Freegle Board Minutes 24 September 2014

Minutes of the Meeting of Directors of Freegle Limited 24 September 2014 at 7.15 by Skype Chat

Chairman

Edward Hibbert

Polling

http://polls.modtools.org/

Directors Present

Jacky Barrett, John Carroll, Ollie Clark, Cat Fletcher, Edward Hibbert, Andrew Ludlow, Alison Redway, Tina Willcox

The meeting commenced at 19.15

Apologies for Absence

None

Declarations of Interest

Edward is a Director of Recycling Lives. There are no conflicts at present.

Edward has a financial interest in a charitable fundraising venture from which Freegle may benefit. He will not receive any financial benefit from donations made via this route to Freegle.

Risk Register

This item was carried forward to the next meeting.

Action - Edward

Fundraising

Edward outlined a project that he is involved with that aims to develop a social network for charity. Edward suggested that Freegle sign up to this site so that we can accept donations. He has negotiated a 0% fee, so this means that we get all of £1 + Gift Aid for donations via this route. That makes it cheaper than Virgin Giving.

Edward has a financial interest in this overall project. He would not be receiving any portion of a donation made to Freegle, but corporates might be making a separate payment to have their charitable donation promoted (this is a revenue stream to fund this project) and he would have a financial interest in that. If we signed up Freegle could reasonably expect to start receiving donations from October of this year.

We agreed to recommend to the Reps that Freegle UK should sign up to this. We will continue to run other fundraising methods alongside.

Votes: 7 For, 1 Abstain

Action - Alison - Pass to Reps for polling.

Mobile Phone App

Chris Cant presented the Board with a draft specification for a mobile phone app for Freegle Direct groups, primarily aimed at Android and IOS phones, though tablets will also be supported as well as potentially other platforms such as Windows phones. He has requested funding from Freegle for this.

Chris has suggested initially two stages of development and requires £5,000 in total. There are potentially other stages of development.

He has secured funding of £1,000 from Sustain Eden and is also applying for £1,000 from Cumbria County Council. Cumbria would require a logo within the app in return for funding. The app would be trialled in Cumbria and Chris hopes to release the app by the end of 2014.

Chris would carry out the work via his company PHD Computer Consultants Ltd. The end result would belong to Freegle UK/Freegle Ltd and Chris would support it as best he can, thereafter for free, though any funding for improvements would be welcome. Edward Hibbert would be able to provide support for the app in the event of Chris not being able to do this.

We unanimously agreed to recommend to the Reps that Freegle UK pay Chris Cant £1k now with a view to £2k (total if other funding isn't found) to get us to a product.

Action: Alison - pass to Reps for polling

Reports

Finance

John is liaising with Unity Trust Bank over the opening of a bank account and awaiting the signed mandate from the proposed account signatories.

Action - John

Account Signatories

Company Secretary

Andy is compiling the confidential details for the Directors that are needed for the Register and charity registration.

Action - Andy

Board Secretary

Recording Votes in Minutes

At the request of a Volunteer we considered how we should record votes in the Board meeting minutes.

We unanimously agreed that we will publish the number of votes for specific questions. If a Director is standing for subsequent re-election then volunteers are welcome to ask questions about anything they like, including voting patterns, and the candidate will choose how to answer.

Action - Alison - update Board meeting procedure on wiki.

Returning Officer Vacancy

Under the Rules of the Industrial and Provident Society the Returning Officers are appointed by the Company Secretary. The Company Secretary will consult with the whole Board before making an appointment. There is currently a vacancy for a Returning Officer.

We unanimously agreed that we should advertise the vacancy for a Returning Officer on Central.

Action - Alison

Volunteer Welfare

Tina will lead a discussion on strategies for volunteer welfare. We will review this at the next meeting.

Action - Tina

All to contribute to Trello Board

Chief Technology Officer

Cat met with Justin of Reyooz and Cat and Edward are hoping to meet him in London in November.

Edward is looking into data protection and will report to the next meeting.

Action - Edward

Media

Cat has been talking to http://www.re-cycle.org and will report on this shortly.

Action - Cat

In agreement with the Reps, Cat has allocated £1,000 from the donation restricted to media for sponsorship to Fotodocument - http://fotodocument.org/foto-commissions/. The exhibitions are in tourist venues in Brighton for ten months starting on 5 October. Cat has agreed to report monthly, specifically so that we can measure the impact as a guide if we consider spending on similar projects in future.

Action - Cat

Cat has agreed to lead a board discussion on how best we can get more groups involved in local promotion.

Action - Cat

Cat has 5,000 business cards available for Freegle groups.

Health and Safety

Ollie presented a role and remit for this post.

Policy

Jacky reported that the GAT team have been reviewing and updating their policies and procedures. These will be the next policies to be polled on via the Yahoo Board group.

The Returning Officer/Polling/Elections documents are the next to be reviewed.

Action - Jacky

Insurance

The PLI/Employer Liability insurance policy has been renewed in the name of Freegle Ltd and Freegle UK; when that comes into force the related wiki documentation will be updated. We need a volunteer to administer the insurance.

We will advertise on Central for a Volunteer to administer the insurance.

Action - Jacky

Date of Next Meeting

Wednesday 29 October at 7.15.

CONSENT AGENDA

We agreed unanimously:

1. Minutes of the meetings of 270814 and 030914

030914 - https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FreegleBoard/polls/poll/13221456?

270814 - https://uk.groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/FreegleBoard/polls/poll/13221023?

2. Adopt policies and procedures

Abandoned Group Procedure https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HZqYicwce3xYWPiEi6mdBbEeonTEcH4GbwgKKp5rWG0/edit?usp=sharing 8 votes for adoption received

Freegle Ltd Membership Information https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zx3WUnePLz2cHK_De0ugX51C_eYFygBIl4Y1V4jRgvA/edit?usp=sharing 8 votes for adoption received

The meeting ended at 20.49.