Board/Minutes/2024-07

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Date and time: Thursday 25 July, 13:30 UTC
 Minutes approved by the board on 2024-08-29.

Please note that the individual points mentioned below usually reflect the opinion of one or more board members and not necessarily of the whole board. Official board decisions are taken during the meetings or by voting using circulars, and votes are listed in the minutes.

Location: Video room https://osmvideo.cloud68.co/user/dor-2cd-qah-rim
using BigBlueButton.

The topics of the agenda get locked one week before the meeting.

Acronyms

Participants

  • Arnalie Vicario
  • Craig Allan
  • Guillaume Rischard
  • Mateusz Konieczny
  • Roland Olbricht
  • Sarah Hoffmann

Officers and board
Biographies
Minutes by Dorothea Kazazi.

Absent

  • Daniela Waltersdorfer

Guests

  • 12 guests, including Walter Mayeku (Presenter)

Open to all OSM Foundation members. (Become a member of the Foundation, even for free if you are an active OSM contributor)

You are welcome to ask questions or to comment (via voice or on the chat) at the end of the meeting.

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Administrative

Approval of previous minutes

Circular Resolutions

2024/Res29 Budget amendment: MWG and DWG volunteer engagement, MWG personnel

The board resolves to add three budget lines to the 2024 budget: 100 each for Data Working Group (DWG) and Membership Working Group (MWG) volunteer engagement; 4000 for personnel for MWG (CiviCRM consulting).

Unanimously approved on 2024-07-04 with 7 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Mateusz Konieczny, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann, Guillaume Rischard, Arnalie Vicario (Still waiting for MWG's response for exact amount and plan for CiviCRM consulting. We can amend the budget if it fall short. Sharing general scope of work/fix as shared by MWG for transparency: i) active contributor plugin ii) auto renewal iii) Update of php)

Circular by Guillaume Rischard.

Note by Dorothea: Here is the 2024 OSMF budget, as approved on 2024-02-29.

2024/Res30 Make Vector Tile contract delegation explicit

The board confirms that Adam Hoyle is declared the designated representative of the Company's Engineering Working Group. As such he is entitled to extend the ceiling of the contract with Paul [Norman] to any limit not higher than to 68 days (i.e. 68*7=476 hours).

Approved on 2024-07-221 with 5 votes in favour: Mateusz Konieczny, Arnalie Vicario, Sarah Hoffmann, Roland Olbricht, Craig Allan (My understanding is that a Yes vote confirms and eliminates any uncertainty that the Foundation delegates to Adam Hoyle all decisions on managing the funds allocated to Vector Tiles).
1 against: Guillaume Rischard (Requesting extension by a week. Some of the premises of the proposal don’t match up with what I have heard and discussed with Adam and Paul.)
1 did not vote: Daniela Waltersdorfer.

Circular by Roland Olbricht.

1 Note by Dorothea: The closing date was extended by Roland by one week, after request. Please see $7.4 of the Board rules of order.

2024/Res31 SotM-EU 2024 Microsoft sponsorship money transfer

Microsoft is sponsoring SotM-EU 2024 conference and funds will be transferred using OSMF as intermediary2.

This circular approves this, with 5% cut to cover various costs. Funds will be released immediately.

  • OSMF agrees to collect sponsorship for SotM-EU
  • 95% of funds will be released right now to OpenStreetMap Polska (when circular is approved) in trust that Microsoft will pay later, as they attempted already''

Unanimously approved on 26 July 2024 with 7 votes in favour: Craig Allan, Daniela Waltersdorfer, Mateusz Konieczny, Roland Olbricht, Sarah Hoffmann, Guillaume Rischard, Arnalie Vicario

Circular by Mateusz Konieczny.

2 Note by Dorothea: See Sponsorship distribution agreement for local SotM

Action item updates

Public board action items - About
Filter by assignee Arnalie Craig Dani Guillaume Mateusz Roland Sarah Not assigned
Filter by label Example: any label # labels here (non-clickable)

Reportage

Arnalie Vicario

#52 Encouraging participation of OSMF members

Related to action item: [Public #52] To touch base with the Membership Working Group and other Working Groups regarding how to encourage participation of OSMF members

This has been transformed to the Membership Drive campaign (plan, update on community.osm.org, post on blog.osm.org).

#70 To revitalise the Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee

Related to action item: [Public #70] To revitalise the Diversity and Inclusion Special Committee

Comment that finding volunteers for the Membership Working Group (MWG) has always been an issue.

Bug affecting CiviCRM, our membership database software

  • Software is under maintenance.
  • We need to notify affected members to take action, if they want to be eligible to vote in the October board election.
  • While finding these new members is easy, finding membership renewals which were affected by the bug is more difficult and might require writing a custom script.

Craig Allan

#127 Write something on the role of the main and second managers

Related to action item: [Public #127] Write something on the role of the main and second managers, the documentation, to be reviewed by a director of the HR company, and share it with the board

Working on it.

#121 Define a list of documents that new board members go through

Related to action item: [Public #121] Define a list of documents that new board members go through (e.g. communication guidelines)

This is becoming more important as the election comes closer.

#119 Find a solution on late time of board meetings and chats

Related to action item: [Public #119] Find a solution on late time of board meetings and chats

  • The current time is 06:30 for Craig and 21:30 for Arnalie, so it works well.
  • The time can be revised, as new board members join.

#9 Establish what we'd want an executive director to do/not do

Related to action item: [Public #9] Executive director - Establish what we'd want an executive director to do/not do

  • Craig did a lot of documents.
  • Waiting to finalise what we want the executive director to do and find the funds.

Mateusz Konieczny

Reporting site that use OSMF tiles without attributing OSM

See https://github.com/openstreetmap/tile-attribution.

Some activity on the block-list.

State of the Map Europe 2024

  • Helped SotM Europe 2024 organisers with:
    • Communications.
    • Pull request to ask for a banner on osm.org (Banner policy).
    • Facilitating the Microsoft sponsorship of the conference via OSMF.
  • Reached out to potential supporters.
  • Presented a talk about the Foundation and two talks related to OSM, but less related to OSMF.

Sarah Hoffmann

Sovereign Tech Fund

  • Sarah asked Andy about the status of the Sovereign Tech Fund application.
  • Microsoft is getting involved. The idea of having somebody managing/coordinating the project is more important than ever for the maintainers.
  • We have not received a direct response from the Sovereign Tech Fund.

OSMF registration in the EU

Related to action item: [Public #7] EU registration - Create a list of formal actions to do for the move

  • We have a long list of documents to collect. While it’s likely they are already available, finding them will require some effort.
  • Not possible to do this before Sarah's board term ends.

Comment that we're still waiting for answers from Lawdit, the UK lawyers, on the exact feasibility of the registering the OSMF in both administrations, rather than starting from scratch. Any future updates will come from the Licensing Working Group (LWG).

Secretary's report

Will follow up with a written report in a couple of days.

State of the Map Europe 2024

We have been dealing with Microsoft's sponsorship of SotM Europe 2024.

Companies adding data to OSM

Craig has been dealing with some companies' enquiries about adding data to OSM.

State of the Map 2024

Ongoing preparations for the State of the Map 2024 conference in Nairobi.

Treasurer's report

  • Thanks expressed to Harrison for providing the figures, and to the board and Finance meeting participants for their assistance.
  • Preparations for the upcoming conference and housekeeping have taken priority over other tasks.
  • We need to reach out to some Corporate Members, as income seems lower than expected.
  • One Corporate Member intended to send funds for a conference, but the Purchase Order description incorrectly referenced booking a seat on the Advisory Board (AB).
  • We are currently trying out a lot of things to actually be able to move around the six ticket budget that we have.

It was also noted that we plan to implement more digitalised tracking of Corporate Memberships, and Craig has been looking into CiviCRM.

Update on State of the Map Europe 2024

Topic presented by Mateusz Konieczny

The conferences organisers contacted us with the expectation of helping them and also promoting the conference.

Suggestions regarding help from the OSMF to regional SotMs

  • Provide clear documentation outlining the support the Foundation can offer, organisers' responsibilities, and include deadlines.
  • Clarify that the Communication Working Group consists of volunteers who can help when provided with prepared materials. Also, note that if capacity is limited, the conference may not be advertised.
  • Create templates for announcements and reference previous materials.

Other suggestions

  • Liked the additional activities, such as the organised walk across city. It would be great to have more events like this.

Other points mentioned during discussion

  • The conference was well-prepared, with interesting talks. Attendance was lower than last year, and had the opportunity to speak with many attendees.
  • Organisers may be promoted with a banner on osm.org, under specific conditions.
  • The requests made were reasonable; however, the issue was the timing, as the Foundation was asked for a loan just a day before the conference.

Presentation by OSM Kenya

10 minute presentation by Walter Mayeku. 5 minutes questions and comments.

Question on internet connectivity issues

Question by Roland Olbricht (Board) on whether it is possible to get people online or whether connectivity or the internet price is an issue.

  • Have tried online and on-ground training webinars and mapathons. The quality of data generated from on-ground mapathons is slightly better.
  • Although there is a slight preference for in-person mapathons, we continue to train people through webinars.

Question on non-profit status of OSM Kenya

Question by Arnalie Vicarion (Board) on whether OSM Kenya, which is registered as a society, is a non profit.

> Yes, we registered OSM Kenya as a non-profit association. For profit-making entities, registration is done as an organisation or company.

Suggestion by Arnalie for OSM Kenya to apply as a Local Chapter, after SotM 2024.

Question on the number of people who have participated in OSM Kenya activities

Question by Guillaume Rischard (Board) on the number of people who have participated in OSM Kenya activities, as having 20 leaders (not members), was mentioned.

> We have around 150-200 members. > For physical mapathons we usually have a good turn-out (up to 100). Most of them are done collaboratively, e.g. with HOT. > Truffi: it's very hard to involve most of OSM Kenya members. That's why we have a bigger leadership, so we can have more influence and we can get more human resources for the projects. > We make sure we have proper bottom-up communication, so that everyone knows, and we share all opportunities that are coming with it.

Question on how can OSMF help

Question by Guillaume Rischard (Board) on how can OSMF help.

> There was an event here in Nairobi sponsored by Bill and Melinda Gates. And it was nice to see all these people talking about OSM and how it impacting communities. It would be nice to increase the number of students and local community members in Nairobi that will be participating in SotM2024, to see how the data that we are collecting in their communities is making a difference in the world.
> Thank you for the opportunity to host the SotM 2024 conference and the support we received so far.

Any other business

Draft email to the DWG

Mateusz Konieczny (Board) asked whether Roland Olbricht (Board) had time to look at the draft email to the Data Working Group (DWG).

We would like to maintain contact with the DWG to ensure we have all necessary resources in case of any vandalism.

> Not yet.
> It's best to coordinate on the wording afterwards, as discussing the details here might be strange.

Guest comments or questions

Thanks to the SotM Working Group

Thanks were expressed to the State of the Map organising committee by Denis Kasozi for his SotM 2024 travel grant.

Next meetings

All Board meetings for 2024 have been planned. See the Monthly Board meetings page to find out where board meetings are announced and for a subscription link to have future board meetings automatically added to your calendar.

Open board meeting: 29 August 2024

Open board meetings take place online monthly: currently on the last Thursday of every month.

Dates: See this Framagenda calendar (green dots), and the monthly board meetings page. The dates of public board meetings are also added to https://osmcal.org/.

Next public meeting: Thursday 29 August 2024, at 13:30 UTC.

Mid-month board chat: 15 August 2024

Next mid-month board chat (not open to observers): 15 August at 13:30 UTC.

Dates: See this Framagenda calendar (yellow dots), and the monthly board meetings page.

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