Wikimedia Canada/Meetings/2008-04-09

Organization Meeting of Wikimedia Canada

Seventh Formal Formation Meeting

Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Time: 20:00 EDT (00:00 UTC)
Venue: Teamspeak on sp.acorndata.ca, password: wkmedcan

By text only, #wikimedia-ca on freenode (the meeting will primarily be on Teamspeak though the IRC channel will be used for those who can hear the teamspeak and not speak in it)
Who should attend: The Steering Committee and anyone interested in helping form Wikimedia Canada.

Agenda edit

Quickly go through Wikimania 2009 bid in case someone missed it.
Youth Representative as an adviser to the Board of Directors

Finalize the decision to have the entire membership body elect to the position
Decide on wording and placement in the bylaws

Membership fees

Discuss how initial members will be registered and how the first election will take place (will the Steering Committee continue to act as a board of directors until we have a real board of directors?

Finalize the bylaws (proposed bylaw amendments will be listed on the bylaw talk page)

Well over a dozen bylaw changes will have to be discussed, though some tweaking of these proposed changes will likely take place online beforehand, so that in the meeting itself we only have to approve the consensus version of changes.

Decide the next steps on submitting the bylaws

Possibly leave them for public review, submit to a lawyer, submit to the Chapters Committee, etc.

Minutes edit

In progress.

Attendance edit

Steering Committee Webmaster, Ayelie, was absent due to medical reasons. Steering Committee adviser, Andrew W, was absent due to unknown reasons.

Pre-meeting discussion edit

Alan expressed his concerns on Pathoschild's bold new page organization which affected the pain Wikimedia Canada page as well as many sub-pages.
The change was implemented without discussion.
Mitchell mentioned that Pathoschild was on the Wikimedia Canada IRC channel.
Alan started to speak with him on IRC.
Alan asked if any Steering Committee members were administrators on Meta-Wiki.
It was determined that none of the Steering Committee members had the rights.
Mitchell mentioned that he went for an RfA once but it failed. He said that he intends to request the rights again sometime.
Andrew L. said that he thinks that Mitchell should go for another RfA.
Alan said that it would be useful to have an administrator on the Steering Committee. He said that he is not interested in adminship on Meta-Wiki or the English Wikipedia.
Andrew L. said that he would be happy to request adminship on Meta-Wiki.
Discussion goes back to page organization.
Alan complimented what Ayelie had done with the page prior to Pathoschild changing it.
Alan recognized that what Pathoschild had done was in good faith.
Going back to adminship, Andrew L. continued thinking about going for Meta-Wiki adminship next week. He mentioned that he has less than 200 edits.
Mitchell's name was brought up again as he had a bit more Meta-Wiki experience. Alan and Andrew L. pushed him to go.
Andrew L. offered to nominate Mitchell.
Mitchell agreed if Andrew L. wanted to write a nomination.
Jeff was having some trouble getting on the Teamspeak server.
Alan explained that the server change was due to the owner of the old server getting kind of funny, so Alan started his own server which was hosted in Florida.

Communication edit

A forum for Wikimedia Canada was brought up. Alan, the Chair, said that he did not want to go into that subject at the time and pointed everybody to the agenda.
It was determined that Andrew L. added the point regarding Wikimania 2009 to the agenda.
Jeff joined us on Teamspeak.
Alan asked Jeff to register on the Teamspeak server.
Alan brought up Asterisk communication software which uses a phone.
Alan gave Jeff auto-voice status on Teamspeak.
Discussion moves briefly to the page organization discussed earlier.

Wikimania 2009 edit

Alan, the Chair, moves the discussion back on the agenda.
Andrew L. let everyone know that Buenos Aires won the right to host Wikimania 2009 with their bid beating Toronto (see Toronto's bid) among others.
Andrew L. said that Toronto was criticized for:

Presenting a lot of the same information as their 2008 bid and
Not making it clear whether they could still rent space from the University of Toronto.

Nobody understood why the information would need to from change year to year.
Alan mentioned that in the future, Wikimedia Canada could start its own conference to be held in Canada every year.
Alan also said that having Wikimedia Canada could help future bids for Wikimania.
Jeff said that the deadline for the 2010 bids would presumably be around this time next year, giving us loads of time to work on another bid.

By-laws - Youth Representative edit

Jeff said that he liked Mitchell's proposal.
Alan said that it did not need to say "may appoint or may elect" as the board could appoint them through election.
Mitchell reminded everyone that at the last meeting we discussed mentioning all by-law changes on the talk page.
Alan directed him to the by-laws talk page.
Alan asked Mitchell to add his proposal excluded "may appoint or may elect", to the by-laws page, unless there were any further objections.
Mitchell asked if it should be added to the Directors section.
Alan asked who merged the changes from the last meeting into by-laws page.
It was determined that it was Jeff.
Alan asked him if he could do the same for this meeting.
Mitchell asked what happened to our Legal Coordinator, Gerald.

Note: Gerald had not yet joined the meeting.

Alan said that Jeff seems to be showing initiative and we have been progressing fine without Gerald so far.
Jeff agreed to merge the changes for this meeting.
Jeff gave us an overview of the changes made at the last meeting.
Jeff mentioned that he added several proposed changes to the by-laws talk page which he would like discussed at this meeting.

By-laws - Membership fees edit

Alan, the Chair, directed everyone to the next point on the agenda - membership fees.
Alan said that he and Andrew L. have discussed this matter since the last meeting along with someone who Alan knew. They determined that $20 or $25 would be a reasonable amount.
Jeff said that with a membership fee like that, Wikimedia Canada would have a substantial member base whereas if the fee was around $50 the member base would only be the Board of Directors and a few others.
Mitchell asked if students/youth would be charged the same fee.
It was decided that with a low fee like this, another rate for students/the unemployed would not be needed.
Jeff and Mitchell agreed with the fee.
Alan mentioned that on the by-laws talk page he posted a link to the bylaws of the Hamilton Camera Club. He said that they recently received $70,000 from the Ontario Trillium Foundation.
- Andrew L. pointed out that according to Ontario Trillium Foundation, the organization must submit at least 2 most recent years financial statement so it will take at least 2 years before WMC can submit the request for grants.
Alan said that in their bylaws it says that the Board of Directors sets the membership fee each year.
Alan said that it may be good to look at what other successful organizations are doing.
Alan continues telling us about their bylaws in that:

The Board of Directors sets the membership dues each year,
Dues are payable at the beginning of each club year,
Members whose dues are three months in arrears will not be in good standing.

Alan said that in the Hamilton Camera Club, if you join in November and the renewal date is January 1, you would still have to renew then.
Alan asked if anybody had a problem with such a system.
Jeff said that he likes the system that we have now, though he does find it a bit silly that there would be different renewal dates depending on when in the year you join.

Participants' Sign-Up edit

Real name	Username	IRC/Teamspeak nickname	Location
Attending
Mitchell D. (Secretary)	Greeves	Mitchell	Winnipeg, MB
Jeff N. (Member at Large)	Arctic.gnome	Jeff	Kingston, ON
Alan Walker (Chairperson)	Alan.ca	Alan_Ca	Hamilton, ON
Andrew Leung (Vice Chair)	OhanaUnited	OhanaUnited	Richmond Hill, ON
Jesse Plamondon-Willard	Pathoschild	Pathoschild	Montreal, QC
Gerald	historybuff	historybuff	Toronto, ON
Possibly attending
Casey	Cbrown1023	kibble	Pennsylvania, US
Geoff Plourde	Geo.plrd	Geoff_Plourde	Northern California, US
Not attending, but interested

Previous meeting: March 20, 2008	WMC Seventh Formal Formation Meeting April 9, 2008	Next meeting: April 23, 2008