Structure Group Report 2013-04-30

STRUCTURE GROUP REPORT, April 2013

http://freegle.it/Structure

This is a summary of discussions since our last report of 30th March, covering messages 12002 to 12080. Membership stands at 76 (no change since last month).

Getting Involved

We feel it is important to have new input and fresh opinions so why don’t you join the group and let us know what you think?

The topics we have discussed this month are below:

Task 95 - Specialist Group Affiliation

GAT have been asked to comment on the suggestion that they ask for someone to act in the capacity of national representative when setting up a new closed group and to keep a list of who those people are. We are awaiting their reply, then proposed amendments to affiliation for specialist groups can be recommended.

Task 79 - Consider Freegle’s UK Coverage

We continued to discuss this, noting that there are areas of high population that don’t have the opportunity to easily use a Freegle group. We ran a poll: " Where there are gaps in provision, Freegle can proactively encourage new groups to be set up, in line with this policy.", which was carried by 26 votes (86.67%) to 4 (13.33%). The proposal was taken to Central, where a similar poll is presently being held.

Task 101 - Paying for Services, and Reps

We have just started a new, delicate, discussion about whether it is OK to pay Reps for services. Ongoing.

Trading Subsidiary Team Report

The Team gave us a monthly report to say that the Cooperative Enterprise Hub approved an initial two days of support for Freegle and appointed Co-operative Assistance Network Limited (CAN) to help - their Brian Titley is a now a member of the Team. Organisational membership and structure issues are being worked through.

Task List

Since Structure group was started up in September 2009 we have run a task list. During that time we have been given 102 tasks. Of those, we have 27 outstanding, 8 of which are tied in with the present discussions on a Trading Subsidiary, 1 is currently being discussed and 3 are awaiting input from other teams/groups.

The next task on the list for discussion will be to consider whether we should place an obligation on individual volunteers who secure funding for Freegle purposes to report it to Central in the interest of transparency - a kind of "register of interests". If you have views on this, please do join in the discussion!

Group ‘Personnel’

Peter (Hunts) resigned as Deputy Coordinator of this group on 29th March. We would like to thank him for all his hard work and support. Peter always managed to cut through the babble of discussion and come up with succinct, plainly written suggestions on a variety of documents that we have worked through on the group. He will be missed here and on all other central groups.

The Coordinator for this group is Jacky (Great Yarmouth) and Secretary is Wendy (Woodley) Owners are Jacky and Wendy.

Back to Structure Group Report 2013-03-31, forwards to Structure Group Report 2013-05-31