[BoST Call, Sep 19, 7 pm GMT - General Call of provisional BoST 23

Global Coordination Board Of Stewardship
#1

Meeting on Skype (Google hangout as back-up, link will be posted here).

Please confirm your participation BoST

Moderator: _____
Scribe: _________

AGENDA

#1. Hi & Introduction Round

Are there new people? Let’s have a quick introduction round. And please everyone tell us how you are.

#2. Bank Account & Invoices

There are have several issues to solve regarding bank accounts and payment. (Also posted here.)

(1) No bank account anymore – but money left in it
Since we did not found an association we also don’t have a bank account anymore. Janosch already shut it down – or is in the process of it. There is still some money left from sponsoring 2015 after Janosch payed the legal expenses he had with founding the association and for his work. The question is what to do with the remaining money – where to transfer it to and how before the account can be closed.

(2) Paypal including Donation Button becomes useless
Without a bank account the paypal account stops working as well as far as I understand. The best use for it we had was the donation button. But it never worked. Although there was tons of traffic on the page not a single donation was made (except one from Silvia). I suggest to take down the donation button and to lay the paypal account to rest till we come up with a use case for it again.

(3) Invoices coming in
There are invoices coming in for OSCEdays hosting. And not just some pennies. How to cover them? For now I – @Lars2i – started to cover them from my personal money. But I prefer to pay it with the OSCEdays money we have left.

SUGGESTION for all of it:

This is what I suggest to do for now: I have a personal Paypal account I am not using. I can use it to pay the invoices. I would like to ask Janosch to transfer all the money left in the bank (around 700 Euro) to the OSCEdays Paypal account. From there we should be able to transfer it to my Paypal account. There the money can stay and I use it to pay the bills. I will of course do proper accounting – write down all the numbers, collect and share the invoices and so on – and will also give another person in the BoST access to my PayPal so there is another person that can check if everything what is happening is correct.

What do you think? Green light?

##3. DIF Collaboration

We had a call with Joe about the collaboration sending him this proposal. They really liked it and asked for a budget. We prepared one which will be enough to set up a propper event, propper communication and propper content - hire people to do this work. We haven’t heard back so far. Of course this brings up the question whom to hire?

But anyhow. We should start a discussion what to do with the money - whom to hire/pay, why and so on - and how to make decisions about it and be transparent and inclusive about it. It should not look like @BoST is paying itself for OSCEdays work automatically. It is a bit more difficult without an association in place to sort it out. Let’s have a quick dive in to this discussion today before we build it up.

##4. Progress With Reinvention Of OSCEdays

@Lars2i - I made progress with the OSCEdays rebuild.

There is a proposal for a new Participation Guide with a new Onboarding Strategy and also a template for ACTION protocols. And there is more in the pipe going online in the coming days/weeks for your feedback and further development. Please share feedback and follow the progress HERE.

##5. Moderator For Facebook Group Needed
We need someone to take care of the OSCEdays Facebook-Group: Adding new people, deleting spam, kicking out spammers and so on. Sam and Jaime used to do it I guess but they both don’t have the time for it anymore. Who is up for the task?

##6. Election Of New BoST Update

Current count =8: Lars, Sharon, Julia, Silvia, Johnny, Gien, Melanie, Erica
Deadline: Sep 30, 2016
Please continue to sign up

##7. add
… add what you got …October BoST meeting in Berlin - confirm dates, participants.

[BoST] OSCEdays Board Of Stewardship – About, Meetings & How To Join
#2

Great. This is wonderful, agriculture is the way leading to economy stability. With this, we can build a home to feed the world. There are millions of children including parents sleep with hunger. I KNOW WE CAN HELP. I will be glad to be part of this discussion if necessary.

1 Like
#3

Hi team,

are we meeting tonight at 7pm GMT?

1 Like
#4

@gien jepp, we do - and we will have probably two new people in the call :slight_smile: - @transitionmica & @seigorobinson

#5

I don’t get how @jsk 's comment relates to the topic above, what am I missing?

#6

I don’t think you are missing something :slight_smile: - I think he missed the correct topic. I think the comment was supposed to be somewhere else. Happened to me too.

#7

thanks, I thought it might relate to something you’ve talked about another time

#8

Minutes:

S: Sylvia
P: Paul
M: Maike
Segio: Segio
G: Gien
L: Lars

1 Intros

Gien: Gien from Cape Town. I can bring OSCE Days to Well Being Festival 2017 I am helping to organize at U of Pretoria next year

Maike: In Berlin. Met Lars offline. Part of Transition Movement and push idea of nutrient cycle. Open sourcing knowledge on this.

Paul Bristow: I’ve consulted for 25 years. OS hacker space in Geneva founder and innovation lab founder - working on circular economy.

Seigo: Attended London OSCE Days and setup Cambridge. Head up circular economy dept of firm. Head of manuf reuse. Know euro folks in cir economy but I’m keen to learn OS. Received WInston Churchill grant to study circ economy pricniples applied to social issues.

Sylvia: Local organizer in indiana. Delighted to be part of OSCE Days Manuf eng by trade so interested in industry applications. Same approach as Seigo - grass root level, local scale, less at corporate level. The work we are doing will make these two concepts successful.

Lars: Lot more people on BOST but some not here. Lets go to agenda

2 Bank and Accounts

Association setup. We had founding meeting but made mistake in statutes. Have to do it again. We got little funding last year so decided to divert to future when we have a large sum of money. This is why we have to close down our bank account. What do we do with the money in the account? We had paypal account as well on page. I read they never work and this was our experience. We didn’t get any donations. I suggest we remove it. Any feedback?

M: Any oustanding costs?

L: None. Paypal is free

M: If it doesn’t cost us anything, what can we do to make it work? We can just leave it for now.
L: agreed. 3rd thing. More hosting invoices coming in. 250 Eu. Forum: pay monthly 10 Euros. How? I have been paying personally but would like to use OSCE Days money. I suggest we make Yanosh transfer all money to paypal then to my paypal which i only use for OSCE days and we can pay for the next 3 years. I can do all accounting transparently on funding category and give 1 or 2 BOST members access to my paypal account for transparency.

G: I’m fine with it.
M: What is difference between OSCE Days and your paypal?
L: Problem is that if you don’t have bank acct attached to paypal, you have problems.
M: They allow but it’s useless because hard to get money into the account. Bank doesn’t accept anymore?
L: because there’s no legal entity behind it
Seigo: Donation button: When they work, there is call-to-action. Like wikipedia one week ask. So we can do a call to action and that’s when it would be used.
M: Techinically doesn’t work?
L: Technically it works, but nobody gives unless you have a call-to-action.
M: It’s not prominent in forum
L: It’s not in forum, it’s on the website
M: It skipped my attention. That could be the reason why it doesn’t work
P: It looks like it’s in the top menu so may be missed
L: So keep it but place more prominent
P: Yes, right hand corner where preferences are. then they will see it.
M: People need to know how much is there and how much is needed. That’s more encouraging rather than random donation. For current expenditure, you should not pay out of your own pocket.
L: Future website and also on forum for button placement
M: It would be advantagous to be transparent about what our costs are and what it’s being used for. If 700 Euro lasts 3 years, they can see we are frugal
P: We can make it simple: It costs us X Euros to run the website. Then you know how much is needed.
L: I like these ideas. Let’s have more discussion around these suggestions
P: It’s part of the renewal of OSCE Days: what should legal entity be, etc…

3 DIF

We were approached by EMF on DIF They asked us to run DIF labs for them. We said yes, but only if you have a budget for us. There’s a proposal in the agenda. We said 25K euros. They said they didn’t plan for that. They said send to them. They are processing. We sent last thu and he was at conference. Joe has to check with others. I suggest we wait 2 or 3 days and ask for conclusions.

S: They got well itemized list. Maybe they have somebody who can donate space. They have networks so may have in kind contributions. We didn’t think about the minimum we would accept. We started with high but didn’t think about the minimum. Maybe we need to think about this.

M: Where is this?
L: I just posted in skype. There’s one hidden category only visible to BOST.
M: It says I have no access because I’m not a member yet. How did you arrive at this number?
L: Johnny suggested we go high. This concept requries a lot of work and reflects peple doing this work paid. It’s in the chat now.
M: So it’s to pay for people’s time and effort
L: yes, and includes one event…could be in Berlin. Also includes travel budget so we can have a physical meeting with the international team. This travel cost is the majority of the cost.
M: If we do in Berlin, we can host our guests for free. I can host 8 people in Transition Space.
L: Great!
S: Great. One more problem. Joe promised he would give us a budget but he did not do this. We have no idea what they were thinking of. If they thought 2K euro and we are thinking 25K euro, then it’s not feasible.
L: We should have asked
Seigo: they are not always clear. They probably see OSCE Days as useful outsourcing. They are probably surprised. Probably come back with a reduced value.
L Johnny said they have funds
Seigo: but they are also tight
L: Let’s assume there’s a budget. We have to create a budget allocation process. Who will do the work, at what cost…so it doesn’t look like BOST is keeping all the money. How do we make decisions and involve people in this. I haven’t thought about this yet, but time has come.
M: We had it once before when you put up a Job description when we had money to pay someone. It’s important to put out a proper job description and they have to provide CV, references that can be confirmed. Then it’s transparent.
L: Agreed. QUestion is who makes the final decision and why.
Seigo: BOST group members may want to apply for this and be excluded from decision process.
M: Should be made clear that next round of BOST elections, this is one of the jobs BOST duties
L: Right now, we have no clear guidelines on who is on BOST
S: Not quite. We agreed that Sept 30 we stop informal BOST and then after this, we have new BOST, open to everyone
M: We have no mechanism that this BOST was representative to be on board when we already have two Berlin members already and would weight Berlin more than others.
S: That shouldn’t be a reason. We need active people. Will we have right geographic rep? Maybe not? But we are pretty good right now. We don’t have anyone from South America but we are pretty well covered. Also Berlin is very active node so shouldn’t surprise anybody that there is more rep
L I see same way
M: BOST is natural place to decide these things. ONce we publish they next BOST is for giving out money for events, we should do that before we clse the list so people are aware what is involved. Give people time to decide if they want to participate.
Seigo: We are meant to be discussing DIF proposal. If accepted,t his vehicle has to come up with selection critieria in a month. Might be good to determine who how when if green light was given tomorrow.
L: True. we had to decide quickly. If we make mistake now, it could be a big problem. So far, it’s volunteer. Soon as you put in lots of money, we have to be careful. Who calls the shot on this. So it doesn’t look to outside world that someone joins and they have access to the funds.
M: If people can join the calls like I did today, there’s the inner circle then you have visitors who can influence the debate but we need to have clarity who is on the board and the others can join in and discuss but the decision is made by people who know the whole process know more of the background so can’t go for any whim someone brings in. It’s difficult to give everyone the same vote at times. With paypal, was easy to explain but sometimes it’s not that easy.
P: One way to handle this: have mutliple levels; BOST people have responsibilites for managing. Tasks outside of that are circulated amongst members. 1st level doing day to day basis, then members, then go outside. Make transparent rules clear upfront. If there is money coming in then…Then you can choose to participate or not. BOST needs to decide the rules and make clear and transparent. Need to create a biz model canvas of funding. Make as a association, NPO or something else but has to be totally clear.
M: For current situation, create a topic for job description for the event. Anyone in community can comment on it. So not BOST making opaque rules, but an open discussion about what kinds of jobs can be set up first if we want to run professionally. Someone should be doing as a paid job and it is in the job description.
P: Don’t need to give huge time. If they don’t respond in 3 days they won’t.
M: It’s to show them transparently
S: It already is except of funding issues because we dont’ have a clear legal structure. Our conversation today will be avail to everyone. It’s a way to test who is continuously interested, not just June. Everything we discuss is available for everyone.
M: The more transparent we make it, the less it looks like we are making jobs for ourselves
Seigo: I sit on a few boards. there’s a clear tension now that it’s in formative stages and will be blurry lines. In medium or longer term, whatever this forum becomes - land in sand - we cannot do paid work - if that is ultimate goal, in near term, people here can apply for these jobs
L We said this for organization we said all voluntary. ONce there is a budget, we make it transparent, put out clear job descriptions and decide. We need to start in future.

#9

Seigo: if and when budget is approved, a good chunk is location specific.
L: true. Next item

4 Progress with Reinvention of OSCEDays

Based on what we learned. OSCE Days is so philosphical they don’t know what practical things to do with it. We want to show we are facilitating action and experience it before understanding it. Brand is now open all year instead of just once a year. Last BOST we said let’s develop it. I spent time doing this and came up with lots of stuff and shared and happy for feedback. I made first templates and drafts and get feedback. I put out first draft participation guide. THere’s a new onboarding process as well. The old process was time consuming. Most didn’t use forum. New process - people create forum topic describing event. Why OS and why CE? Is it serious engagement. This makes them use the forum. It’s all published in this topic.

S: Thanks L. It’s hard work and I am grateful while rest of us are catching up.
L: I"m happy to do it. I’m excited about it. Joe likes it too. It’s fun to come up with this.
M: I looked at it and like the idea of making people use forum to join. That was lacking - the doccie. That’s a great loss. If we have documentation and it’s in language we can’t read. They did great stuff but you don’t really know.
Seigo: I tried facilitating to get stuff online and struggled. I wanted to be everyone’s friend but also had to be a policeman but it must be two roles.
L: We found this. Attending event and creating doccie are two different things entirely. Then you have to police.
M: We did a good trial event : Commons SUmmer School 1 week workshop. Everyday designate one person to make sure eveyrthing in for the day, and another person to check documentation. One pushy person and one other person to make sure they have a few pictures. Point was to break it up into smaller pieces so it’s not a lot of effort. One person can then keep track of everyone. Organizers were overloaded.
L Second step: new actions: doccies is necessary part. Cant’ run without doccie.
M: Try help people with easy ways of doccie. Don’t always have to write. Maybe take pic.
L: Exactly. Depends on actions. I.e. we have OSC machines. Take picture and share it in forum. Rest of doccie, ask them at project website. ie. does it make sense to make precious plastic at OSCE Days? At least post one pic at forum to motivate others and to have someone who can be a reference for others interested in
M: I find this helpful: collaborative text writing normally done on spline pad. Ie discussion like now, not just Gien writing , but everyone is logged on and everyone is writing while one person is speaking. In some groups, it works very well. Problem: have to have good internet. Positive: do it while event is happening, no more work after event. Can we implement tool like this?
L: We have a pad. It can make sense
M:But it wasn’t used for this purpose
L: We can suggest this method. I will invite hackers to document at next week event.
M: One of our challenges: how to document well. When you tell people they need to document if they want to join. We support them by saying we udnerstand it’s a learning curve
P: Doccie structure makes it easier for people. I"m struggling as well with UN: We have doccie at end of day ready so they don’t have to sit down and type for hours
L: Depends on the action. Design action so that doccie comes with it. ie. material dbase for circular materials. Action: add one item to dbase. Contribution is the resulting doccie. Sam wrote a good article but still hard.
S: We want to clarify. Belonging to our community is two way street. You must share knowledge. How do we deal with those who don’t want to? Core of our community is sharing knowledge. You can record whatever way you can - phone, text, videos - so many ways. THere should be no excuses. How to penalize? I don’t know? We can highlight good doccies that emerged so there are benchmarks. even if not detailed. At least have summary.
M: Just fill in the blanks. Probably easier if it’s like online form so when you signup, you have to fill in the form first.
L :We have to come up with more creative ways:
G: Use google doc templates and make these forms
L: True
M: Set deadlines too. Reminders help too.
P: Give prizes!
L: Paul, you said :post - hackathon - very little activity.
G: apply human psychology
P: In fact, use FB group, etc
G: The human factor: wow You did a great job. That has a lot of potential
M: One good point about forum: Soon as you start new topic, you already get feedback. That’s working quite well.
L: To sum it up: M, do you want to open a new topic, write some of these ideas from Gien’s minutes and add more?
M: Sure, but not until next week because I have an event coming up. I’ll put it up

5: New moderator for FB group.

L: Sam and Jamie don’t have time. Check every 2 days,…add people, remove spam.
Seigo: I can do it.
L: Great! I give you the powers.If they post inapproriate stuff, delete. If they do again, kick them out.

6 Re-election to BOST

If Paul, Seigo, Mika want to be on BOST, please apply.

M: I was a bit hesitant for reasons mentioned but also see Sam is not in it anymore.
S: Also important is roles…suggest roles that best suit you because we have to have different people doing different functions. Ideally you should do something aligned to your interests
If we have 3 people wanting to do the same row then we have to discuss it.
M: Do we have list of what is needed?
L: No. We are in restructuring stage. It will be clearer in 2 months time, then we will know what the regular jobs will be.
M: If we don’t have yet, we need to start documenting what roles we need to take on. Next time we have call, people can know what they are getting themselves into. During year, we start document roles we are performing then next year we will have that. When you ask people for participation, they want to know what they are getting into.
L: Funding people, media, newsletter, etc…
M: People at the signup site: can we add this functions there.
What about item 7?

7 Oct BOST Meeting

L: We should ask people who would be interested so they can start investigating and check options.
L: We should sent email and see if people want to have this meeting now or postpone to DIF lab.

.

1 Like
#10

@Gien Thank you so much for typing this, it helps a lot to be able to read it again.

to all of us: if we find anything that needs any addition or correction we should do it within the week so we don’t forget. We can do that in the comments here.

#11

What I meant was: when you start a new topic the forum immediately shows which other topics/projects are related. that’s great because it creates and highlights connection you may otherwise not know of. It’s been of great use and inspiration to me.

1 Like
#12

We designated people for individual periods, like one workshop session which is not so much when you also have collaborative writing: that person would only need to go over it at the end to make sure it’s all understandable and complete. And the person responsible for the day only needs to make sure that all sessions have done their bit, don’t need to do any actual documentation. The organizers are then relseased of this task and can focus on all the other bits.

In OSCEBerlin we had the morning assembly where such tasks could be given out before the day starts.

#13

We talked about that the best ‘prize’ is recognition and attention, showing an interest and promoting the best projects also outside of OSCEplatform.

#14

Thanks for the comments, eveyrone.