Working Group Minutes/SWG 2011-04-25

Attendance

IRC	Name	Present	Apologies
_chrisfl	Chris Fleming	y
Eugene	Eugene Usvitsky	y
toffehoff	Henk Hoff	y

Minutes (Draft)

• Reviewed mail for communication tom osmf-talk mailing list. Chris will get this out Monday evening.
• Chris will e-mail osm-talk.
• Henk will e-mail legal-talk for a laywer.
• Discussion on trying to find a lawyer and some of the practicalities on getting advice.
• Henk will talk to board about budget for legal assistance.
• Need to put a timetable together for changes. Currently aiming for AGM at SotM. We need to work back from here. Discuss with Strategic on Friday.
• Need to add text explaining what AoA is for to to wiki page. Henk, will draft this.

• Next meeting: 17:00 UTC Monday 2nd May 2010
• Start working through proposed changes.

IRC Log

toffehoff joined the chat room.
[18:00] toffehoff: Hi all, who is here for the AoA meeting?
[18:01] Eugene joined the chat room.
[18:01] toffehoff: Hi Eugene.
[18:01] _chrisfl: Hi
[18:01] toffehoff: Hi Chris
[18:02] • toffehoff is composing a mail for the osmf-talk mailinglist....
[18:02] Eugene: Hi Henk, hi Chris!
[18:02] _chrisfl: yes, I have a mail written 
[18:02] Eugene: I also wrote a mail to people from Blackadder's list 
[18:02] toffehoff: OK you have done already. Excellent, then I'm stopping my attempt...
[18:03] _chrisfl: I've just stuck a copy at: http://pastebin.com/euK2abnt
[18:03] _chrisfl: If that e-mail is okay, I'll put it on osmf-talk
[18:04] toffehoff: I would also put a link to the current AoA in it... http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Articles_of_Association
[18:04] Eugene: it looks quite nice
[18:05] _chrisfl: Will do.
[18:05] toffehoff: +1
[18:05] toffehoff: Who should they contact?
[18:05] _chrisfl: Probably easiest to contact me.
[18:05] _chrisfl: The web page also has details of this meeting.
[18:06] toffehoff: Would "get in touch" merely mean: "send me a reply"?
[18:07] _chrisfl: yes.
[18:07] toffehoff: Don't want to sound nitpicky, but the more detailed you are, the more likely you'll get a response.
[18:08] Eugene: +1
[18:08] _chrisfl: true. I'll make it clear for anyone to mail me.
[18:08] toffehoff: Mentioning that our meetings are on IRC and on Mondays would be a help to. With a link to our minutes to see what we've done so far.....
[18:09] _chrisfl: Yes - is it worth adding to the e-mail
[18:10] Eugene: Absolutely.
[18:10] toffehoff: Great. Anything more on the osmf-talk mail?
[18:11] toffehoff: Eugene, any response yet on the mail to Andy's list?
[18:11] Eugene: No 
[18:13] toffehoff: That was to be expected 
[18:13] toffehoff: A quick look at our minutes of last weeks meeting? http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2011-04-18
[18:13] _chrisfl: yes
[18:14] toffehoff: Looks fine to me.
[18:14] _chrisfl: Eugene?
[18:14] Eugene: For me too,
[18:15] Eugene: What's in our agenda today?
[18:15] _chrisfl: cool
[18:15] toffehoff: Excellent, and thanks to _chrisfl for making them.
[18:15] _chrisfl: I'll mark it as approved.
[18:16] toffehoff: We've already discussed the mail to osmf-talk.
[18:16] toffehoff: Anything else on outreach to osmf-membership and osm-community?
[18:17] _chrisfl: do we want to mail general talk list or just leave it too osmf members?
[18:17] toffehoff:  I'm a bit hesitant in having non-members in this sub-committee.
[18:18] _chrisfl: I agree.
[18:18] Eugene: +1
[18:18] toffehoff: However, notifying the general talkl=-list that we're working on it might be worth it.
[18:18] toffehoff: That is, without an invite to join.
[18:19] Eugene: Yes, that would be good for both parties.
[18:19] toffehoff: But, we could also leave that to the communication working group 
[18:19] _chrisfl: Cool I'll write an e-mail asking for feedback on talk.
[18:20] _chrisfl: I've been meaning to ask if you had managed to get anything into the sotm-eu schedule?
[18:20] toffehoff: Good question. Not yet. ....
[18:20] toffehoff: But have to check that with strategic and board as well.
[18:21] toffehoff: I don't think we can decide to do this by ourselves....
[18:21] _chrisfl: It's not exactly an exciting topic.
[18:22] toffehoff: At least not for the general audience of SotM
[18:22] _chrisfl: indeed.
[18:22] _chrisfl: We should work out a timetable.
[18:22] toffehoff: Yes, let's do that.
[18:22] _chrisfl: At the moment we are talking about voting the proposals in at the AGM?
[18:23] toffehoff: Right.
[18:23] toffehoff: Let's aim for that.
[18:23] _chrisfl: but we should consider an EGM to vote for these before them, especially if the AGM is going to be squeezed for time
[18:24] toffehoff: I also think it's going to be hard work to get this ready by September....
[18:24] toffehoff: .... this year ....
[18:24] _chrisfl: yes. But good to have a target.
[18:24] toffehoff:
[18:24] Eugene:
[18:24] _chrisfl: We could get some changes done this year and continue next year 
[18:24] toffehoff: What would we like to have arount Sotm-EU?
[18:25] _chrisfl: We'll you suggested that it could be used to discuss things.
[18:25] toffehoff: don't like the prospect ... changing legal documents is not something to do every year...
[18:25] _chrisfl: possibly get feedback.
[18:25] toffehoff: But being able to discuss things me may need to have a first draft...
[18:26] • _chrisfl used to be in an orgainsation that changed something every year
[18:26] _chrisfl: It makes for long AGM's
[18:26] toffehoff: LOL
[18:26] toffehoff: ... and exciting SotM's 
[18:27] toffehoff: SotM-eu is in July.
[18:27] toffehoff: It's almost May.
[18:27] _chrisfl: It's not far away.
[18:27] toffehoff: 11 weeks.
[18:28] _chrisfl: Yikes.
[18:28] toffehoff: Looks like our top priority at the moment is finding a good AoA laywer who can help us....
[18:29] toffehoff: Shall I also send out a request on legal-talk?
[18:29] toffehoff: for a lawyer that is?
[18:29] _chrisfl: think so.
[18:29] _chrisfl: I could try asking some people I know.
[18:30] toffehoff: having been in an organisation who did this for fun ...
[18:30] _chrisfl: We didn't always get things lawyered
[18:31] toffehoff: OK. I'll send a mail on legal-talk and will arrange some budget with board
[18:31] _chrisfl: cool
[18:31] _chrisfl: we definitly want to talk through things like membership.
[18:32] toffehoff: Talk through with ...
[18:32] _chrisfl: a lawyer
[18:32] toffehoff: ok, just checking you we're refering to SotM
[18:33] _chrisfl: it's more a general point rather than for the AGM
[18:33] _chrisfl: specifically
[18:34] toffehoff: Just in case: _chrisfl: were are you based?
[18:34] _chrisfl: I'm in Edinburgh
[18:34] toffehoff: OK, in case we could arrange a face-to-face with a lawyer ...
[18:34] _chrisfl: I can easily travel to London if I need to.
[18:35] Eugene: Happy people! 
[18:35] toffehoff: Eugene, I'm assuming you cannot travel to London / UK easily .....
[18:35] Eugene: unfortunately, you are right  I'll need a visa and approximately 24 hours to get there at least 
[18:36] _chrisfl:
[18:36] toffehoff: We'll arrange a conference call by then.....
[18:36] toffehoff: On skype or something ....
[18:37] toffehoff: Let's worry about that later....
[18:37] Eugene: It isn't necessary, I fully trust you in this case since you are living in the country and know its laws far better than me
[18:38] toffehoff: Edinburgh ... is that ....  Scotland ....
[18:38] _chrisfl: yes
[18:38] • toffehoff wiping of his sweaty forehead ....
[18:39] _chrisfl:
[18:39] Eugene:
[18:39] toffehoff: So, a Edinburgh based lawyer would not be an option?
[18:39] toffehoff: Scottish law, English law that kind of stuff....
[18:40] _chrisfl: it might be, we do have a different legal system in Scotland. But I don't think commerical law is that different in Scotland. For example companies act does apply in Scotland
[18:40] _chrisfl: although there are some specifics for Scotland.
[18:40] _chrisfl: Depends on the lawyer's experience.
[18:41] toffehoff: ok
[18:42] toffehoff: Back to the timeline....
[18:43] _chrisfl: yes.
[18:43] toffehoff: Before we put anything in front of the community we also need to have it checked by Strategic and board....
[18:43] _chrisfl: Agree.
[18:43] toffehoff: Giving us less time 
[18:44] _chrisfl: We should aim to have the changes published several weeks before the AGM.
[18:44] toffehoff: Right.   
[18:44] • toffehoff calculating time between both SotM's
[18:44] toffehoff: 8 weeks.
[18:45] _chrisfl: yes
[18:45] toffehoff: in which most people have their holidays planned ....
[18:45] _chrisfl: doh!
[18:46] toffehoff: This is definitely a tight schedule.....
[18:46] _chrisfl: We might be ambitious; but still worth aiming for?
[18:47] toffehoff: It'll al depend on if we make our first deadline ....
[18:47] _chrisfl: yes
[18:47] toffehoff: ... and it will be received with not much comments....
[18:48] toffehoff: Thinking about it.....
[18:48] _chrisfl: indeed. It's hard to know what will happen once changes are published, currently most people seem to be ambivalent
[18:48] toffehoff: Would it be good to have a little text explaining what the AoA is for and what not?
[18:49] _chrisfl: yes, we should add it too the wiki page.
[18:50] _chrisfl: I did include some of what we talked about last week.
[18:51] _chrisfl: or are you thinking about somewhere else?
[18:51] toffehoff: Ah, the link to the WP article also helps....
[18:52] toffehoff: I was thinking of having a short paragraph in the wiki explaining the AoA.
[18:52] toffehoff: ... to start with ....
[18:53] _chrisfl: sounds good.
[18:53] toffehoff: Currently, the doc dives into the details real quick.
[18:53] _chrisfl: yes. Still could do with more work. I've just been working on it piecemeal.
[18:54] Eugene: Yes, I agree that a few sentences with explanation would be good.
[18:54] toffehoff: It's getting near the hour....
[18:55] _chrisfl: who wants to add more of an introduction?
[18:55] toffehoff: Shall I try to make a first draft?
[18:55] _chrisfl: sounds good.
[18:55] toffehoff: Thought so 
[18:56] toffehoff: OK, our actions for the coming week:
[18:56] toffehoff: - Mail to osmf-talk
[18:56] _chrisfl: yes.
[18:57] toffehoff: - Mail to osm-talk (or are we going to leave that to Communication WG?)
[18:57] toffehoff: - Mail to legal-talk : call for a lawyer << me
[18:57] _chrisfl: I'm happy to send something osm-talk
[18:57] toffehoff: _chrisfl: ok
[18:58] Eugene: I would prefer us than CWG - we are knowing better what we are talking about.
[18:58] toffehoff: - general (urgent) task: finding a lawyer....
[18:58] toffehoff: - Writing an introduction for our wiki page << me
[18:59] toffehoff: - Asking for budget with board << me
[18:59] toffehoff: - Checking our goals / timeline with Strategic on Friday.
[19:00] toffehoff: - checking with Strategic and Board about participating in SotM-eu
[19:00] toffehoff: think that's it....
[19:00] toffehoff: Missing anything?
[19:00] Eugene: Quite a long list...
[19:00] _chrisfl: That's everything I've got.
[19:00] toffehoff: Looks like we have a productive meeting then 
[19:01] _chrisfl: We should start working through changes next week.
[19:01] _chrisfl: I've been minuteing at: http://www.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Working_Group_Minutes/SWG_2011-04-25
[19:01] toffehoff: Awesome!
[19:02] toffehoff: So, next week same time and place?
[19:02] _chrisfl: Sounds good to me.
[19:02] Eugene: Me too.
[19:02] toffehoff: Have a great week!
[19:03] _chrisfl: Great - speak next week.
[19:03] Eugene: Have a great week, too!
[19:03] _chrisfl: cool I'll log up to here then.