO CLIPART!

MOTION: Kathy moved that the Media and Communications Subcommittee be instantiated based on the current charter. Seconded by Bianca, passed unanimously.

ACTION: El Presidenté to give Brianna access to the Media Portal on the Wiki
ACTION: El Presidenté to set up reporting for the Media and Communications Subcommittee on Drupal
ACTION: Kathy to set up list of journalist and media contacts
ACTION: Clinton to create a list of LUGs/tech mailing lists
4. Review of correspondence
opensource.org.au (Leon Brooks)
ACTION: Francois to reimburse Leon Brooks
ACTION: Steven Walsh to delegate this domain to linux.org.au
AV Co-ordinators report
Report was thorough. El Presidenté has thanked Paul for his report. No further action required on this matter.
Subcommittee request for Sydney Joomla Group from Tim Plummer
Request was approved in principle, some further information is required to progress.
ACTION: Josh and Francois to communicate with the Sydney Joomla group and request a budget, and clarify that Linux Australia events keeps the profit from events that are run under Linux Australia’s auspices.
ACTION: Josh and Francois are to request a budget from Tim Plummer and team
Request for monitoring mailing list from Alistair Irvine
Request for mailing list approved
ACTION: El Presidenté to chase monitoring mailing list for Alistair Irvine
Request for Vietnam Open Source Training from Shaun Nyquist
Grants policy requires that members have two weeks to provide feedback.
DECISION: Council will defer decision until members have had an opportunity to provide feedback in line with Grants policy. Decision to be made at next teleconf.
ACTION: Clinton to speak with Shaun Nyquist to gather more details about the request
Sponsorship request from BarCampMelbourne from Ben Dechrai
Request withdrawn, no further action required.
5. Media training

Council welcomed Brad Howarth as the Media Trainer for the day. Brad provided his very accomplished career background in technology journalism. Brad is driven by wanting to help people become interesting storytellers, so helps people articulate technology stories and the passion behind them. He has a very strong media training background.

http://au.linkedin.com/in/bhowarth

Council received a presentation from Brad around how to deal with the Media, advice for working with journalists, and participated in mock interview training. Consensus this was good value.

ACTION: Get photos of Council Members
ACTION: Photos of Council Members to go up on web page http://linux.org.au/council
ACTION: We need an FAQ for dealing with journalists and put it on the website
ACTION: We need to build a stakeholder picture of journalists to get a better picture of what they do, which area they work in. Would this be a good thing to outsource to a PR company?
ACTION: We need to understand what the community reads - there is a touchpoint here with the upcoming member survey. What do members of the open source community actually read. What do our prospective members read?
6. Deferred

Awards
Member survey
Member services

MEETING CLOSED 1730hrs 3rd March
NEXT MEETING via teleconference Thursday 15th March 1945hrs
7. Matters discussed in camera
Five matters were discussed in camera, and cannot be made public at this time due to the need for privacy and confidentiality.

Council Meeting 14 February 2013

KathyReid — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 14:20:48 +0000

Thu, 2013-02-14 19:50 - 20:50

MINUTES COUNCIL MEETING 14 February 2013

Present: Bianca Gibson, Joshua Hesketh, Francois Marier, Hugh Blemings, Josh Stewart, Clinton Roy, Kathy Reid (all present, no apologies)
Quorum was achieved

Meeting opened 1950hrs

Minutes of previous meeting moved as correct by Josh Hesketh, seconded by Bianca, carried unanimously

Action item summary

ACTION: Kathy to approve pending MemberDB memberships, liaise with Pieter to make it happen
ACTION Joshua to follow up with Pia directly to discuss TBL.
ACTION: Kathy to provide an appropriate response to speaking services request
ACTION: Joshua to arrange media training.
ACTION: Joshua to document travel agency details
ACTION: Clinton, Hugh, to book flights. Francois is already booked for F2F.
ACTION: Kathy and Hugh to get Westpac customer ID numbers
ACTION: Continue using Trello
ACTION: Kathy to add Action Item Summary to list
ACTION: Joshua to add details of LACTTE list moderation on the Wiki

Log of correspondence

Applications for membership
ACTION: Kathy to approve pending MemberDB memberships, liaise with Peter to make it happen

BarCampMelbourne have applied to be an ongoing subcommittee
Discussed below

Email was received from a community member regarding speaking services.
ACTION: Kathy to provide an appropriate response

Previous action items

Follow up to TBL funding issue.
IN PROGRESS

Face to face organisation
UPDATE: Bianca is currently arranging accommodation, ETA to completion 16/2

F2F date
Has been set for 2-3 March. Most people can make it.

Media training
ACTION: Joshua to arrange media training.

Document travel agency requirements
UPDATE: Action assigned to Joshua

Travel to F2F
Joshua clarified who needed flights to F2F.
ACTION: Clinton, Hugh, to book flights. Francois is already booked.

News article on website introducing new Council
UPDATE: In progress by Kathy
ACTION: Those who haven’t provided a bio to please do so to Kathy

Member DB
DISCUSSION DEFERRED to F2F

Current status of Media Subcommittee
Bianca identified 5 people who volunteered to be involved at linux.conf.au. Discussions have occurred around charter for the Media Subcommittee. Regarding Media Training, it was proposed that at least one person from the Media Subcommittee be present during Media Training. All in agreement. Bianca has the contact details for Media Subcommitte.
UPDATE: This is a work in progress, will be revisited at F2F.

Current status of BarCampMelbourne Subcommittee
Ben Dechrai has applied for BarCampMelbourne to be an ongoing Subcommittee rather than having a Subcommittee convening every year. Different views were expressed, some in support of having a Subcommittee for only one year, then reconvening, and some in support of ongoing Subcommittee. Subcommittees are not expired or ended at all.
Motion proposed by Joshua, seconded by Bianca to have BarCampMelbourne run as a Subcommittee for now.
Carried unanimously except for one abstention
(Kathy as previous BarCampMelbourne organiser)

Mirror Subcommittee
DECISION: Defer to face to face

Open Hardware conference
Discussions are ongoing in the community around how an Open Hardware conference will run.
DECISION: Defer to face to face.

Website updates
LCA2013 and LCA2014 updates to website
ACTION: Kathy to change this

Signatories on bank accounts
Joshua is currently a signatory. All in agreement that we need a third and possibly a fourth. Suggested that Hugh (VP) and Kathy (Secretary) also be signatories. Agreed. This needs to be arranged prior to face to face.
ACTION: Kathy and Hugh to get Westpac account numbers

Review use of Trello
Use of Trello was discussed. Concerns were raised that it is a second spot to be checking things. Kathy is finding Trello very useful. Discussion was held around need for a summary of action items.
ACTION: Continue using Trello
ACTION: Kathy to add Action Item Summary to list

LACTTE email list
Everyone has been made a moderator, this is causing some issues.
ACTION: Joshua to add details of LACTTE list moderation on the Wiki

Discussions held in camera

Three minor discussions were held in camera.
Council noted previous community feedback regarding in camera items and will attempt to make in camera items public in due course taking into consideration privacy and related confidentiality requirements.

Teleconf for 28th Feb cancelled due to Face to Face
Next meeting, Face to Face Friday 1 March evening until Sunday 3rd March evening
Meeting closed 2050hrs

Council Meeting 1 February 2013

KathyReid — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:30:15 +0000

Fri, 2013-02-01 12:45 - 13:50

Meeting opened approximately 1245hrs

Location: Australian National University, Canberra

Present: Mr Joshua Hesketh, Mr Hugh Blemings, Ms Kathy Reid, Mr François Marier, Ms Bianca Gibson, Mr Josh Stewart, Mr Clinton Roy

For clarity, Mr Joshua Hesketh is referred to in minutes as ‘Joshua’ and Mr Josh Stewart is referred to as ‘Josh’

Log of Correspondence
A. Council received one item of correspondence and it was discussed in camera.

1. Joshua welcomed the new Council and congratulated them on being elected to Council. The Council introduced themselves to each other. Joshua briefed the Council on standard procedures, quorum and teleconferencing.

2. Contact details were sought from each Council member
ACTION: Kathy to update Contact details on the Wiki Council Portal
Action completed 2 Feb 2013
ACTION: Someone to please update Council details on LA website
http://linux.org.au/council
Action completed 1 Feb 2013

3. The Council discussed where the minutes of meetings were kept.
ACTION: Kathy to generate a template for Minutes
Action completed 2 Feb 2013 - we’ll use this document outline for minutes

4. The Council discussed the best day and time for regular teleconference catchup.
ACTION: Kathy to organise a shared calendar and add entries for regular teleconference.

5. The Council discussed arrangements for 2013 Ghosts Debrief sessions and for 2014 Ghosts briefing session.

6. The Council discussed arrangements for Council Face to Face.
DECISION: Face to face will be held on the weekend of 2nd-3rd March in Melbourne, as this represents the least travel.
ACTION: Bianca to identify suitable venues.
ACTION: All to identify travel arrangements / requirements and let Joshua know

7. Joshua indicated that LA has arrangements with a travel agency
ACTION: Joshua to document travel agency requirements

8. It was proposed by Clinton that the Council use Trello for actioning all the action items and see if it works. All in agreement.
ACTION: Kathy to establish Trello

9. Discussion was held around current state of Media Subcommittee
ACTION: Bianca to chase current state of Media Subcommittee

10. It was noted that the BlueHackers.org BoF was well attended and Council discussed having psychological assistance/counselling services as a member service that could be made available to all LA members.
DECISION: Defer for further discussion at LA Face to Face

11. It was noted that it is now more than three years since the last member survey, and that it would be ideal to run one again.
DECISION: Defer for further discussion at LA Face to Face

12. It was noted that old members had not been expired from MemberDB. Discussions subsequent to meeting occurred exploring the need to ensure alignment with legal requirements, and for appropriate communication to members, and opt-out options.
ACTION: Kathy to find out how to do this and make it so

An additional (2) items were discussed/in camera./

MEETING CONCLUDED APPROXIMATELY 1350hrs

NEXT MEETING: TELECONFERENCE 1945hrs either 13th or 14th FEBRUARY 2013

Council Meeting 16 January 2013

cafuego — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:08:05 +0000

Wed, 2013-01-16 20:33 - 20:56

Present: Bianca Gibson, Joshua Hesketh, Clinton Roy, Peter Lieverdink

Apologies: Mike Carden, John Ferlito

Agenda

Council election has opened: lots of candidates, all good.

Steve Walsh’s request for travel budget for Admin team meetup at LCA2013.
- Motion: We approve travel request for admin team members who otherwise couldn’t make it on the proviso that a report comes back from the meeting at LCA.
- Proposed: Josh
- Seconded: Clinton
- Passed unanimously
LCA2013
- Lots of good team meetings happening on the ramp up.
- About to spend a lot of money to make things happen.

LCA2014
- Planning has begun.
- Clinton to contact re progress for announcement at LCA and preliminary ghosts plans.

PyCon AU report
- 2013 is coming along well. Sponsors starting to come on board. Venue booked in.
- Calendar clash with EuroPython

RDP Status
- Applicants are in.
- Working out budget to see how many we can send.
- Announcement coming soon.

Financial Audit
- Audit complete. Council will review.

Office reports
- In progress.

General Business
- Current council lunch planned at LCA Wednesday.

Council Meeting 2 January 2013

jhesketh — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 09:26:15 +0000

Wed, 2013-01-02 20:03 - 20:24

Present: John Ferlito, Joshua Hesketh, James Polley, Bianca Gibson

Apologies: Mike Carden, Peter Lieverdink, Clinton Roy

Meeting open: 20:03

LCA 2013:
- All good so far.
- Keynotes all announced.
- Sales going well.
- Looking for more volunteers.

LCA 2014:
- Bidding teams notified. Antarctica contacted.
- John to chase up volunteering.

Name Change:
- First round of voting closed.
- Results will be announced to list.

Council Election:
- Nominations open.
- Contact Terry to be returning officer.

Office Reports:
- Todo.

Financial Audit:
- Waiting on last bits of paperwork.

AGM:
- Need to send the confirmed date.

Privacy issues with constitution:
- To follow up after holiday period with appropriate bodies.
- Possible need special resolution to resolve.

Meeting open: 20:24

Council Meeting 12 December 2012

jhesketh — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 00:40:56 +0000

Wed, 2012-12-12 20:10 - 20:47

Present:
Michael Carden, Joshua Hesketh, Bianca Gibson, James Polley, Peter Lieverdink, Clinton Roy

Apologies:
John Ferlito

Meeting opened: 8:10pm;

General Business:
- Speaker Travel arrangement

LCA 2013 Update
- Going to be awesome. Final keynote nearly ready to announce

Perth review
- Joshua and Clinton to visit the Perth team this coming weekend.

Sydney review
- Joshua and Clinton visited Sydney and met with Tim Ansell and Patrick Elliott-Brennan.

RDP
- Bianca to send documents to Mike

Rusty Wrench
- Josh to configure and announce

Council Election
- Peter to configure and announce

Namechange
- Peter.

AGM
- Date/Time?
- Announcement?

Closed: 8:47pm

Action Items:

Josh - Rusty Wrench configure + announce
Peter - Council Election configure + announce
Peter - Namechange final configuration and send announce