PPI GA DEC 2022 1 Day1

The official minutes for the PPI General Assembly of January 8th 2022

---08.01.2022 10:00 UTC ---

• Mumble: mumble.ppi.rocks
• Audio recording: PiratesOnAir Streaming, recording

https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/7WLNA9GbPyg9CeX

Video: https://www.youtube.com/user/PiratePartiesInt https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/

https://youtu.be/9MGj5aCVI4w

• Online Discourse link: https://ga.pp-international.net/c/ga-jan-2022/26

• Minutes of the last GA: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_GA_JUL_2021

• According to the Rules of Procedures Art 8. point 4 the Minutes of the last GA are accepted, as no objections had been voiced during the four weeks following the publication of the minutes.

1 - ATTENDEES

1.1 - Ordinary Members of PPI

• Members of PPI

Pirate Party of Austria - present (Roland)
Pirate Party of Belarus - not present
Pirate Party of Belgium - not present
Pirate Party of Brazil - not present
Pirate Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina - not present
Pirate Party of Bulgaria - not present
Pirate Party of Catalonia 1/2Vote - present (Dario)
Pirate Party of Chile - present (Mauricio Vargas)
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - present (Raman Ojha, Veronika Murzynová, Michal Gill)
Pirate Party of Estonia - not present 
Pirate Party of France - not present
Pirate Party of Germany - present (Gregory Engels, Corinna Mira, Alios, Alex Kohler)
Pirate Party of Greece - not present
Pirate Party of Hungary - present (Mariana Csinger)
Pirate Party of Italy - not present
Pirate Party of Israel - Present (Keith Goldstein)
Pirate Party of Japan - not present
Pirate Party of Kazakhstan - not present
Pirate Party of Korea - not present
Pirate Party of Latvia - not present
Pirate Party of Luxembourg - not present
Pirate Party of Morocco - not present
Pirate Party of the Netherlands - present (Joeri Evers)
Pirate Party of New Zealand 1/2Vote - not present
Internet Party of New Zealand 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Norway - present (Svein Mork Dahl, Linda Torklep)
Pirate Party of Poland - not present
Pirate Party of Portugal - not present
Pirate Party of Romania - not present
Pirate Party of Russia - present (Alexander Isavnin)
Pirate Party of Slovakia (old) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party - Slovakia (new) 1/2Vote - present (Rudolf Molnar)
Pirate Party of Slovenia - not present
Pirate Party of Spain 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Switzerland - present (Carlos Polo)
Pirate Party of Tunisia - not present
Pirate Party of Turkey (old) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Turkey (new) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Ukraine - present (Sergiy Yarigin)
Pirate Party of Venezuela - not present

Total Voting Power of the GA is 12,0 (out of 36). Power needed for establishing the quorum is 12.

We have 13 parties present at the roll call that took place at 10:20 UTC.

1.2 - Observer Members

Internet Party of Serbia (POKRET NAPRED)
Pirates without Borders
Pirate Lobby, France
Pirate Party of Berlin (Piratenpartei Berlin)
Pirate Party of Bavaria
Pirate Party of Hesse
Pirate Party of La Rioja (Spain)
Pirate Party of Lower Saxony
Pirate Party of New York
Pirate Party of North Rhine-Westfalia
Pirate Party Potsdam
europe beyond division e.V. Formerly: Young Pirates of Germany
Young Pirates Sweden (Ung Pirat)
Pirate Party of Japan [1]
Brandenburg
Pirati
Pirate Party of Finland
European Pirate Party

1.3 - Guests Participating

Pirate Party Australia (Jay, Miles, David)

1.4 - Proceedings

RoP: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=Rules_of_procedure

Ga opened at 10:35 UTC by Bailey Lamon

Meeting chaired by Bailey Lamon

Secretary for this meeting is Mike Gill (with the support of Keith Goldstein)

Voting Power of the GA is 12,0 (out of 36). Amount needed for establishing the quorum is 12.

Streaming started: https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/Recording and [1]

Proposed Agenda (1-day version; we might or might not spill over into Sunday Jan 9th)

• Saturday, January 8th (all times in UTC)

09:00: Delegates accreditation
10:00: Opening of the General Assembly
10:15: Formalities–Meeting chair, secretary, acceptance of agenda
10:30: Acceptance of new members - Application of Pirate Party of Serbia
11:00: Reports–Board, Treasurer, CoA, Lay Auditors
11:45: Break
12:00: Budget proposal
12:30: Elections of PPI officers
13:00: Lunch
14:00: continue with elections of PPI officers
16:00: Motions
18:00: End of day 1

If we won't manage to wrap things up on Saturday, we shall continue on Sunday.

• Are there any objections or suggested amendments to the agenda?

No one objects to the agenda.

Acceptance of new members

• Serbia

Bailey: We have Dalibor here from the Serbian Party here. You have the word.

Dalibor: I'm currently the representative of the Serbian PP. We planned to join the PPI since 2018 but we had an arrangement with the local Greens. The election in Belgrade was really tough for us and we got about 4000 votes. So we then chose to wait, talk to someone of other Pirate Parties. This year we want to run again in the Belgrade election. We therefore decided to start a new Serbian Pirate Party. After the Belgrade election we plan to participate in other municipal elections in 2023. There is definitely space for a new party of the PP style.

Mike: Could you explain a bit about your coopoeration with the Serbian Greens.

Dalibor: After 2018 there were two Green parties. Because we were inactive 3 years ago, the citizen movement joined the European Greens. They're also our colleagues and they are really engaged. In this election they'll push the Green agenda. Our team from 2018 was also for the green agenda and had some proposals for the city. Our agendas are close.

Veronika: I would suggest you change "judicial independence from the STATE" to "GOVERNMENT"

Dalibor: Yes, we'll change that now.

Gregory: Can you say how many people are currently involved in your party and what does your financial situation look like?

Dalibor: Our core membership oscilates between 15 to 30 people and all these people are involved in some kind of initiative. Finances only rely on self-donations for now. We will try to establish membership fees. We already have an office in Belgrade and we have web and social network. Our website should go online within 10 days. We're all set.

https://nextcloud.ppi.rocks/s/mXcWFG3QApi2qMY

Application: https://nextcloud.ppi.rocks/s/SH3KHjwXcfzSkTB

Statutes:https://nextcloud.ppi.rocks/s/3eay4dLFdgW8oTs

Both (alternative link): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pCyNEO1o1nYF4PFXBvfbMiN543RcWBv0?usp=sharing

Pirate Party of Austria - yes Pirate Party of Catalonia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Chile - yes Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes Pirate Party of Germany - yes Pirate Party of Hungary - yes Pirate Party of Israel - yes Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes Pirate Party of Norway - yes Pirate Party of Russia - yes Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Switzerland - yes Pirate Party of Ukraine - yes

Motion
Acceptance of the Pirate Party Serbia to the PPI
Do we accept PP Serbia to the PPI?
Yes : 12
No : 0
Abstain : 0
Result: Pirate Party Serbia is accepted to the PPI

• After the acceptance of Serbia, the voting power raises to 13 and the quorum to 12.33 (37 voting power by 41 member parties)

Board

The Board report is being delivered by Bailey Lamon, the PPI chair:

During 2021, the PPI Board made an effort to continue and build on the activities of the previous year where we saw increased participation from our members and more community-building in general. This includes the organizing of meetings of the standing committees, as well as participation in conferences, social events and campaigns related to causes that matter to us.

The main goal of the standing committees is to bring people together to share information and collaborate. Discussions often centre around best practices. Sometimes these meetings will result in an actual project or service that we recognize the need for (ex. graphics vault, "PPI Clinics"). Each standing committee has a specific focus and all meetings are open to everyone in the Pirate world. The PPI Standing Committees are as follows:

• SCENE: Media & PR

Campaigning During Covid-19' discussions in February and again in August.

We formed a social media team earlier in the year to try to keep PPI social media pages up to date

We do our best to signal boost everybody and support their activities and campaigns. Please always feel free to send us things you want shared.

Pirate Times!

• SCUBA: UN/ECOSOC & Conferences

PPI has special consultative status with ECOSOC and our members often participate in UN Conferences as well as providing written and oral statements. However due to the pandemic there were no grounds passes this year. We also submitted our first quadrennial report.

PPI had a booth at the Internet Governance Forum this year and our Vice-Chair held a lightning talk about the European Citizens Initiative to legalize file-sharing in Europe

PPI submitted a statement for the Ad Hoc Committee to Elaborate a Comprehensive International Convention on Countering the Use of Information and Communications Technologies for Criminal Purposes, 17-28 January 2022. We indicated our interest to participate in policy making that will reduce surveillance and other digital crimes, while empowering individuals with digital tools.

UIA Conference in Prague participation

• SCULL: Internal Party Processes

We held a meeting to discuss systems for managing membership data earlier in the year.

PPI Clinics: We have a lot of technical support to offer in terms of the necessities of running a party. Our tech team is able to help with things such as mail servers, websites, etc. A PPI Clinic is when we meet with a party to discuss where they're at and what we can do to support them, whether they are just getting started or revamping things. We have had a few of these meetings over the past couple of years.

• SCURVY: Finances

Meeting topics this year included crypto funds, membership due collections, and the DAO governance tool proposed at the last GA

PPI Webshop: We hoped to launch one this year but that did not happen. It is still something we want to do and hopefully we can accomplish it this year.

• Joint PPI-PPEU Working Group

We have had a couple of joint PPI-PPEU board meetings. There is an ongoing discussion around figuring out how to collaborate and support each other more.

PPEU became an observer member of PPI this year.

• Other things:

• Pirate Summer Camp

This is a yearly two-week event taking place in Piotrowice Nyskie, Poland, co-organised by PPI and the Foundation 42 (Political foundation of the Pirate Party of Germany). The next one taking place this August 7th to 21st. Everything between rafting and PPI manifesto drafting is possible there.

Plug by Gregory: It's a palace in Poland by the Czech border, with massive park, it's meant to be a place for family vacation; even during the past two years we were able to conduct the Pirate Summer. We now also extended it to two weeks. It's always fun, ranging from rafting to PPI manifesto, to fine particle detector building, to excursions. This years we start on August 7th. In the middle there will also be a rugby festival on a weekend in the middle. It's not very expensive and even if you have financial problems, we can tolk about it and find a solution.

• Monthly Socials

Informal hangouts take place once per month with no agenda for people to get to know each other and have fun.

Events include evening drinks (alcohol not required, obviously), breakfast, cookouts, etc.

Sometimes the socials occur more frequently, as the one yesterday or last weekend during the new year's eve.

• Board Routine

The PPI Board meets every 3 weeks, currently Wednesdays at 15:00 UTC on BigBlueButton

Meetings are open to everyone

• PPI GAs

The last General Assembly took place in July 2021

We've tried to keep with 2 GA's per year/term

• Plans for 2022:

The Think Twice 4 conference is finally going ahead. It will take place as a hybrid event, with the physical part happening in Prague, Czech Rep., where it was supposed to happen 2 years ago, at the exact time the pandemic struck for the first time. April 23-24 2022.

Treasurer

• Financial report delivered by the treasurer Sebastian Krone:

The PPI Board of Directors appoints the Treasurer from among its members. Due to the uncertain situaon, I stepped in on October 20,

2020 and the Board elected me as Treasurer.

Since then, I have been preparing the finances. Since Oct. 30, 2020, I have been transferring account balances and posngs to our wiki.

Nothing had happened here since the end of 2018.

We have access to our bank account. On 12/31/2021 we had an account balance of 7,500.32 CHF = (7,218.16 EUR). We opened an

account in EUR because most payments are made in EUR.

I solved the problem with our old PayPal account, which we kept until now, and transferred the amount to our new PayPal account, which

can handle mulple currencies.

On the PayPal account are currently the equivalent of 866.78 EUR and 108.74 EUR.

All accounts are listed on the PPI wiki.

There is also a bitcoin account ("Kraken") that has been reacvated, Keith kindly took it over.

The account balance was the equivalent of 600.58 EUR a short me ago.

I also tried to allocate the membership fees of the members. There was a lot of confusion to called as chaos.

As you can see in the Wiki, the puzzle is solved. This was a lot of work.

Every member with a valid email address got a personal print out of its contribuon account to verify it. I got some feedback, but not at all.

As careful merchants, we can only count on income that is reasonably secure.

Therefore, I have drawn up a budget, which the PPI can fulfil, that you can vote on it.

I have tried to contact the lay auditors with my quarterly report, but I got no reply.

I would be pleased if the new Board would again give me the necessary confidence as treasurer for 2022.

• Documents:

The report: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/Pm3pcEYE624gDcY

Budget: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/yFddekw7BNyTAm9

Bookkeeping: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/WPgexfFzQn89fjL

Raman Ojha: I'd like to ask what other sources of income does PPI have?

Bastian: /I didn't really get the answer/

Alexander Isavnin: I can't see all the small Russian donations in the wiki.

Bastian: Every information from all sources I have is in the wiki. If you have any question about something missing, please, write me and we shall solve it.

Court of Arbitration

• Special Announcement from the CoA

Marco: I'm not here with the official report. But we made a decision and decided to remove membership of some parties and demote some parties to observer status:

The Court of Arbitration decided that the following parties are not to be considered members of PPI anymore: Pirate Party of Bulgaria Pirate Party of Kazakhstan Pirate Party of Morocco Pirate Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina (no activity) Pirate Party of Korea (no activity)

The following parties appear to be less active, and the Court's decision is that they are to be demoted to observer members.

Pirate Center of Belarus Pirate Party of Japan Pirate Party of Slovenia Pirate Party of Spain Pirate Party of Romania Pirate Party of Latvia

Alex: How does this change affect our quorum?

Marco: Yes, it lowers the quorum for sure.

Mike: I'd like to ask for a short break soon so we can recalculate the current voting power and quorum.

Rudolf: Hi Mike and everyone. Now we are the only officially registered pirate movement in Slovakia.

The former Slovakian pirate party has been abolished because it was against slovakian law to have a civic association that is in fact a political party. The Slovak Pirate Party Association was abolished by a decision of the Ministry of the Interior of the Slovak Republic on 23.06.2021. I do not want to analyze the relations of pirate movements in Slovakia, but we have democracy here and citizens have no problem associating officially. The Ministry of the Interior has officially warned the Slovak Pirate Party 3 times that they will be abolished. As they did not react, the ministry officially canceled them.

Bailey: Yes, this should be brought to the CoA.

Lay Auditors

no lay auditor report

Roll Call After a Break and New Membership Numbers

Present: Pirate Party of Austria Pirate Party of Catalonia Pirate Party of Chile Pirate Party of the Czech Republic Pirate Party of Germany Pirate Party of Hungary Pirate Party of Israel Pirate Party of the Netherlands Pirate Party of Norway Pirate Party of Russia Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote Pirate Party of Switzerland Pirate Party of Ukraine (vote delegated to Germany)

Crossed-out in the following list are the removed parties and below the list of members is the list of parties demoted to observer status. Catalonia also has a full vote from now on due to Spain being demoted.

Pirate Party of Austria - present (Roland)
Pirate Party of Belgium - not present
Pirate Party of Brazil - not present

Pirate Party of Bosnia and Herzegovina - not present Pirate Party of Bulgaria - not present

Pirate Party of Catalonia - present (Dario)
Pirate Party of Chile - present (Mauricio Vargas)
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - present (Raman Ojha, Veronika Murzynová, Michal Gill)
Pirate Party of Estonia - not present 
Pirate Party of France - not present
Pirate Party of Germany - present (Gregory Engels, Corinna Mira, Alios, Alex Kohler)
Pirate Party of Greece - not present
Pirate Party of Hungary - present (Mariana Csinger)
Pirate Party of Italy - not present
Pirate Party of Israel - Present (Keith Goldstein)

Pirate Party of Kazakhstan - not present Pirate Party of Korea - not present

Pirate Party of Luxembourg - not present

Pirate Party of Morocco - not present

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - present (Joeri Evers)
Pirate Party of New Zealand 1/2Vote - not present
Internet Party of New Zealand 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Norway - present (Svein Mork Dahl, Linda Torklep)
Pirate Party of Poland - not present
Pirate Party of Portugal - not present
Pirate Party of Russia - present (Alexander Isavnin)
Pirate Party of Slovakia (old) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party - Slovakia (new) 1/2Vote - present (Rudolf Molnar)
Pirate Party of Switzerland - present (Carlos Polo)
Pirate Party of Tunisia - not present
Pirate Party of Turkey (old) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Turkey (new) 1/2Vote - not present
Pirate Party of Ukraine - present (Sergiy Yarigin)
Pirate Party of Venezuela - not present

• Parties newly demoted to observer membership:

Pirate Party of Belarus - not present

Pirate Party of Japan - not present

Pirate Party of Slovenia - not present

Pirate Party of Spain - not present

Pirate Party of Romania - not present

Pirate Party of Latvia - not present

The total voting power is now 26 out of the total of 29 member parties (we have three split votes - Turkey, Slovakia and New Zealand)

Hence the quorum now is 8,66 and the voting power present (due to Catalonia now holding a full vote) raised to 12,5.

Budget Proposal

Bastian is presenting the badget linked below. Also, all are invited to make individual donations to help us.

Budget: https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/yFddekw7BNyTAm9

• Vote on the budget:

Pirate Party of Austria - yes Pirate Party of Catalonia - yes Pirate Party of Chile-yes Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - yes Pirate Party of Germany - yes Pirate Party of Hungary-yes Pirate Party of Israel-yes Pirate Party of the Netherlands - yes Pirate Party of Norway - yes Pirate Party of Russia - yes Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - yes Pirate Party of Switzerland - not voting Pirate Party of Ukraine - yes

Motion
Budget for 2022
Do we approve the budget for 2022 as presented
Yes : 11,5
No : 0
Abstain : 0
Result: 11,5 for; budget approved

Elections of PPI officers

Vice-chair

• We shall elect 1 PPI vice-chair

• Candidates:

Gregory Engels (PPDE) Mauricio Vargas (PPCL)

Gregory (PPDE): originally from Soviet Unions's Russia; now living in germany, being an intl. coordinator for Germany, have been on board opf the PPI in multiple positions for years, co-wrote the PPI statutes, proud of what the organisation has become, such as the special observer member of the UN's ECOSOC; PPI is now on its way to be of help to its members and is moving towards more international involvement externally. We planned the Think Twice 4 as a hybrid event in prague for 2022. I would really love to continue this work, I should have even more time this year than I had last year, as we have no election in Germany now. I am applying currently for place at a university in Brussels in managing of intl. associations, as a member of ECOSOC we get 10 % discount. I thus want to continue my studies to learn how to improve our organisation. We should start on January 20th, given that I'm elected and the application is approved.

Roland: Since every vote is also a commitment to character: can you confirm that you advised PP Germany's chair in the matter of Unicorngate?

Gregory: Not in my role as PPI vice-chair but yes as a PP Germany intl. coordinator.

Roland: Can you confirm that you called the PPAT Court of Arbitration a "political tribunal" on twitter?

Gregory: I don't remember writing that. In the meeting of PP Germany I also spoke from my position as an intl. coordinator of PP Germany.

Mauricio (PPCL): I'm from PP Chile, I was a chair of Chilean PP between 2017 and 2019, now I'm still on the board as a member. We're growing; in the 2017 we got around 5000 votes for our candidate; now we got around 7000. So we're growing and are more recognised now. Within PPI I could do something for decentralisation and help places all over the world, particularly Latin America. Latin American Pirates think we have a lot of tasks in the digital societ. There are many countries changing our constitutions in the past 10 years. We can focus on our collaboration with Argentine, Venezuela, Brazil. We can be a good force in this corner of the world and help each other. That was our first thought when PPAT asked as whether I'd like to be a candidate.

Bailey: I guess we have to vote

Pirate Party of Austria - Mauricio Pirate Party of Catalonia - both Pirate Party of Chile - Mauricio Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - Gregory Pirate Party of Germany - Gregory Pirate Party of Hungary - abstention Pirate Party of Israel - Gregory Pirate Party of the Netherlands - Gregory Pirate Party of Norway - abstention Pirate Party of Russia - Gregory Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - both Pirate Party of Switzerland - not voting Pirate Party of Ukraine - Gregory (delegated to Germany)

Gregory: 7,5 Mauricio: 3,5

Motion
Vote for Vice Chair
Whom do you vote for to become the PPI vice-chair?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 2
Result: Gregory re-elected as PPI vice-chair

Board Members and Alternate Board Members

• We shall elect 3 board members and up to 2 alternate board members

• Candidates (board members):

Keith Goldstein (PPIL) Sebastian Krone (PPDE) Alexander Isavnin (PPRU) Svein Mork Dahl (PPNO) Mauricio Vargas (PPCL)

Keith (PPIL): I'm from the PP Israel, now serving on the board; I co-started the PPIL in 2010. I'd like to expand our work attending more the UN events in New York.

Joeri: How would you say working on the DAO changed the organisation we currently have?

Keith: We discussed giving a token to each member; we're still deciding on the tools.

Sebastian (PPDE): Thank you. I work with and for the PPI for 12 years, as a treasurer since 2020; also head of the tech team. I offer my abilities and my support. If you re-elect me, that would be nice. Thank you.

Alexander (PPRU): I'm a member of PPRU since it's beginning. Now I'm on its council. We're involved with freedom of information and speech. Our regimes are trying to stifle those rights, so our work is that more important.

Svein: I think I was first involved with PPI on behalf of the PPNO since 2016. I used to be a lay auditor. Now I'm a chair of PPNO (before that as a vice-chair). I got elected in local elections. I love working in intl. politics with PPI. Most of my time in 2O21 was dedicated to running our elections in Norway. We're also working on representation of non-parliamentary parties in Norway. I'm currently sharing my time between Norway and eastern Africa. I was an alternate board member in this term and I would like to upgrade so we could expand our activities.

Voting:

Pirate Party of Austria - Keith, Svein, Mauricio

Pirate Party of Catalonia - Keith, Alexander, Mauricio

Pirate Party of Chile - Mauricio, Alexander, Keith

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - Mauricio, Alexander, Keith, Svein, Bastian

Pirate Party of Germany - Keith, Bastian

Pirate Party of Hungary - Keith, Svein, Alexander

Pirate Party of Israel - Bastian, Mauricio, Keith

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - Keith, Bastian, Alexander

Pirate Party of Norway - Keith, Mauricio, Svein

Pirate Party of Russia - Bastian, Mauricio, Alexander

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - Keith, Bastian, Alexander

Pirate Party of Switzerland - Keith, Mauricio, Bastian

Pirate Party of Ukraine - Mauricio, Alexander, Keith, Svein, Bastian

• The following is the voting script:

Motion
Election of three board members
Which candidates do you vote for for the PPI board?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 0
Result: Keith and Mauricio elected, tie between Bastian and Alex

• Tie-breaker

Pirate Party of Austria - abstention

Pirate Party of Catalonia - Alexander

Pirate Party of Chile - Alexander

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - Bastian

Pirate Party of Germany - Bastian

Pirate Party of Hungary - Alexander

Pirate Party of Israel - Bastian

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - Alexander

Pirate Party of Norway - abstention

Pirate Party of Russia - Alexander

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - Alexander

Pirate Party of Switzerland - Bastian

Pirate Party of Ukraine - Bastian

Motion
Election of three board members
Which candidates do you vote for for the PPI board?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 2
Result: Alexander elected.

Bailey: We'll now take a one-hour lunch break. See you at 14:00 UTC

14:00 UTC - end of the lunch break

Post-break Roll Call:

Pirate Party of Austria - present
Pirate Party of Catalonia - present
Pirate Party of Chile - present
Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - present
Pirate Party of Germany - present
Pirate Party of Hungary - present
Pirate Party of Israel - present
Pirate Party of the Netherlands - present
Pirate Party of Norway - present
Pirate Party of Russia - present
Pirate Party - Slovakia (new) 1/2Vote - present
Pirate Party of Switzerland - present
Pirate Party of Ukraine - present (delegated to Germany)

The total voting power is now 26 out of the total of 29 member parties. Quorum is 8,66 and the voting power present is 12,5. We have quorum.

Bailey: We continue with the elections - alternate board members.

• Candidates (alternate board members):

Adam Wolf (PPDE) Linda Tørklep (PPNO) (candidacy withdrawn) Sebastian Krone (PPDE) Veronika Murzynová (PPCZ)

Linda : My name is Linda. I was a board member previously. At that time I did not seek reelection due to illness. I have been away for a while now.

I've been involved with the PPI for a time now. I believe I can contribute with my sickness running together with Svein. Since he wasn't elected, I would like to re-consider my involvement. I apologise and will work with PPI on a less formal level.

Bastian: You know me. I'm working for the intl. movement for app. 12 years. It would be very kind if you elect me.

Bailey: We have two candidates for three positions, so either candidate needs at least 1 vote to be elected.

Veronika: I've been with PPCZ since 2018 and lived in the UK before that, but I've supported the Pirate movement and similar activities before that. When back in PPCZ I joined PPCZ straight awas. Since then I volunteered in the international department and I'm currently it's head. My activities are now focused on international relations, which I also study. I stood as candidate in local and parliamentary elections recently but I'd like to step back from that and instead focus on the intl. Pirate movement.

Adam Wolf: I used to be PPDE political director for Lower Saxony, I'm Austrian but living in Germany. I'm currently fairly free and have time. I'm a captain on civil rescue ships north of Libya for a few weeks every week. My profession is journalism. I mostly focus on the EU as well as the world and specifically on humanitarian stuff.

Pirate Party of Austria - Veronika, Adam

Pirate Party of Catalonia - Veronika, Adam

Pirate Party of Chile - Veronika

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Germany - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Hungary - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Israel - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Norway - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Russia - Bastian, Veronika

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Switzerland - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Pirate Party of Ukraine - Veronika, Adam, Bastian

Motion
Vote for alternate board members
Which candidates for the position of alternate board members do you vote for?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain :
Result: Ranking: Veronika 1st, Adam 2nd, Bastian 3rd

Court of Arbitration

• We shall elect up to 6 CoA members

• Candidates:

Vojtěch Pikal (PPCZ) Marco Confalonieri (PPIT) Ohad Shem Tov (PPIL) Markus Barenhoff (PPDE) Rudolf Molnar (PPSK - new) Michal Pírek (PPSK - new)

Mike on behalf of Vojtěch Pikal: Apologizes for not being here; he's currently chairing the Czech GA. Here's his introduction from Discourse:

   - by me: To introduce Vojtech: He is a long time member of the Czech Pirates, many years member of its board and former member and vice-president of the Czech Lower House of Parliament. He also has a rich history with PPI, helping it on many occasions in the past, from drafting documents to presiding over GAs to even co-chairing the PPI at one point.
   - by Vojtěch: I would like to accept and confirm this nomination.

Sadly, I wont be able to participate on the upcoming GA, as at the same time PP-CZ has its annual GA and I am the main chair of it. As I am not making candidacy to any positions in PP-CZ this year, I should have aviable time for the CoA position.

Marco: not present, but Linde speaks on his behalf and recommends him.

Ohad: Keith speaking on his behalf. He's been on the CoA for quite some time now.

Markus: I'm member of PPDE, have been on the PPDE board a couple times. Have been on the German CoA as well. I assume it's a good idea to have the CoA filled with members.

Rudolf: I am a member of Pirate Party Slovakia from 2019. I lived in UK for 3 years. I returned home and as you know once a Pirate always a Pirate. I hope we can change the Pirate movement in Slovakia to be more successful. I am glad we are PPI members and we want to more cooperate on PPI activities.

Michal: Not present. Rudolf says that Michal is the chair of the Slovak PP.

Voting:

Pirate Party of Austria - all

Pirate Party of Catalonia - all

Pirate Party of Chile - all

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - all

Pirate Party of Germany - all

Pirate Party of Hungary - all

Pirate Party of Israel - all

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - all

Pirate Party of Norway - all

Pirate Party of Russia - all

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - all

Pirate Party of Switzerland - all

Pirate Party of Ukraine - all

• The following is the voting script:

Motion
Vote for the Court of Arbitration
Whom do you vote for for the CoA?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 0
Result: All candidates have been unanimously elected.

Lay Auditors

• We shall elect up to 3 lay auditors

• Candidates:

Alessandro Ciofini (PPIT) Noam Kuzar (PPIL) Enrique Herrera (PPCL)

Noam: Not present - Keith speaks on his behalf: He also works as a lay auditor for an NGO in the civil life.

Alessandro: not present, candidacy accepted by phone

Enrique: I am Enrique, at the end of 2006 we began this journey, founding on January 1, 2007 the pirate party of chile participate in the writing of version 2 and later of the pirate principles. I have participated in some elections in Chile, and I held the position of vice mayor in my commune for a year and a half.

Voting:

Pirate Party of Austria - all

Pirate Party of Catalonia - all

Pirate Party of Chile - all

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - all

Pirate Party of Germany - all

Pirate Party of Hungary - all

Pirate Party of Israel - all

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - all

Pirate Party of Norway - all

Pirate Party of Russia - all

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - all

Pirate Party of Switzerland - all

Pirate Party of Ukraine (delegated to Germany) - all

Motion
Vote for the lay auditors
Whom do you vote for as the lay auditor?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 0
Result: All three candidates elected.

Topic: Inactive member parties and what to do about them (Proposed by PPCZ)

• Justification: Over the years, we had some very bad luck in electing an active Court of Arbitration. This body is the only one that can expel member parties from the PPI. Due to inactivity or even non-existence, we now have quite a few of those. The current and previous boards did their best to supply the CoA with data on the parties in question; sadly, the CoA failed to act.

I therefore implore the active member parties: do nominate trustworthy people to the CoA, help to make it effective again and allow it to do its work. Thank you.

• Motion (if needed): The General Assembly urgently tasks the Court of Arbitration with assessment of PPI member parties. It also tasks the CoA with dismissal of those member parties which the CoA will find are no longer active and/or in existence, within the course of the year 2022.

Mike: It is somewhat moot now the topic since the CoA decided on this. It was supposed to say that the CoA is urgently requested to work on this and to act on it. Since there is no point, I advise just to check on the status of these parties inactivity. Now that there are few on them, I hope the board will do their best to join and be more active. We do not propose a motion. This is just a topic for conversation.

Markus: It's a good idea that every member of the CoA writes an e-mail to the board to ensure that this CoA does communicate.

Bailey: We'll certainly keep an eye on this situation.

Topic: PPI DAO and Blockchain Tools

• On behalf of PPIL, I would like to raise the following topic of discussion: PPI Use of Blockchain and Establishment of a Decentralized Autonomous Organization.

This is not a motion, but rather just a point of discussion for ‘any other business’.

• Justification: Prior collaboration with Aragon and a working group made some progress towards establishing a DAO that would allow Pirates to vote with blockchain. However, several members expressed concern with the use of an Ethereum-based DAO that would be difficult (expensive) to modify, as well as skepticism about whether all of the parties would use the system. After attempts to revise the DAO to be more open or utilize another blockchain such as Polygon, our partners at Aragon appear to have lost interest; And rightfully so, as we need to discuss further how we can utilize blockchain and crypto in general to support our members and our activism projects.

• AOB: At the GA, we would like to hear from our members about whether we are still interested in developing a DAO and/or using blockchain tools. Should this be an open system for the public or a closed system for member parties? How can we become innovative with Web 3.0?

• Link to our prior discussion on this topic: https://ga.pp-international.net/t/a -ppi-dao-discussion/327/13

Keith: The idea was that we would develop a blockchain voting tool for our internal voting and a tool for public to participate in our decision making. We worked with Aragon, an NGO that would help us with setting up the system. We wanted to give people a voice through this, collect membership fees through it and so on. We considered doing that on a cheaper blockchain. We hoped that national parties would use this as well. There is no motion, no vote. We're very close to setting this up, but we need a discussion to decide what we actually want to use this for.

Joeri: From what I heard it seems the problem is that it would just be a very expensive database that would be very hard to modify. I think it feels like nuking a spider, to be honest.

Raman: We believe that it is a great idea; one that PPI should stand for as a part of freedom of the internet from the states. What costs would this incur and how could it be utilized exactly. How exactly would it be used in reality. Would there be a good chance of member parties actually using this system.

Keith: There would be an initial fee of app. 500 EUR and substantial fees later. There are options that incur virtually no cost. Board members would hold keys, distribute funds and tokens to members. That's what we have so far.

Linda: What is the current gap in efficiency that this would solve?

Keith: It would let us each make decisions transparently and there would be no way to shut us down. It could potentially be good for our advertising, making something interesting for the media.The main thing would be to make decisions between GAs and to generate fundraising.

Bailey: If there's no more questions, is this something we want to continue with or vote on?

Raman: I think a lot of people might not exactly get the idea; we should decide whether we want to invest in this idea or completely abandon it.

Bailey: I like Raman's idea to declare whether we support the idea.

Keith: I'm fine with it.

Linda: We can vote on the board's mandate to follow this, or else.

Keith: Do we want 1) an internal DAO (a tool for member parties to make decisions), 2) an external DAO (a tool for individual members and the wide world to be involved), 3) both, or 4) neither?

Pirate Party of Austria - abstain

Pirate Party of Catalonia - both

Pirate Party of Chile - both

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic - abstain

Pirate Party of Germany - both

Pirate Party of Hungary - abstain

Pirate Party of Israel - both

Pirate Party of the Netherlands - none

Pirate Party of Norway - abstain

Pirate Party of Russia - abstain

Pirate Party - Slovakia ½Vote - abstain

Pirate Party of Switzerland - both

Pirate Party of Ukraine - abstain (delegated to germany)

• The following is the voting script:

Motion
Blockchain continuantion
Which option do you vote for?
Yes : {{{Yes}}}
No : {{{No}}}
Abstain : 6,5
Result: Both proposed options should be followed by the board

Bailey: That brings us to the end of our program. Any other topics?

Bastian: We need to shortly discuss the fees. Because thay have to be paid in the future. We need to find a solution for the members to pay the membership fees.

Unpaid membership fees (PPCZ proposal)

Veronika (on Discourse): On behalf of PP-CZ, I would like to raise the topic of unpaid membership fees / donations. We do understand that some Pirate Parties do not have any or very little funding, yet it just looks really bad when we have so many unpaid memberships. We would like to hear from other parties how they perceive this issue. Thank you.

Motion (if needed) The General Assembly urges all Members to contact the Board if they are struggling to raise the necessary funding by the next PPI GA meeting at the latest.

Bailey: Here's the link to the membership fees rules:

https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=Affiliation_fees#Current_rules_.28for_fees_2019_and_later.29

We need from you to know what bracket to you place yourself or at least to let us know that you cannot pay the fee. On the board's end it makes it hard to keep track of the fees if the members are not communicating with the board. There also are parties who do pay the fees every year and it's not really fair to the members who pay their fees if other members don't even respond to our e-mails. Nobody likes to talk about money, but the membership decided years ago to have membership fees and everyone should stay on top of this issue. At least let us know that you can't pay. We have a lot of costs connected to the existence of the PPI. We need to cover these costs so the people running PPI don't have to pay its day to day operation from their own pocket. Again, if you can't pay the fee, it's totally fine, just let us know. It's a topic of concern. Any comments or suggestions?

Roland: There's also the rule saying that you shouldn't pay more than 1 or 2 percent of your annual income. It's not that much. Please, pay up, guys.

Bailey: Any other motions or topics of discussion?

Raman: I have one potential motion and one point of discussion. Firstly, I'll start with the motion - this meeting showed to me that nominees fr positions are often not present. I suggest we might want to consider this approach. Let's engage in discussion on this. I'd like to propose a motion that if half of the nominees running in an election that we would postpone the election to a later date. The DAO might be used for that. If we don't really get high quality candidates, maybe we shouldn't want to run these elections.

Alexander: It's not required. All candidates confirmed their candidacy on Discourse and prolonging the voting process would completely restructure our voting process. We can perhaps ask candidates to record a video or answer questions in advance. I don't think bigger changes are necessary.

Raman: These are things that we could implement. If a candidate can't m,ake it here in person, they could record a video instead. Candidacies could also be required to be announced in advance. My main point is that I would really like to get to know the candidates I'm supposed to vote for.

Mike: Contrasted with the PPCZ's primaries or internal elections, I agree that the PPI's elections are fairly chaotic. The Czech nominees are required (under the penalty of disqualification) to have a current online presentation, in writing accept the nomination and to provide at least a short speech. I suggest we put this to a suitable standing committee.

Raman: I think this is very reasonable. I think we can come up with a reasonable set of rules. The committee should make research and propose the changes.

Bailey: I think the SKULL committee is the one most suitable for this. I'm sure that we can tighten-up the process a bit and have proposition ready for the next GA.

Ji Yong: You can argue that with most organisations it is common that they have more candidates than positions. Competition will help as well.

Mike: I believe both are necessary, promotion of the elections and improvement on the rules for candidacy.

Raman: I'd like some fall-back rules and measures in case we don't get enough people.

Any Other Business

Bailey: Let's definitely bring this topic to a standing committee. Any other comments?

Carlos: How we can make sure that all PP with participants in en elections are registered or identified and how we should support them?

Bailey: I'm not sure how exactly to do that. The rules differ widely party to party.

Bastian: We can easily support our member parties by provideng them with online presentation for free. Having their own web with no added cost is a big help, I believe.

Bailey: We can help with many things, but you have to ask for it. If you need something, get in touch and tell us; we'll try to make it happen.

Carlos: Should we make once make a physical PPI board meeting in either Geneva or NYC? We should have a picture of the board all together.

Bailey: Whenever there's a few of us together, we need to think of this and make pictures together for promotional purposes, no matter what even it is.

Gregory: Everybody who got elected today, please, send your contact information to board@pp-internation.net, otherwise we won't be able to get in touch with you.

Roland: Is there a social after we wrap up?

Bailey: I personally am going to take a nap but it's up to you, guys. Keep the rest of us in the loop if you organise something. People are starting to take off, so I take that as a signal to wrap this up. I'd just like you to fill in the feedback questionnaire if you would. if you have ideas, let us know via this pad: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/PPI_in_2022. Have a look at it and let us know. Thank you all for being here. I'm glad we got through it in one day, thanks for your patience, cooperation, listeners, Pirates on Air, to the Board. You all rock and it's safe to say that the GA is now over! Let's see at the standing committees, events and have a wonderful weekend.

GA closed by Bailey Lamon at 15:46 UTC