Wikimedia South Africa/Board Meeting/6 November 2018

WMZA Board meeting

6 November 2018 | 18h30

Attendance[edit]

Yonela
Ian
Michael
Bobby
Rossouw (Jitsi Meet page kept crashing; followed on this etherpad; will have better connection in future. Apologies)
Raymond
Douglas (left at 19h00 to join WMF call)

All new board members should have access to the basic infrastructure (wiki, email, whatsapp, zulip). Anyone with difficulties to contact Ian
1-grid have hugely increased their hosting fee and have not been responsive to queries
Ian still investigating moving or improving this

Douglas: The foundation has made it clear that they will not fund the staff we proposed to hire. The main reason is that they have the impression that we are not a fully functional board.
The impression is that the board is fully dependent on one or two people.
Board and chapter needs to improve its reporting and engagement.

Douglas has been president, no longer an option for the staff hire
Douglas had to step out to join WMF call, so the rest of this discussion to be held later

Discussion on current draft grant budget. Douglas requires feedback today due to his WMF deadline. Michael lodged a last-minute proposal for a hackathon early next year; Douglas proposed a ball-park event budget for it of R10 000
Problems with current systems. Bookkeepers pay once a week, this is sometimes too slow (as in arrangements for AGM)
Douglas/Bobby has to make personal payments and get reimbursed later. This is not ideal.
- Q) Why do we require bookkeepers to make payments instead of board members
- A) Previous financial processes were not good, payments were unaccounted for, not correctly allocated etc. Aim for better reporting and accountability
- Problem was particularly around ATM withdrawals
To enquire about alternatives to the week delay (Bobby/Douglas)
Bookkeeper statements are currently sent to Douglas, and Bobby only. Should be sent to the board mailing list (Bobby/Douglas)

Agreement that a planning session to plan 1st quarter 2019 activities is needed, as getting everyone together at one time over voice is difficult with 9 board members and unreliable internet
Move some of the discussion to Zulip where it can be broken down in chunks, open to all, not just board members
Discussion on metric used for reporting South African languages in 2019 (articles, total editors, active edits), further discussion on Zulip
Ran out of time, meeting closed at 19h30