PPI Minutes 2020-12-20

Agenda PPI BOARD MEETING

--- 12.20.2020 13:00 UTC/14:00 CEST ---

Big Blue Button Room: https://bbb.piratensommer.de/b/gre-cnw-a9v

Audio recording: PiratesOnAir Streaming, recording

https://owncloud.ag-technik.de/s/675db5wRTjYmHjD

Video: https://bbb.piratensommer.de/b/gre-cnw-a9v

1 - ATTENDEES

1.1 - Members of the PPI board

participating: Bailey (also proxy for Manuel), Keith, Mike, Bastian, Dario, Gregory, Carlos (from 13:17)

excused: Manuel (proxy given to Bailey)

unexcused: Dan

Quorum: reached (7/9)

1.2 - Others

Alternate Board Members

participating: Svein

excused:

unexcused: Ji Yong, Thomas

Guests:

participating: Santa's Elf,

2 - PROCEEDINGS

RoP: http://wiki.pp-international.net/PPI_Board/Rules_of_Procedure

Meeting opened at 13:07 UTC by Bailey

Meeting chaired by Bailey

Secretary for this meeting is Everyone

Quorum established with out of 9 board members present.

Streaming started: started https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/

Recording started: 13:07 UTC, 14:07 CET

Postal votes:

Notes on meeting process

3 - APPROVAL OF THE MINUTES

Motion
Do we approve the minutes?
* Minutes of the last meeting: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2020_12_02
Yes : Mike, Keith, Bastian, Dario, Bailey, Manuel, Gregory,Carlos
No :
Abstain :
Result: Approved

For the record these are the minutes of the GA:

Day 1) https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2020_12_05

Day 2) https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2020_12_06

4 - REPORTS

4.1 - Short reports of the board members 1)

Board

• Bailey: Since the GA exhausted and recovering. Also thinking about the next year and stuff we can do, some logistics, this board meeting, getting ready for the new term.

• Gregory: I have attended the YPE Epic (annual conference) as an observer, was quite busy with the Freedom to Share ECI, that have started collecting signatures at December 11 - I propose we add the collecting widget to our website... I also had a call with the aspiring Pirate Party of Georgia, and we will make a "clinic" call with both of our boards PPI and PPGE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)

• Dario: Since the last GA, I have been working on the Freedom to Share ECI, as Gregory. We need help to translate the website (please, share it everywhere you can!): https://l10n.rio.hn/projects/freedom-to-share/web/ I've been in contact with PPLU to implement a voting system for their parliament members. Also, I was featured in PiratTV: https://www.twitch.tv/piratvision/video/823269242

• Bastian:

I attended the PPI General Assembly, broadcasting the event and assisting Gregory in chairing the assembly.

We got access to our old PayPal account and the balance was transferred to the new PayPal account.

All financial information is on the PPI wiki.

The mail addresses and mailing lists have been updated.

I have created a complete summary of member dues payments between for 2018 to 2020. Anything older than that is statute-barred anyway.

Some questions arise here that we can clarify afterwards.

Otherwise, I have taken care of the technology of the PPI as every day. All systems are running fine.

• Manuel:

not attending - repr. by Bailey as proxy.

• Mike:

Attended the GA, otherwise just a lot of PPCZ stuff as we're just some two weeks away from a vote on a potentially historic coalition, which I'm sadly involved in two different capacities, draining my time a bit.

• Dan:

not attending

• Keith:

GA seems ages ago. I went over our old tutorial and have been considering what needs to be updated and how to pass down information to the new members. I attempted to jump start the defunct members conversation with the CoA, and I hope that they have their meeting on this.

• Carlos: Pirate from Switzerland, representing PPI in Geneva EU.

Alternates:

• Svein: We (PPNO) need to have lists ready for the next year's parliamantary elections, running 19 county primaries, we've had meeting with PP of Iceland, Sweden and Finland. I used to be an PPI lay auditor and a chairman of PPNO.;

• Ji Yong:

not attending

• Thomas:

not attending

5.1 - Proposals

Issue: General Secetary Nomination Submitted by: Keith Justification: Routine Motion: Keith nominates Mike Gill for GS with a brief orientation period, and Keith will serve as vice-secretary to assist Mike with duties until he gets the hang of things.

Bailey: Does Mike accept the nomination?

Mike: Sure, can't you see the enthusiasm in my face? :-)

Motion
Appointment of Mike as General Secretary
Keith nominates Mike Gill for GS with a brief orientation period, and Keith will serve as vice-secretary to assist Mike with duties until he gets the hang of things
Yes : Gregory, Keith, Dario, Bastian, Carlos,Bailey, Manuel
No :
Abstain : Mike
Result: Approved

Issue: Treasurer Nomination Submitted by: Keith Justification: Routine Motion: Keith nominates Bastian, as he did a great job in his short time and he should be given a bit more time to be productive with the position.

Bailey: Do you want to elaborate, Bastian?

Bastian: It has to do wit lot of work and diligence and it's probably necessary though. (Acceptance)

Bailey: You've only been our treasurer for a few months yet you managed to get our finances sorted and I fully support your nomination.

Motion
Appointment of Bastian as Treasurer
Keith nominates Bastian, as he did a great job in his short time and he should be given a bit more time to be productive with the position.
Yes : Carlos, Mike, Keith, Dario, Gregory,Bailey, Manuel
No :
Abstain : Bastian
Result: Approved

Issue: Orientation of new members Submitted by: Keith Justification: We should decide on tools for the new board. Motion: Review the presentation I gave last board

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XIoOAaol1F0QnSmkCFSA0gXrbcTxPZ2P6w41jbzW2ks/edit?usp=sharing

Bailey: For example, for the board chat, we have a chat in Wire, which we can definitely switch away from, but I'm happy with either.

Keith: The presentation above hasn't been updated for a time.

Gregory: Updating it as we go just now.

Keith: We have a lot of tools we're supposed to use and do not as well as some we use.

Discussion about using Redmine (project management tool)

Gregory: we have a list of about 40 countries contacts in Redmine; it's good for keeping stuff saved. Wealso use Trello for some UN stuff. We don't really have a real alternative to Redmine so far.

Bailey: We're promised a Redmine tutorial, so that might happen. Today for sure we should at least decide about chat and conferencing tools, so the Board meets where it wants to meet.

Bastian: On Congressus: it's not maintained anymore, we need to decide on that, for archiving reason. But I don't think the French admin is working on it anymore.

Bailey: Congressus was a good tool, but we left it for being buggy and taking us more time than it helped. So we went back to Etherpad. We were supposed to ome back to it once it's more functional. Then we didn't.

Bastian: If we find out it's compromising our server, we're just turn it off for now.

Bailey: I'm also curious about Assemblea Darion presented at the last board meeting.

Dario: It's just for voting; it worked fine for our big meeting in Barcelona, for multiple votes at once; I expected to use it for the GA, but the open vote instead of a secret one got in the way. PPLU is now going to test it. As far as Redmine goes, it an be a bit cumbersome, but it looks good for me for PPI to use it.

Mike: PPCZ's been using Redmine for years, but I don't like it too much, although can use it.

Bailey: We should look at this in the new year.

Keith: We have information about the tools other parties are using in our Needs Assessment survey. We need to review this survey again.

Gregory: If PPCZ is using it for years, they might have some experts.

Mike: I'll try.

Bailey: We can come back to this. Dario might want to do another presentation for Assemblea.

Dario: Sure.

Bailey: We should decide on what we want to use for our chat group? Do we want to stay on Wire, or do we have another recommendation for a different tool?

Dario: I'm fine with Wire.

Svein: An upside is I only use Wire for PPI business.

Bailey: Yeah, same here. Is everybody okay with Wire?

Gregory: It's missing replies splitting the conversation; that's what it misses (unlike Rocket Chat, Zulip or so). It should be quite secure. I would propose PPEU's Mattermost server. I already have all messaging systems, so... :-)

Bailey: So shall we just use Wire? It seems so.

Gregory: Manuel is still not on Wire. We will hav

Keith: Carlos is also not on Wire. We also have our e-mail system and I'll teach Mike to use it, but we still have a lot of former board members there (and on Wire) which we should remove. /added to the agenda/

Bailey: So we're staying with Wire for now. How about Big Blue Button.

Gregory: It works better than Jitsi. It works pretty well for me.

Dario: Zoom is not in line with our values.

Bailey: So there are no objections with BBB?

Gregory: I like video chat for the GA. Mumble's been good and worked, but seeing people is a lot better.

Bailey: In conclusion: We're staying with Wire and BBB.

Issue: Complaint over Pirate beer Submitted by: Sebastian Alscher, Chair of PPDE Justification: A formal complaint was sent by email and we said that we would respond. Motion: Send a formal response regarding the board's position.

About a week ago we received the following report from VinPei of PPAT that they are officially reviewing this, and Bailey responded that we are waiting for that resolution before we discuss this.

"The federal board calls the arbitration tribunal of the Pirate Party of Austria in the "unicorn" cause. It is charged with examining the case and, if necessary, initiating proceedings."

Bailey: I responded to Sebastian before the GA, and it was understood that it would take time to resolve. It is a process, so everyone understood that. Now the witnesses are questioned by PPDE forwarded to us by the PPAT, we have all the e-mails. The current request by the PPDE is for the PPI not to do anything as long as their inquest is taking place. We're now waiting for Austria's response. Sebastian implied that a complaint has been sent to the PPI before Sebastian's e-mail, which isn't true. Now we received it, and we're involved. And we need to take this seriously.

Keith: I think we need to have this in the minutes, that we're waiting for PPDE and PPAT, so we're noot percieved as doing nothing.

Issue: Decide on regular/rotating meeting times for 2021 Submitted by: Bailey Justification: We need to figure out when we want to have our board meetings in 2021. Because of the vast differences in timezones among board members, we may need to rotate the times so that we can accommodate everyone equally. I think we should stick to every 3 weeks as it worked well for us this year. We were meeting on Wednesdays but PPEU is now having their meetings on Wednesdays every 3 weeks so we should pick a different day since some people will want to attend or listen in on both. Motion: Decide on a day of the week to have our meetings as well as at least one specific time of day.

Bailey's introduction: (as stated above); shall we pick rotating times?

Dario: I'm open to it.

Mike: So am I.

Svein: I'm going to have problem with 3 AM, because you don't want talk to me at that time.

Bastian: we have CET, Japan and Ontario/Chile

Bailey: 14 CET (13 UTC)

Mike: 14 CET is fine on weekends; on work day, not so much

Keith: The old rotating schedule used to be 8am, 2pm and 9pm CET

Bailey: I would suggest Monday, since PPEU is going to meet on Wednesdays.

Bastian: We should make sure we all meet within the same day (not create any confusion). I'm okay with Wednesday but I would like to avoid Sundays.

Bailey: If we avoid weekends, I'd prefer that too - it's supposed to be time off.

Svein: 2 pm CET every third Monday

Bailey: Are we at least good with every 3 weeks? Agreed. So let's do January 6th 2PM CET (1PM UTC) for now and we come back to this then.

Issue: Open additional account in EURO Subbmitted by: Gregory Justificiation: This was one of the recommendation in the treasurers report at the GA. the additional cost is 60 CHF per year (5 CHF per month) that is 55,41 Euro or 67,92 USD as of today, we will get a different additional IBAN for the EURO account. Motion: We will open an additional subaccount at PostFinance in EURO for additional cost of 60CHF per year

Gregory: We can't change the account from franks to Euro, but we can get another one, so people can easily pay with Euro. Now the conversion to franks complicates things, as the exchange rate constantly changes and we operate in Euros (invoices and such).

Bastian: It's going to be easier for us to collect money in Euro. I also set PayPal to multiple currencies. But I support the idea to have an Euro account.

Keith: I'm a bit worried about spending more money on bank fees.

Svein: Is it possible to close the franks account later?

Bastian: Not really, as we're based in Switzerland.

Motion
Additional account in EURO
We will open an additional subaccount at PostFinance in EURO
Yes : Bastian, Gregory,Mike, Bailey, Manuel, Dario
No :
Abstain : Svein, Keith
Result: Approved

Issue: We have an issue with prior board members who are still in our chat and email lists. Subbmitted by: Svein and Keith Justificiation: There are a number of old board members that are still in our chains, and technically the board conversations should preserve some privacy, even if we are completely transparent. We will make sure that they are all still included in Pirate leaders. Motion: Remove old board members from the Wire and Groups (email list for the board).

Bailey: Coming back to the topic mentioned previously - cleaning our mailing lists (Wire and e-mail groups)

Svein: I need to know who is and isn't a board member based on their e-mail address. I'm not really that concerned about the mailing list. Linda has asked to be removed from the lists and Wire - we need to follow on these requests for sure.

Bastian: Historically we had an open board list; if we decide to change it, we can.

Mike: We never really know what people will send us and they are surely expecting to only be speaking to the current board. I think we need to do the "purge".

Keith: We can do it with Mike - a teachable moment. :-)

5.2 - Working Groups Update

Bailey: There were none since the last GA.

5.3 Economic Update

Bailey: nothing changed

5.4 ECOSOC/UN

Holidays seasons. UN 2019 annual report https://conf.unog.ch/annualreport/

COVID UN https://www.unog.ch/unog/website/broker.nsf/(httpPages)/7BB99009B57FB427C12585120054C4AD?OpenDocument

Keith: We'll have SCUBA meetings to discuss this.

Svein: Due to COVID it's gonna be all online.

Keith: Other years we would be busy renewing our UN passes now, but due to covid we don't really have much use for them.

5.5 PPI HQ update

We need to submit a board update for the PPI HQ as detailed out here: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=Statutes_PPI_HQ

Gregory: Describes the following:

New members that join the board need to be specified by their full name, place of residence, date and place of birth. ID's Of all board members that are not Belgian a copy of the front and back of their ID-card needs to be included. (for Belgians their national number needs to be filled in on Form II - section C) In case ones ID-card doesn't mention it's address, a proof of residence also needs to be provided. This can be something simple like an utility bill, it just needs to clearly mention both the full name and the address of the person in question. Payment of 133,58 Euro (according to the official website http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/tsv_pub/tarif_f.htm )

Proposal: establish the new board to be also the board of PPI HQ. Mike Gill is appointed as Secretary General of PPI HQ. (according to PPI Statutes XIV (2) sentence 3: The Secretary General shall be appointed by the Board and shall be the chief administrative officer of Pirate Parties International.)

Motion
Update registration PPI HQ
We appoint the current Board members as Board Memebrs of the PPI HQ. Mike Gill is being appointed Secretary Gerneral of PPI HQ. We approve the administrative fees of 133,58 for the registration update.
Yes : Gregory, Dario, Mike, Bailey, Manuel, Svein, Bastian
No :
Abstain :
Result: Approved

6 AOB - Any other business

no other business

===================================================

• Next Meeting: 06.01.2021, 13:00 UTC/14:00 CET/08:00 EST

• Meeting Closed: 15:05 UTC