Board/Minutes/2017-09-21

Location: Mumble, Thursday 2017-09-21, 21:00 London time

Participants

Board members

Kate Chapman
Peter Barth
Mikel Maron
Paul Norman
Frederik Ramm
Ilya Zverev
Martijn van Exel

Guests

Melanie Eckle (HOT Board of Directors)
Pete Masters (HOT Board of Directors)

Open to all OSMF members.

Guests are welcome to speak at the end of the meeting on the topics that have been discussed. Please note that text messages sent on Mumble chat may not be seen by people who join using mobile apps.

Not Present

All board members were present.

Administrative

Previous minutes

Board/Minutes/2017-08-24 Accepted

Circular Resolutions

None

Previous action items

The board reviewed the action items' list at the end of the meeting. Not all items were reviewed, due to time constraints. Some action items were merged and the list has been reordered, according to person and date. The list is sortable and items that were assigned to two persons appear twice.

Name	Date	Action item and status
Frederik	2017-08-24	~~to follow up with Martijn regarding the German Local Chapter application~~ # Done
Frederik/Paul	2016-05-28	to prepare transparency document from transparency session
Ilya	2016-08-19	to look at implementing means for members to view the membership register # Got key from Tom for accessing the server. Administrative work done, programming not yet.
Kate	2017-08-24	to write to the Advisory Board list about microgrants
Kate	2017-08-24	to contact Michael about closing inactive mailing lists that she is an admin of
Kate/Martijn	2016-05-28	to draft diversity policy # No progress to report. Low priority.
Martijn	2017-07-18	to look at the process of regular reporting by the Local Chapters to the board and vice versa.
Martijn	2017-06-20	~~to draft message to HOT board about having a seat on the Advisory Board upfront & ask if the current Corporate Membership levels are ok or if they want a discount~~ # Message arranging a meeting sent.
Martijn	2016-09-25	~~to notify board when US has done policy on smaller grants~~ # Done
Martijn	2016-05-28	~~to find someone to work with to distil action items and next steps for diversity objectives~~ # Merged with the other diversity action item.
Martijn/Kate	2016-05-28	to draft diversity policy # No progress to report. Low priority.
Mikel	2017-08-24	to send email on the list to find businesses who would like to offer input on the Welcome Mat
Mikel	2016-08-19	to send round bullet points on diversity policy proposal
Paul	2017-02-21	to separate the State of the Map (SotM) net profit discussion items and start the follow-up discussions
Paul	2016-10-28	to create a page on the wiki, listing software products which are used by OSMF and aren't open-source # Was: Peter's
Paul/Frederik	2016-05-28	to prepare transparency document from transparency session
Peter	2017-04-18	to make a list of requirements for email self-hosting and discuss them with the OWG

Travel policy update

Discussion about updating the current travel policy and possibly having a yearly standing budget for small travel grants, available to mappers and developers who would like to attend an OpenStreetMap event. It has been proposed that the process should be standardised, the budget limited and the amounts claimed -as well as the name of the persons- public. The updated travel policy would not be for events where there are already scholarships available, like State of the Map, but rather for smaller events like hack weekends or developer meetings, or occasions when someone involved in OSM backend coding would like to receive funding to attend (for example) a Ruby conference. Updating the travel policy was initially proposed during the Face-to-Face board meeting in May, where it was also discussed whether the policy should cover board members' travel to regional State of the Map (SotM) conferences that have requested board presence - or whether giving the money directly to regional SotMs might be preferable. The current travel policy automatically covers board members' travel to the international State of the Map conference and essential OSM Foundation duty - everything else needs to be discussed.
Lead: Martijn

A draft of an updated travel policy, allowing people to submit proposals to travel to OSM-related events where they would have a significant presence, has been shared with the board for review.

Suggestions during discussion:

Cover travel to nearby events, not intercontinental.
Have a maximum amount of money allocated per year, to ease budgeting.
Accompany policy with an internal guideline document, outlining the process once a request has been received.

Public reporting
Requirements in the current draft include submitting a report and writing a blog post, amongst others. Concern was expressed whether this would be suitable for non English-speaking people.

Travel grants and microgrants
The travel grant policy might be extended to cover microgrants, as there are many commonalities between them. It was noted that it might be preferable to have separate budgets for travel grants and microgrants, otherwise the different type of requests would compete for resources from the same budget.

Decision: Allow a couple of weeks for board comments and then share draft with the membership.

Welcome Mat progress

The Welcome Mat will be a guide to organisations and corporations that want to be involved with OpenStreetMap. It will have information to familiarise themselves with the project, the community and especially to learn our expectations and their responsibilities. Previous discussions: August 2017, July 2017. The Welcome Mat was proposed during the Face-to-Face board meeting in May. Please note that the name might change.
Lead: Mikel

Key feedback received was to avoid making a separate site, but to expand http://www.openstreetmap.org/about
It could be a place not only to provide relevant information to large entities, but giving a clear picture to everybody.
We should make people aware that there is valuable content there - perhaps by renaming the link to "About OSM".

Membership Drive progress

Members are vital to our project and we welcome all who support our goals to join us. We will run a Membership drive to increase the number of members and -as importantly- to try to increase the representation from all places where people are mapping. Consider joining the Foundation, especially if you belong to an under-represented group. The following suggestions, received via email, might also be discussed: Auto-renew as an option for OSMF membership. Automatic inclusion of 12 months OSMF membership (or membership extension) in SotM event registration. Banner at www.osm.org, linking to page that clearly explains OSMF. Previous discussion: August 2017 The Membership Drive was proposed during the Face-to-Face board meeting in May and will be done together with the MWG and the CWG.
Lead: Mikel

Email with draft launch post and action plan sent to: board, Membership Working Group and Communication WG.

Plan:

Launch blog-post (launched)
Mention on WeeklyOSM
Get banner up
Mail to global and local mailing lists
Possible mail to inactive members
Possible promotion at events

Membership fee waiver policy

This is being written by the Membership Working Group (osmf-talk thread).
Implementation of the policy needs a board vote.
We could announce that the policy will be available soon.

Action item: Kate will announce the Membership Drive during her remote keynote at SotM-Asia 2017.

HOT and OSMF

Discussion about ways to strengthen the relationship between the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and OSMF. Suggestions: Inviting HOT to the Advisory Board upfront, formalising our relationship and assuming that it will eventually lead HOT to become a Corporate Member or a thematic Chapter, which would get a seat on the AB anyway. HOT working with the OSMF Communication Working Group on materials to enable mapathon organisers to better tell the OSM story during events. Better communication channels (both social media and board to board communications). Members of the HOT board (Melanie Eckle and Pete Masters) were invited and present at the meeting. Previous discussion: June 2017

Suggestions from HOT:

Work with the Communication Working Group on materials to enable mapathon organisers to better tell the OSM story during events.
Contribute to the Welcome Mat.
Overlap in local communities (particularly Bangladesh and Colombia).
SotM and HOT summit can share resources if location is the same.
OSM represented at HOT advisory board.

Points mentioned during board discussion:

Regarding the Advisory Board

The OSMF board can put anyone on the Advisory Board - it hasn't exercised that power yet.
HOT could become a thematic chapter or a Corporate Member.

About HOT becoming a thematic chapter

If HOT became a thematic (humanitarian) chapter, it might convey exclusivity and we wouldn't want to exclude groups doing similar work (please see "Any other humanitarian NGOs involved with OSM?" below).
That would not mean that all humanitarian work at a local level would have to go through HOT.
Biggest advantage of being a chapter: the ability to talk to governments officially.
HOT cannot become a thematic chapter at the moment, as it does not have open membership.

Any other humanitarian non-governmental organisations involved with OSM?

Espace OSM Francophone (EOF).
NGOs involved with Missing Maps and within there are other H2H (humanitarian to humanitarian) ones.
- CartoNG does not do humanitarian work but it provides GIS and information management support.

About HOT becoming a Corporate Member

Corporate Membership is available to non-profits as well.
Corporate membership would be easier for HOT than becoming a thematic Local Chapter.
No blocker to HOT becoming a Corporate Member right now.

Decision: The OSMF board and the HOT board will work to build a relationship through collaboration and will see if a more formal affiliation is needed as well.

Written conflict of interest policy

Proposal to have a written conflict of interest policy. Regarding conflict of interest situations, we currently have a board rule of order which dictates that "when a board member would be influenced by a conflict of interest with respect to a decision, they will recuse themselves from voting".
Lead: Frederik

Legal situation in the United Kingdom is quite strict about conflict of interest: A useful test is to regard an “interest” as a very broad term that includes anything or any connection which could potentially divert a director’s mind from giving sole consideration to promoting the company’s success.

Not declaring such an conflict of interest is a crime in the UK, even if nothing bad happened to the organisation.

US:
As a board member of a non-profit organisation you have to declare that you have a conflict of interest. Other board members then decide if it's an actual conflict of interest - you don't recurse yourself necessarily.

UK:
There is the concept of the board members dispensing someone for a conflict of interest, but it's only possible if it's either enshrined in the Articles of Association (AoA) or if the membership has granted the board these powers. We would have to go for an AOA change or ask members for a vote allowing the board to do that.

Action item: Paul/Kate to write to F. Davies and see if he's still available to offer legal advice regarding conflicts of interest.

Open source policy updates/issues

Updates/issues related to our Free and Open Source Software Policy, which was devised to guide, but not mandate, software choices for work within the OpenStreetMap Foundation Board, Working Groups, and other OSMF bodies.
Lead: Paul

We have to review any non open-source software we're using every two years.
We had the policy for about one year.
There's no software inventory yet.

Action item: Paul to identify closed-source software products and/or externally hosted services that the board uses and then send email to the Working Groups to identify what they are using

Any other business

Local Chapter applications

Two ongoing Local Chapter applications: Belgium and Germany.
Status: currently reviewing documents.

Accountant duties

There is a person who might potentially take over from our current accountant, Vivien, who will retire at the end of the year. Vivien (our current accountant) will meet and give them a deeper insight on what needs to be done. If the person is suitable, Frederik will bring this matter to the board for confirmation.

Next meeting

The next monthly board meeting has been rescheduled, as several board members attended SotM-US 2017.

It will now be on the 26th of October, at 19:00 London time

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