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Agenda PPI BOARD MEETING
--- 31.5.2022 20:00 UTC / 22:00 CEST---
Big Blue Button Room: https://bbb.piratensommer.de/b/gre-cnw-a9v
Audio recording: PiratesOnAir Streaming, recording

Record of the meeting

1 - ATTENDEES

1.1 - Members of the PPI board

participating: Mike, Bailey, Gregory, Mauricio, Manuel, Alexander
excused: Keith
unexcused: Dario
Quorum:

1.2 - Others

Alternate Board Members:
participating: Bastian
excused:
unexcused: Veronika, Ji Yong, Adam
Guests:
participating:
PiratesOnAIr, Numero6


2 - PROCEEDINGS

RoP: https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Rules_of_Procedure
Meeting opened at 20:03 UTC by Bailey
Meeting chaired by Bailey
Secretary for this meeting is everyone.
Quorum established with (7 out of 9) board members present (incl. alternates and proxies)
Streaming started: started https://piratesonair.net/live-stream/
Recording started: 20:03
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_2022-05-10
Yes : Mike, Gregory, Bastian, Alexander,
No :
Abstain : Bailey, Manuel, Mauricio
Result: minutes approved


4 - REPORTS

4.1 - Short reports of the board members

Board

  • Bailey Lamon: Apologies for missing last time. Mainly the Pirates for Ukraine campaign. I did attend the Pirate Beer on this weekend. I also spoke to the Amsterdam Pirates at their GA. Deadline for statute changes for the July GA is the end of this week.
  • Gregory Engels: Busy with my studies atm. also apparently got Corona today :( Did some minor admin tasks for the GA discourse. I attended the DAO meeting.
  • Mike Gill: Worked on the statute change. Applied for the AHCECICCUICTCP registration in Vienna and finally got it approved just a couple hours ago, so I'm going. We also got invited for the IGF to Ethiopia at the end of November. I might be able to fund the trip partially from the PPCZ budget in case we decide to get a stand there. PPCZ also got approached by the USPP asking for a speaker at their currently running conference. In the end I managed to get them Ivan Bartos in the form of a video message for yesterday's opening of the conference. It was very well received (they were stoked about having a real member of a national government speaking to them) and I offer this to anyone; I suppose, when done right, this can have a significant impact on the PR side of any event, get the media interested. Also attended the Pirate Beer and yesterday's opening of the USPP.
  • Carlos Polo:
not present
  • Keith Goldstein: I cannot be present because of the time difference. I have participated in a couple more workshops with the DEPA DAO group. We have another meeting on Thursday. We have made some progress conceptually, but we need to work on creating a template for the DAO. I participated in Pirate beer (coffee for me).
  • Alexander Isavnin: Reporting to media about Russian wartime changes to Internet, IT, regulations, sanctions, restrictions. Also Czech Rep. and Germany announced programs for Russian political activists to allow them to leave Russia. My hope is that some Pirates from Russia can take advantage of these schemes and find a safe haven. I'm running in the local election, so I'm not planning on leaving Russia myself (under current situation).
  • Manuel Caicedo: I wasn't present in the previous meetings due to mental health concerns. Attended Pirate Beer and listened to ideas for discussion during the next GA, including refloating older-GA motions, social media(instagram) implementation, research and advocacy streamlining; my plan is to sketch some . Also got briefed regarding the financial and legal obstacles of PPI's registration in Switzerland. I would like us to start the process of moving away from Switzerland.
  • Dario Castane:
not present
  • Mauricio Vargas: I have not been able to be present in activities or perform tasks related to the PPI for work reasons and because I am finishing my work in the current board of the Pirate Party of Chile, which will change at the end of June. From that moment on I will be able to participate more actively.

On the other hand, today I sent from the institutional mail of the ppcl an advance of a work that has been done in the pirate party of Chile, which consists of a compilation and translation of programs of pirate parties. Finally, I read the proposals for the modification of the statutes presented by Mike.

Alternates:

  • Ji Yong Dijkhuis:
not present
  • Veronika Murzynová:
not present
  • Adam Wolf:
not present
  • Sebastian Krone:
  • All financial information I have is in PPI wiki (bank - 04/30/2022, no changes until 05/25/2022 - PayPal account balance is from today, 05/31/2022).

PayPal donations for Aid Ukraine are also documented in PPI wiki, amount today: 376.01 EUR (in addition, there is a donation of 459.66 CHF in our account, which should be transferred to Aid Ukraine account).

I received the current account statements after several reminders on 25.05.2022!
  • I have received a formal complaint from the PP-AT. I will present this case to the Arbitration Court - the rest will be done by lawyer and prosecutor's office, because the whole allegation is a brazen lie.
  • Someone closed the Aid Ukraine campaign on our website and redirected it to a campaign on a Norwegian fundraising platform.
  • The website for the upcoming Think Twice conference in 2022 is still without any concrete content. What's going on there?
You can find all ThinkTwice pages at:
https://pp-international.net/events/think-twice-conferences/
For our live conferences, we have a new Big Blue Button video server with capacity for up to 250 viewers. For larger events, we can book more capacity.
  • I’ve been looking at PPI technology, as I do every day.
All patches are up to date.
All systems are running smoothly.

5.1 - Proposals

  • Pirates4Ukraine Donations
CoA Complaint
  • Motion to refund the donations for Aid Ukraine.
Bailey: The campaign got closed and we need to decide on what to do with the donations. If we use the donations for something different, then we need approval by the donors.
Gregory: I agree it's a bad situation that someone has decided to stop the campaign without a board decision. The problem is we collected the money for P4U, promised transparency. The only problem is that we said Svein should get it. So now we need proof of the money being spent for the task for which we collected it. Either we get an invoice or receipts for what has been done. I don't see how someone just closed a campaign we started by a board decision. The war is still going on and we can still use the money in a way it was inteded for.
Bailey: I'm not against using the money in a different way. But we set the campaign up specifically around Svein's work on the ground. We can't just use it differently without donnor approval.

<back and forth; just more of the same>

Alexander: Calm down. You're both right and we can do both things - we inform the donors and find purpose for the money.
Bailey: My issue isn't about the invoices but mainly about the purpose of the money.
Bastian: I can understands both stances. We had Svein as a testimonial for the campaign. I asked him and he was just a testimonial. There's a guy trying to divide us over this. We never asked for receipts. When we forward the money, we need a plan and to know what they use the money for. The Telegram chats are disgusting and have nothing to do with the merit of this. We should ask the donors about what they want to do. Yes, we need to do this transparently and I have no idea what we do in the future but at the start of the campaign I was skeptical whether it's gonna go well. Now we see the results and should learn from it; learn what to avoid the next time. Today we need to decide whether to refund or put the money towards a cause.
Manuel: We're all trying to solve a problem that's now at our hands. The campaign got out of control and we need to take responsibility. I'd like to point out it looks like our organisation isn't efficient in handling a campaign. We kinda outsourced part of the campaigned and made ourselves vulnerable. If Svein didn't need the money, then the campaign might not have been thought through. We should follow the law. Let's not open ourselves to the authorities via complaint from any of the donors. What worries is me that some of the campaign was carried out on platforms not in the board's control. And that's why we lost control. The Austrians say it took a lot of time to verify that we actually got some of the donations. That's why we opened the discussion about moving away from Switzerland, which is only creating obstacles for us. All our efforts should be getting to the goal of the campaign and not get into infighting. I support Bailey in asking the donors and next time we need to learn from this and avoid the same problems.
Gregory: I think refunding is the last resort. We can inform and consult the donors, but giving the money back should be the last step if no better solution can be found. If we can't find a way to help directly, then we should use the money for that, instead of just giving it back.
Bailey: I guess we have to come to a decision then. Do we want to contact the donors and also need to decide on how to use the money. Maybe we can find a purpose/organisation that we can support with this money. And then we can inform the donors.
Gregory: Unless we have a list of options now, then we should postpone.
Bastian: Let's look for a small organisation that's not in the focus who needs 1000 EUR the most. If we give the money to the Red Cross, it's gonna have much less of a measurable impact. I think we should wrap this up before the next board meeting.
Manuel: We should do some initial diligence and to me the big organisations make the use of the money more effective. That's why I would go for the UN programs for example. With choosing a big organisation we can solve this right away.
Alexander: I support the smaller organisations option. Like a refugee center. This way we can have some good feedback on what the money actually bought. Donating to "Red Cross" is a second last resort, compared to just refund.
Manuel: I would go for the Polish Red Cross if we want to solve this right away.
Mike: I would prefer to go for some smaller project, so we can still salvage this from the PR perspective - to see what we're buying.
Mauricio: I agree that Polish Red Cross is a good option. We can solve this now or later, we can talk to the donors, but as Gregory said, the people who made donations want their money to go to something specific. But I think at this point we might need to talk with the donors.
Bailey: I believe we had only about 10 donors, so it should be fairly easy to reach to them. The question now is whether we can solve this today. We might need to take some time between now and the next meeting, especially if we're going to look into smaller organisations.
Bastian: We can decide now whether to go for the big or small organisation. We can then contact the donors. We can get contacts before the final decision. Now we should the general course - whether we pick a major organisation or a small one. Let's vote on that so we know what to do. Then we choose what to do about contacting the donors.
Bailey: So we should vote now whether to go for a big or small organisation?
Bastian: Yes.
Alexander: I'd like to remind us that we also need to act on the extra-board steps being made about the campaign being stopped. This should be investigated.
Bailey: I assume the website was pulled I believe by the PPAT. I don't know why and why it was redirected. This certainly happened after Svein said it's over.
Manuel: I found the Kyiv School of Economics which seeks donations towards education campaign, also found the People in Need NGO in Czech Republic and their Ukrainian fundraiser.
Bastian: I asked for a motion and we can take a decision whether to go for a small or a big organisation.

Where to aim the donation money? Do we prefer to donate the money towards a big organisation or rather to a smaller one? Bigger (something like the Red Cross)= Manuel, Bailey Smaller (something like Svein was doing)= Alexander, Bastian, Mike, Gregory, Bailey Abstain= Mauricio close= We shall donate the money towards a smaller organisation.


Bailey: Let's all make some research and find a cause for us to donate towards.
Bastian: I don't want our trust to be abused again like it's happening now on the Telegram group. It's no way to communicate.
Mike: I suppose if someone fonds some project by a bigger organisation, put it forward anyway. We still have the final decision ahead of us.
Bastian: Let's not discuss the CoA complaint today.
  • Statute Changes <Mike>
Mike: The changes are prepared here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tvyZoxSxz3fQuFb8eTRhGX9en_Xx6TDv/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs; if we can agree on the text here, I'll transfer that to a clear format which will make it obvious what exactly gets changed. So I suggest we go through it and see if we can agree. Let's all go through it in the following days and let's.
Bailey: Let's all go through it by Friday so we can then submit it to the members via Discourse and e-mail.

5.2 - Working Groups Update

  • DAO Working Group
Keith: Our third Governance session with Bankless Consulting will likely take place on June 20th. An announcement will be sent to pp-leaders and the board.
Bailey: Since Keith isn't here, I don't know if anyone's really comfortable talking on this.
Gregory: I was there but don't really want to speak on this.
  • SCULL
Mike: With the GA in a month we should make a point there that we need people to get involved with the committees. The last SCULL was not attended aside from three board members despite being promoted.

5.3 Economic Update

  • We have open issues for a long time:
Problem Headquarters / Relocation Headquarters
Fine Belgium
Access to bank accounts
Mailboxes - we have multile mailboxes in Switzerland and we might get some mail that we won't know about.
Address Geneva
Payment of outstanding invoices
Bastian: We have to solve these long-standing issues. They're not rocket science.
Bailey: I agree; we need to take time to solve these things. Let's set up a meeting on this and go through it.
Bastian: We should have a meeting on this before the GA so we can find about issues that need then to be fixed by the GA. I have solutions for these and we should meet.
Manuel: I agree. But can we talk about the solutions now instead of a special meeting?
Bastian: I will present a proposal for each problem. But it's open for discussion between now and the GA. I can provide my description of each problem and provide you with the proposed solutions. Then we can discuss those. We really need to fix these; we procrastinated over these for years and now they're pressing. I'd like to talk about it in a provate meeting.
Mike: I'd just like to make point that we're here for almost two hours and it's getting late, so I agree with a special meeting.

5.4 ECOSOC/UN

  • Cybercrime conference in Vienna.
Mike: They confirmed today I can attend, so I will. :-) Gregory also submitted paperwork asking for a yearly pass for me for Vienna.
  • We can have more passes for NY if we want
Gregory :DGC will return to issuing up to six yearly grounds passes per organization to all CSOs associated with the Department as per regular policies reflected on the Civil Society Unit’s website. DESA is restarting issuing 16 grounds passes (with a combination of 7 annual and 9 temporary passes as per pre-pandemic arrangements), following the mechanisms and updated instructions on DESA’s website. That means we can send more people to New York.

Carlos and Svein also have passes for the WTO conference (also happens in two weeks).

Alexander we have to submit workshop to IGF2022 until 3 June.
Gregory: We did a panel in 2019 and had booth in 2021. The IGF will be in Ethiopia. I will work with Alexander on this.

5.5 PPI HQ update

WTF ;-)

6 AOB - Any other business

  • TT4 Sign Up
Keith: We only have two sign ups so far for speaking at the conference. The sign up needs to be advertised. We should review the statements in a separate group once we have a collection to choose from:
https://tt22.thinktwice.today/call-for-submissions/
Veronika
Jack Sparrow :Testing once again; Mike
Mike: I promote TT4 within the PPCZ. I'll specifically target people to speak there from now on.
Please advertise the form. We could also use an updated blog post about it.
https://lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=326194&lang=en
  • Volunteers Form
Keith :We have 1 intern request still for IT and two volunteer proposals. We need to write back to them. We also need to advertise.
Please advertise the form. We could also use an updated blog post about it.
https://lime.ppi.rocks/index.php?r=survey/index&sid=341246
  • Discussion on volunteers to create media content
Alexander: Why not to create Pirates Publishing House? ;)
Keith: We have Pirate Times. But our volunteers for publishing content dwindle.
  • USPP Conference 2022- Pirates Reborn
===================================================
  • Next Meeting: 21.06.2022 - 09:00 UTC
  • Meeting Closed: 22:13 UTC
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