Board/Minutes/2021-09-10

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Draft minutes.

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/ror-nt7-6tu
using BigBlueButton.

Please note that this video chat is not open to observers.

Date and time: Friday 10 September 2021, 14:00 UTC - Countdown
Acronyms

Participants

Board members

  • Allan Mustard (Chairing)
  • Amanda McCann
  • Eugene Alvin Villar
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Jean-Marc Liotier (had some connection issues)
  • Mikel Maron
  • Tobias Knerr

Officers and board
Biographies

Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi

Not Present

Guests

Not open to observers.

OSMF policy for “State of the Map” trademark grants for places which are LGBTQ-unsafe

Some points have been reordered.

Suggestions by Amanda:

  • adopt policy to not have a State of the Map (SotM) conference at unsafe places for LGBTQ people.
  • Amanda to create a circular.

Implementing such a policy might generate some good publicity.

Amanda mentioned later in the discussion that since she had complained about other organisations overlooking the issue, she had to take action as an OSMF board member.

Points by some SotM Working Group (SotM-WG) members, as relayed by Amanda.

  • implementing such a policy will exclude some people.
  • it is already hard to get bids from local community teams to host the international SotM conference.
  • wish to have international SotM in some of the unsafe places.
  • some SotM-WG members expressed that they prefer not to have hard rules.

Points mentioned by Mikel (SotM-WG member)

  • Safety for getting together in person is paramount for the SotM-WG.
  • There are different ways to ensure safety.
  • A hard rule will tie the hands of the SotM-WG to make a good decision about safety.
  • There is a good process in place by the working group.
    • It could be improved by making it explicit, e.g. request local community teams who place bids to host SotM to explain how they will keep SotM attendees safe.
  • Suggestion: Talk with the membership before making a proposal for a policy.

Points by Jean-Marc

  • Multidimensional problem and a compromise has to be made to find a suitable venue.
  • Issue of safety for LGBT people has a symbolic dimension, so it's worth putting it forward to show that we care and that safety is not negotiable.
  • Growing awareness about the issue.

Points by Eugene

  • Sympathy to Amanda's position but safety for LGBTQ+ is probably not the only thing we should be looking at (example given with hypothetical bid from a country where women are more restricted).
  • Adopt criteria/conditions to encompass other types of safety issues.

Points by Tobias

  • A hard condition might lead to make errors in both directions (e.g. in an area where homosexuality is legal, but there are threats to actual safety or where it is illegal, but there is no enforcement).
  • Question by Tobias to Mikel whether there is need to update the criteria for granting use of the OSM trademarks to local teams that organise regional SotM conferences.

Points by Guillaume

  • The board should not undermine the work of the working groups and do work that could be done by them, as it will demotivate volunteers and does not create good working atmosphere.

Points by Allan

  • Agreement with Guillaume, unless it's an existential issue to the community or to the project.
  • Suggestion to formulate policy -the criteria would be defined by the SotM-WG.

On granting the SotM trademark to regional OSM conferences
If a local community wants to use the SotM and OSM marks for a regional conference, the local organising team needs to apply for a trademark grant.

  • The application form for granting the SotM trademark to regional conference currently does not mention safety.
  • It would be good to add a question about safety on the trademark application form - not just about gay people but anybody.
  • Assessment will be looser than the international SotM.
  • There have been times that applications have been rejected.

Suggestions:

  • Include in the application form for granting the SotM trademark to regional conferences a question about safety and be more explicit about the criteria. (Mikel)
  • Establish a policy for the international SotM and SotM trademark grant applicants that the venue should not pose risks/hazards/perils or danger to certain groups [to be defined]. The SotM-WG to define the criteria. (Allan)'

Action item: Amanda to formulate a motion to be voted on the next board meeting that would establish such a policy where safety is ensured for everyone who wants to attend an OSM conference. How the policy will be implemented, will be decided by the SotM-WG.

Decision: The draft will be shared with the board for collaborative editing prior to the September public board meeting.

Budget formulation

Suggested by Allan Mustard.

  • 2nd year of the board not having adopted a budget.
  • Fundraising committees and budget committees and not yet organised, as said last year.
  • Annual General Meeting coming up (December 11)- it would be good to have that in place.

Requests by Allan:

  • Mikel and Guillaume asked to present plans for forming the respective committees (Mikel - fundraising, Guillaume - budget).
  • Guillaume asked to prepare the budget.

Fundraising committee

Mikel has spoken to people like Gunner (Allen Gunn, hired as facilitator of previous annual face-to-face board meetings).

Reasons for not formalisation of the fundraising committee yet

  • see the start of what we fundraised for (e.g. Senior Site Reliability Engineer position in place).
  • decisions on ways to report back on progress to the people who provided funds.
    • Comment by Allan: The points are not connected and we need the structure in place.

Budget committee

Agreement by the Treasurer on the need for a budget.

Suggestions:

  • Guillaume to look at the budget with Allan. (by Guillaume)
  • Update the budget breakdown, which is outdated, and link it to the membership and donation pages. (by Tobias)

Preparation for Annual General Meeting and election

Action item: Amanda to contact Michael Collinson and ask him if he wants to be again a volunteer facilitator for the questions to the candidates.

One special resolution so far to be voted by the OSMF members.

Action items

  • Tobias, Amanda and Eugene to help the Membership Working Group (MWG) to formulate the resolution regarding membership prerequisites.
  • Amanda to write up the investigation done so far.

HOT draft trademark agreement

Licensing Working Group (LWG) August action item was: "Guillaume to communicate back to the board the LWG question regarding the motivation/objectives of the agreement for OSMF.

LWG is confused as to what OSMF's goals are with this agreement.

Suggestion: they are open to a joint session between board and LWG.

Action item: Dorothea to create a poll. (Done - meeting scheduled for 2021-09-27)

Board Rules of Order update regarding circulars

Suggested by Tobias Knerr.

To be discussed at the public board meeting on 24th of September 2021.

Any other business

Map Uganda Local Chapter application

Jean-Marc was disconnected, so topic skipped.

Microgrants report

Reports of individual projects received by the microgrants committee. The committee wants to know the format the board prefers for the report (editable document or pdf).

  • The board is ok with any format.
  • Suggestion: 5' presentation at the next board meeting.

Action item: Amanda to invite the Microgrants committee to give a 5' presentation at the next board meeting.

Points to consider:

  • Was the program successful?
  • Did it accomplice its intent?

Filing of accounts at Companies House

Mentioned during the budget discussion.

Will be done by Michelle Heydon (accountant).

Next meeting

Public board meeting on Friday 24 September 2021, 14:00 UTC: Time in your timezone -- Countdown - Video room

Acronyms

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