Structure Group Report 2012-02-29
STRUCTURE GROUP REPORT
February 2012
This is a summary of discussions since our last report of 31st January 2012, covering messages 9833 to 9982. Our membership stands at 69 (one less than last month).
The topics we have discussed this month are below.
Task 66 - Co-opting Powers
Continues from previous report.
This is about the powers of Reps and Returning Officer/Ombudsman teams to co-opt in the event of an elected member leaving before their term is up.
We had a 7 day consultation on Central and a poll (on Central) was called to clarify the results. Post no. 25785 on Central on Jan 21st [1]. The poll was run for 7 days.
Poll on Co-opting Powers. If an elected post becomes vacant in the period between the end of the auto-promotion period and the next scheduled election for that post (not the end of term for the post holder that is being replaced), should the relevant team of elected role holders be able to co-opt someone into that position until the next election if they wish to? Points both for and against this idea are given in Central message no. 25784 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreegleUK-Central/message/25784.
Results:
Yes 29 votes 67%
No 11 votes 25%
Abstain 3 votes 6% None of the abstainers explained why they did so, but the 'yes' vote achieved a clear majority so this will be included in the next national poll.
Task completed.
Task 59 - Defining ‘Not For Profit’
Continues from previous report.
After research we have come to the conclusion that there is no legal definition of ‘Not For Profit’ so it has been decided to keep the wording as it is in the affiliation criteria and look at this again if necessary in the future. If there are specific issues that need to be decided they can be discussed on a working group so a definition of non profit/not for profit might evolve rather than us spending a lot of time trying to tie everything down. Jacky and David drafted a new document Non-Profit Guidelines and tidied up the wiki in general so the term 'non-profit' is used consistently.
Task completed.
Task 48 - Panel pool members
Looking at methods of attracting panel pool members for arbitration/appeals/mediation: Some suggestions have been made in order to improve and simplify the process for Panel Pool members, making taking up the post less daunting in the first place and helping to address some of the problems the previous panel pool experienced.
We discussed what was needed in panel pool or mediation panels and Jacky drafted a recruitment paragraph for the Ombudsman to post to Central and/or FreeSpout.
Task completed.
Task 52 - Asset Security
We are considering how best to secure our domain names for Freegle.
We have started by listing the assets people consider to need securing (such as freegle.org.uk , ilovefreegle.org, freespout.org.uk etc) which are currently all owned by individual people who aren’t all still active members of Freegle. We are looking into centralising ownership, or at least access to these domains. Research is underway and discussion continues...
One Stop Shop
The One Stop Shop (OSS) is getting out of date. The 'active' parts of the OSS are still used by some groups but the 'static' information is largely out of date. Unfortunately only Richard (squeaky) has full access to it, so we are a bit stuck at the moment to change it and the option to redo it elsewhere needs someone with the time to do it, which we don’t have at the moment.
The first aim is to get a list of what is on the OSS and what is on the wiki. We can then transfer any relevant static information from the OSS to the wiki. After that, perhaps someone might have the time to redo the active parts of the OSS or we might be able to get in contact with Richard to get access.
Streamlining Working Groups
A message was sent to Start. People and Structure outlining a proposal to change the split of responsibilities between the groups and reduce three working groups to two (a lot less reading!). We ran the following poll on Structure:
We should extend the remit of Structure group to include all policy and procedural business of Freegle, in line with the proposal in message 9961 http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/Freegle-Structure/message/9961.
o Yes 14 votes 82%
o No 1 vote 5%
o Abstain (please explain) 2 votes 11%
Reasons for abstaining were: “because I think more consideration needs to be given to the remits of the proposed groups.” and “because I don't think this restructure is worth doing, but given where we are I wouldn't want to vote disagree.”
Archiving non-active volunteer Freegle groups
It has been suggested that we archive some groups that are no longer in use, eg. groups used for specific tasks such as Panels and groups that were general support or discussion groups and are no longer being used.
We are discussing the best ways to go about this, which groups need to be archived, which need to be deleted for confidentiality reasons and how long the groups need to be dormant before we archive/delete them.
Task 73 - Mailbox use
The main Freegle mailbox has a remit, but we haven't established any guidelines for using 'official' Freegle email addresses. We have added it to our task list.
Task List
Our Task List can be viewed at [2]
If any of the above topics interest you, or if you have proposals about the structure of Freegle to suggest, please do join our group. [3]
The Coordinator for this group is Jacky (Great Yarmouth) Deputy Coordinator is Peter Johnson (Hunts) and Secretary is Wendy (Woodley) Owners are Jacky, Peter and Wendy.
Back to Freegle Structure or Structure Group Report 2012-01-31, or forwards to Structure Group Report 2012-03-31
