Report of the Board Camp conducted at Bangalore on 20, 21 & 22 September
2014
Dear members and other concerned friends,
A Board Camp (a face to face meeting of the members of the Executive
Committee along with several formal and informal meetings with other
stakeholders of WMIN) was conducted at the office of CIS, Indira Nagar,
Bangalore on 20th, 21st and 22nd of September.
A brief description of the schedule of the camp is given below:
20/09/2014 9:00 15:30 Deliberations and discussions on WMIN’s
state of affairs, immediate and midterm future plans and appointment of a
new Program Director (PD).
20/09/2014 15:30 17:00 Consultation with Mr. MN Rao, the Legal and
financial expert consultant, on various aspects such as rules and
regulations on the membership eligibility, compliance on AGM scheduling and
election rules as per the Government law and the Chapter’s Memorandum of
Association, validation of the legal compliance of all actions performed
by the EC during the previous several weeks etc.
20/09/2014 17:00 19:00 Meeting with the Election Committee. The EC
and Election Committee deliberated and exchanged views on the election
procedure and decided on a tentative schedule for the Election / AGM date.
20/09/2014 19:30 21:00 Informal dinner meetup and discussions with
former WMIN EC members, Executive Manager Sowmyan Tirumurthy and the new
Program Director Designate (Ravishankar Ayyakannu) on the formation of an
Advisory Committee to the board. From among the former EC members, Arjuna
Rao Chavala and Naveen Francis participated in this meet.
21/09/2014 10:00 13:30 Board meeting, passing resolutions on
various chapter affairs and determining AGM date.
21/09/2014 13:30 16:00 Community Meet-up. The EC and the new PD
met some of the community members from Bangalore.
21/09/2014 16:00 21:00 Discussions on Budgets, FDC and other
financial affairs, program planning
22/09/2014 09:30 13:00 Bank documentations and visit to the branch
for transfer of authority signatures.
Major decisions taken and policy stands evolved during the Board Camp:
1.
To the extent and degrees possible, the WMIN will attempt to publish all
its procedures, minutes of the meetings, resolutions and such other
information to the public through appropriate channels such as its members
wiki, members mail list, public wiki, blogs, relevant mail lists and other
media. Matters involving constraints of disclosure due to Government or
company law, privacy and financial or commercial implications may be
excluded from such public presentation.
1.
WMIN will release an extraordinary circular clarifying the steps it
undertook in restructuring the EC after some of its original EC members had
resigned abruptly.
2.
The AGM is to be held tentatively on 23th November 2014. This will be
finalized after consultation with the Election Committee so as to also
conduct the Elections simultaneously. The dates will be announced
sufficiently in advance so that Election Committee will be able to process
all stipulated stages of the election process with adequate time.
3.
The names of all members (as reported in the application forms) will be
enlisted on the chapter’s public wiki along with their membership ID
numbers and location (city, district or state of residence).
4.
As per the bye-law (Article V Section 2), if a member fails to pay the
annual subscription fees even after the expiry of a three month grace
period, the membership will cease to be effective. However, on paying the
defaulted arrears of annual fee, the membership will be reinstated to its
original status immediately. After obtaining the expert advice and the
interpretation by the legal consultant, EC decided to establish and follow
that such renewals shall not be treated as fresh memberships. The
membership in such cases will be in full effect as soon as the payments are
realized within the bank accounts of the chapter. However, in compliance
with the election rules and requirements, such members can tender their
vote in a general election only after the stipulated three months have
passed from the date the membership has been restored. Notwithstanding the
above, in order to comply with Section 4 of Article V, members who have
elapsed their membership for more than 12 months from the beginning of the
fiscal year, shall have to apply for a fresh membership.
5.
Due to legal and technical reasons, there had been a delay in the
completion of the annual financial audit report and the subsequent clearing
and approval of the same from the Government. This resulted in a need of
postponing the AGM than it is scheduled normally. The EC decided to
formally approach the Registrar of Societies and inquire the possibility of
rescheduling the AGM to a later date. [Update: Subsequently, as per the
instructions by the registrar of societies, a formal request has been
submitted to the registrar which shall comply with the necessary legal
requirements for conducting the AGM and elections anytime before 31st of
December 2014.]
6.
The EC also decided to make the membership application process easier
and user-friendly by adapting to better technical means. This may include
the ability for a new applicant to fill up the form online and then create
a print-out. The membership-renewal process may totally bypass the need of
any physical forms. Instead, members should be able to update any changes
in their data via online forms and submit the same along with electronic
fund transfer. The EC also corroborated the possibilities for multiple-year
memberships up to 3 to 5 years.
7. The EC also decided to accelerate the process for establishing
standard documentations on Conflict of Interest, Terms & conditions for
staff, Code of conduct for various positions, travel and incidental
allowances policy etc. The EC initiated the basic steps to form a framework
for the Advisory Committee. These tasks will be pursued upon so that the
upcoming Annual General Body can ratify the same and put them into regular
practice.
Regards,
Jayanta Nath
President
Wikimedia India Chapter
The PDF copy you could found at
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/images/a/ab/Report_of_the_Board_Camp_conducted_at_Bangalore_on_20%2C_21_%26_22_September_2014.pdf
_______________________________________________
Wikimediaindia-l mailing list
Wikimediaindia-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from the list / change mailing preferences visit
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaindia-l
