From PPI
June 17 BOD FINAL
Convoqués
- Board members :
- Etienne
- keithgoldstein
- BaileyL
- RayJohansen
- MichalGill
- Alternate board members :
- Cedric
- Board delegatives members :
- Cedric (1)
- Etienne (1)
- keithgoldstein (1)
- BaileyL (1)
- RayJohansen (1)
- MichalGill (1)
- 6/9
Absents
- Board members :
- Ladislav.Koubek
- gsaouli
- Alternate board members :
- DanPrazeresBR
- Board delegatives members :
- DanPrazeresBR
- Ladislav.Koubek
- gsaouli
Ordre du jour
Board Meeting
Welcome. Meeting starts at 21:01. Bailey will chair the meeting. Keith will be secretary.
Convened
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Absent
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- keithgoldstein: Guillaume indicated that he cannot make it.
PROCEEDINGS
2.1.1 Chair and secretary
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2.1.2 Quorum
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- keithgoldstein: Welcome. Meeting starts at 21:01. Bailey will chair the meeting. Keith will be secretary.
- keithgoldstein: Cedric is here as an alternate. Guillaume and Ladislav are absent. Recording started.
Approval of the Minutes
<a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03">https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03</a>
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- keithgoldstein: Minutes are approved
- MichalGill: I didn't manage to vote in time but I approve as well. :-)
Board
Guillaume:
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- keithgoldstein: Not present.
Bailey:
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- keithgoldstein: Next month giving a workshop to some local union people and activists on security culture. How to use signal and Tor. This is kind of how I got into being a pirate.
Keith:
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- keithgoldstein: Working on UN stuff. We had visitors in Geneva and NY. Doing local national election stuff.
Ladislav:
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- keithgoldstein: <resigned>
Raymond:
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- RayJohansen: Business as usual. A little less work than normal.
I have NOT done the following:
- Make a sketch of a Task List for the GA
Mike:
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- MichalGill: Got information about the finances ready. Besides that not much else.
Etienne:
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- RayJohansen: Finished finals/exams. Now working on Statutes.
- Etienne: It took longer than expected, writing in English. I have an additional problem understanding where we want to go. It is difficult to adapt the organization to our goals.
- Etienne: How can we organize ourselves. The changes of the statutes should be ready in about 6 months. We should have necessary steps about what we expect from PPI as board members, and also what we think about our members.
- BaileyL: Perhaps some of us can get together and have a meeting about the statutes.
Alternates
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Daniel:
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Gregory:
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Cédric:
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- Cedric: A lot of work in France to welcome our new members and teach them how we work
- Cedric: I'll have soon more time to work around a projet to launch a platform like the French one, easily, for membership, voting, reports and discussion capabilities
- Cedric: We need to immigrate to a new server in France.
- Cedric: Some countries are asking for a project like ours. Perhaps the project can be under PPI's supervision.
Resignation, Replacement
Ladislav resigned: "I regret to inform you that I resign from the position of Board Member of PPI. I enjoyed working with you guys! Best of luck to everyone and to the PPI as well..."
- BaileyL: We will bring in an alternate member. I think there is an order for alternates becoming board members. We think Dan is next on the list. We will have to reach out to Dan.
- BaileyL: We thank Ladislav for everything he did while he was a board member. Good luck to him and everything he does in the future.
- keithgoldstein: I too would like to say thank you for your work. In NY it was great to have you. We were informed about how he sees the world, and it is a sad issue. It is something that PPCZ needs to address internally, and they can consult with us about how to share information. Good luck to the new international coordinator in PPCZ.
Economic Report
<a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03#Economic_Report" style="color: rgb(90, 54, 150); background: none rgb(240, 240, 240); font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">2.9.1 Economic Report</a>
- <a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03#Balance_.28all_accounts.29_-_Income_in_the_last_period_-_Money_spent_.28under_which_budget_category.29_-_Money_to_be_spent_in_the_next_period_-_Projected_income_in_the_next_period" style="color: rgb(90, 54, 150); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">2.9.1.1 Balance (all accounts) - Income in the last period - Money spent (under which budget category) - Money to be spent in the next period - Projected income in the next period</a>
- <a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03#Presentation_of_Budget_and_Cashflow" style="color: rgb(90, 54, 150); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">2.9.1.1.1 Presentation of Budget and Cashflow</a>
- <a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_06_03#Quarterly_cash_flow_budget_2019" style="color: rgb(90, 54, 150); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">2.9.1.1.2 Quarterly cash flow budget 2019</a>
- keithgoldstein: Postfinance Account balance: 2726.25 EUR (March 5th 2019)
Paypal balance: 702.56 EUR (May 31st 2019)
Additional expected payment transfers: (affiliation fees) 555,00 €, 29,70 €
Outstanding payments: IT, registration, conferences, GA, GoDaddy Renewal...
- MichalGill: There is a two page balance, one with Paypal, the other with the bank account. We believe that there is 3200 in the account at the moment. Altogether there is about 4000 euros. Part of those funds include money for the Think Twice conference.
- RayJohansen: There are some black holes about who will be paying and how much will be coming in. At the next meeting we can put the budget into place.
- MichalGill: Mike has to expand on this budget. We will add more information for the next meeting.
- keithgoldstein: The bank statement is in CHF. The payment for the Think Twice conference was included in the statement.
- keithgoldstein: The 1000 euros is a donation from PPCZ. It is not part of our budget but a donation for our conference.
- MichalGill: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16PCvwUQTDwPirun9M_fcIWCKZ8ohjtj3nIjFeWUK3v8/edit?usp=sharing
PayPal: app. 700 EUR
Account: app. 3300 CHF (including 1115 CHF from PPCZ specifically allocated for TT4; also incl. some 600 CHF in PP Switzerland's membership fees that is not yet checked, whether it actually arrived)
Board Meeting Tech
- RayJohansen: etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting_Tech
*PROPOSED ACTION: The board shall discuss whether to continue using Zoom, go back to Mumble or Discord, or consider postphoning it until such a time when ambassadors for Mumble and Discord has had a chance to prepare their documents.
*PROPOSED BY: Raymond Johansen
*PROPOSED ACTION: The board shall discuss whether to continue using Zoom, go back to Mumble or Discord, or consider postphoning it until such a time when ambassadors for Mumble and Discord has had a chance to prepare their documents.
*BACKGROUND: Since the fall of 2017, after extensive testing, PPI have been using Zoom as our main meeting tech. We have used it for the board, membership meetings and two general assemblies. We have made a note of the fact that it is disliked by a few of our members. Their main critisim has been that it is not open source. Technically it has no competitors whatsoever. Nobody even comes close to the quality of sound, video and audio. The board has noted in a meeting, <a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2018_05_07" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; white-space: pre-wrap; cursor: pointer !important;">https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2018_05_07</a>, that since the account is controlled by one board member, should that member get sick or otherwise be unavailable the meeting has to be moved. This can easily be solved so that it does not happen again. The price for Zoom is 14.99 USD per month.
UPDATE: We have been using Discord side by side with Congressus for a few months. As far as I know Congressus is not up for debate. Only Discord is. Someone with better knowledge than me must be the ambassador for Discord. Same goes for Mumble.
All other solutions tested get into trouble as soon as more than two people take part. It is also the solution that demands the least of the users bandwidth. We have had board members participating through 4G from their car. It can, however, be hard on the CPU of clients - especially when encryption is turned on.
The solution, today donated to PPI by a board member, does not cost our organisation or our users any money. It does not spend any of our IT resources either. Our users/members can connect from any device, WiN, Mac, cell phones and tablets. They can also call in with a cell phone or a hard line making it usable from places where they might not have access to hardware. Zoom offers local numbers to call in from in more than 100 countries.
Zoom of course has weaknessess from Unix and Mac clients but non of them prevents user participation. Its functionality surpasses any competitor when it comes to chat, screen share and other types of collaboration.
We have found, during our testing in the board, that being able to see each other while having largely superior sound quality has had positive effects. We speak very different languages and being able to read each others body language has proven to reduce the number of misunderstandings.
*REASONING: Since we are embarking on a new year with several new board members it is only natural that we bring this to the board again. We have a previous decicion to test Zoom while we wait for an open-source solution to become available. We had no end date on that decision. Every solution that had video and screen sharing in addition to voice has been extensively tested over a period of 16 months.
PPFR, who is a "super user" of Discord have signaled that they would like us to use that solution. I suggest that France propose we use Discord as its own agenda item with their separate reasoning.
Mumble, IMHO, has serious weaknessess, two of witch presented itself at our last meeting before the GA. If we pretend that it will work well most times, it has the clear weakness that it offers only audio and no screen sharing.
This proposal does not in any way shape or form exclude or make it impossible for the board to choose a different meeting venue on a case by case basis. If we for instance choose Mumble there is nothing that says that we cannot use Zoom in a meeting when we need it. The invitations should, (48 hours dead line), however contain the correct venue - every time.
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- Etienne: I would like to defend Discord. Discord is free. It also allows us a permanent place to chat and debate. It is something that Zoom or Mumble cannot do easily. I think it is a good compromise for creating a strong community for people to meet and debate. Congressus is also linked to Discord, so it helps for the meeting options. I like Zoom because it is nice to see real people and not just a screen. I think that Discord may in the long term be the best solution to create a space where activists can meet and help us create an international community. We are working on creating new tools to link Discord and conference tools. In a few months we will have the opportunity to create tools that are more permanent for the community.
- RayJohansen: We have postponed this decision several times. We debate whether to have this vote now. We know that the German IT people really want us to use Mumble. I would like to hear their rational for why we should use Mumble. I second Bailey's proposal that we wait one more meeting to finally decide.
- Etienne: I will prepare a short discussion about Discord. It would be good to have a deadline 24 or 48 hours before the meeting to submit.
- BaileyL: Next meeting we will make a final decision. Please prepare arguments before the next meeting.
Board Procedures Addendum
e) Any agenda item not finished shall be put into next meetings proposed agenda. The gen sec or whomever he tasks is responsible for that. (Maybe a pad for next meetings proposed agenda should be linked in the meeting minutes already?)
d) Every decision made must have one single person named as responsible. Said person is also responsible for establishing the task and inputting it into a task management system. (Yet to be selected)
*BACKGROUND: More often than not we end up having a meeting, discussing things with little to no information to base our decisions on. We are simply not well enough prepared. Meetings tend to become a little chaotic and the quality and effectiveness of our work suffers as a result.
*REASONING: Historical transparency, quality and basis for informed and effective decision making.
*PROPOSED TEXT: "The board will from today aim to follow the goals set forth in Board Procedures Addendum: ---> <a href="etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Proposed_Agenda_Item__Board_Procedures_Addendum" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://etherpad.pp-
:YES:
:NO:
:ABSTENTIONS:
: Motion passed/failed
*RESPONSIBLE: Name Lastname, (propose) will implement these rules as soon as practical and make them available on our wiki, internally and externally.
- RayJohansen: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Proposed_Agenda_Item__Board_Procedures_Addendum
- keithgoldstein: I create a pad for the next meeting: https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/july-1-2019-pad-for-agenda-items-6ybf0cb
- Etienne: We need this type of process to be more efficient. We really need a new way to handle tasks, to see how we handle tasks. Will this be added to the board procedures, or is this a good way to work recommendation?
- RayJohansen: This is more about best practice, because we will often have items that come up at the last minute.
- keithgoldstein: These are suggested procedures. We need to vote on them.
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| Description de la motion | |
| Yes : BaileyL (1), RayJohansen (1), MichalGill (1), Etienne (1), keithgoldstein (1)
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- keithgoldstein: Motion is accepted we will add it to the Wiki.
Task
Add Board Procedures Addendum
- RayJohansen: Keith can you implement and adapt this to the Rules of P? https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Board/Rules_of_Procedure
- RayJohansen: Vojta would like to assist us in rewriting the rules of procedures. Does anyone have any opposition to that?
- keithgoldstein: We are very thankful for Vojta's help to rewrite the rules of procedure that he will present to the board.
Template for Meetings
*PROPOSED BY: Raymond Johansen
*PROPOSED ACTION: Proposals for Board meetings should be emailed the board as early as is practical and follow the format set forth in this template:
<a href="https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting__Agenda_Item_Template" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://etherpad.pp-
<a href="https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting__Agenda_Item_Template" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://etherpad.pp-
*BACKGROUND: More often than not we end up having a meeting, discussing things with little to no information to base our decisions on. We are simply not well enough prepared. Meetings tend to become a little chaotic and the quality and effectiveness of our work suffers as a result.
*REASONING: We should include a minimum amount of information at an early stage, with the goal of transparency, quality and basis for informed and effective decision making.
*PROPOSED TEXT: "From today the board will be using the following template to propose agenda items for board meetings. <a href="https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting__Agenda_Item_Template" target="_blank" data-saferedirecturl="" style="color: rgb(17, 85, 204);">https://etherpad.pp-
:YES:
:NO:
:ABSTENTIONS:
: Motion passed/failed
*RESPONSIBLE: Name Lastname will add this to our wiki and find a way to make sure the template is accessible internally and externally.
- keithgoldstein: Below you will find a [link to a] template that stipulates what a proposed agenda item should include. It is shaped so as to force us to include a minimum amount of information at an early stage, with the goal of transparency, quality and basis for informed decisionmaking. Email this to board@pp-international.net. Any member affiliated person can submit proposed agenda items. The proposal will only be discussed and voted on by the board if the meeting accepts the proposal and includes it in the proceedings.
TEMPLATE: ===> https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting__Agenda_Item_Template
Example of a proposal using the template ==> https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/Board_Meeting_Tech
Insert short title here
- PROPOSED BY: Name Lastname
- PROPOSED ACTION: Write a short description of the action, a little more akin to a title, that will make it easy to refrence the case in side channels like Signal or Wire.
- BACKGROUND: Explain the background and history of the proposed item giving board members and those who read it later an understanding of where we have been.
- REASONING: Explain why this item is proposed
- PROPOSED TEXT: "Insert propsed text"
- YES:
- NO:
- ABSTENTIONS:
- Motion passed/failed
- RESPONSIBLE: Name Lastname, (proposed) will....
- keithgoldstein: The following is the link for the next meeting:https://etherpad.pp-international.net/p/july-1-2019-pad-for-agenda-items-6ybf0cb
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| Motion | |
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| Description de la motion | |
| Yes : RayJohansen (1), BaileyL (1), Etienne (1), MichalGill (1), keithgoldstein (1)
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- keithgoldstein: The person responsible will be Keith, who adds it to the Wiki and keep it on the agenda pads.
Any Other Business
UN Updates
- keithgoldstein: Volunteers have been going to several events in Geneva and NY. It would be great to get more updates on the meetings and events. It would be great if we could have more people visit and even speak with the board.
Slovak Pirates
- MichalGill: We have several visiting Pirates from the Slovak Pirate Party. Mention is made of each of them. We have a speaker present.
- keithgoldstein: The Slovak Pirate Party wants to be a member of PPI. Thank you for coming by and greeting us.
German Pirates Proposal
- keithgoldstein: There is an idea to have a proposal about Julian Asange and other issues.
- RayJohansen: Adding Chelsea Manning to that.
Upcoming Meeting
<tbody></tbody>| 250 | 9 | Monday | 01.07.2019 | 19:00 CEST | <a href="https://wiki.pp-international.net/wiki/index.php?title=PPI_Minutes_2019_07_01&action=edit&redlink=1" class="new" title="PPI Minutes 2019 07 01 (page does not exist)" style="color: rgb(165, 88, 88); background-image: none; background-position: initial; background-size: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial;">Minutes</a> |
- BaileyL: We will be making a final decision about the tech, so if you have a tech tool that you think we should be using, make sure that you are ready to talk about it at the next meeting, laying out your arguments.
- BaileyL: Thank you to our Slovak guests, who are hopefully going to become members.
- keithgoldstein: Meeting closed at 22:17 CEST
Ayant participé à un vote
- 5 - BaileyL
- 6 - RayJohansen
- 9 - MichalGill
- 3 - Etienne
- 4 - keithgoldstein
