Meetings/2018-12-06

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Meeting info

Date and location

• Date: 6 December 2018
• Time: 19:00 EDT
• Location: Online

Participants

• Benoit Rochon (President)
• Lëa-Kim Châteauneuf (Vice President)
• Charlotte Badin (Secretary)
• Ha-Loan Phan
• Marie D. Martel
• Michael David Miller

Absents

• Guillaume Lafrance (Treasurer)
• Gabriel Arsenault
• Jean-François Pilon

Observer

• Jean-Philippe Béland (Contractor)

Minutes

Reports

President and Executive Committee's Report

• Since the last Board Meeting, the Executive Committee approved one expenditure: the October 2018's bill for the consultant Jean-Philippe Béland for a total of 7,404.39 CAD.

Secretary's Report on Members

• WMCA has 81 members, 6 new since the last Board Meeting.
• The Secretary reports that WMCA has more donators.

Treasurer's Report

• The Treasurer is absent.

Programs Committee's Report

• Jean-François Pilon has been elected has the Chair of the Programs Committee.
• The Programs Committee reports several workshops in Montreal, Quebec.
• The Programs Committee reports an activity at the Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR) where there were no participant. The Committee agreed to reimburse the organizer for her expenses for this activity nonetheless. The Board notes that it will be necessary to find solutions for communications during the next meeting of the Programs Committee.

Report on consultants

• Jean-François Pilon is absent.

Expentidures to approve

• The Board unanimously resolved to accept and pay the November 2018's bill for the consultant Jean-Philippe Béland for a total of 4,507.02 CAD.

Old Business

Annual Plan Grant 2019 Request

• The total amount for 2019 is the same as the total for 2018, which is a disadvantage for Wikimedia Canada since we had 6-months budgets in 2018. No negotiation with the Wikimedia Foundation were possible. So the total amount for the Annual Plan Grant (APG) 2019 is 71,795 CAD plus a 10% contingency funds.
• Jean-Philippe Béland mentions that it is to the advantage of Wikimedia Canada to identify opportunities to use this contingency funds. Benoit Rochon asks Jean-Philippe Béland to identify what happens with the contingency funds from 2018 H2.

Quorum percentage for the AGMs

• The President mentions that the number of members augments and that a lot of them are only there to support WMCA, but without necessarily participating in the meetings. During the last AGM, it was very difficult to achieve the quorum.
• The Board agreed to propose to the members at the next AGM to lower the quorum for the meetings of the members to 15% instead of 20%.

Conflict of Interest Policy

• The Board unanimously resolved to adopt the Conflict of Interest Policy.

Roles and responsibilities of the directors

• The President reminds the Board Members to sign the Roles and responsibilities of the directors of Wikimedia Canada.

Digital visibility

• Jean-François Pilon is absent. Tabled for next meeting.

New Business

Communications Policy

• The Board unanimously resolved to ask the Communications Committee to update the Communications Policy and to propose a new version to the Board.

Funding Committee

• The Board unanimously resolved to create a Funding Committee responsible for raising funds, identifying different sources of funding and obtaining the charity status.

Report of the Bénévoles d'affaires Committee

• An interview occured with Véronique Ah Sen as adviser in communications. Benoit Rochon will communicate with Bénévoles d'affaires to indicate that we wish to have her as volunteer. The candidate still need to accept.

Individual grant requests to the Wikimedia Foundation

• Ha-Loan Phan raised the question about individual grant requests from Canadians directly to the WMF. She asks if it gives a bad reputation of WMCA since the members of our territory do not go through the chapter or if it shows that WMCA does not have enough funding in its APG for all the needs of its members. Benoit Rochon proposed to talk informally a WMF grant staff about this.

Note the Board asked the consultant observer to leave the meeting at this point to undertake the following discussions.

Contract for obtaining the charity status

• The Board unanimously resolved to purchase a hours bank from Jean-Philippe Béland for total amount of 4,000.00 CAD to manage the file to obtain the charity status.

Remaining funds for the consultant from APG 2018 H2

• The Board unanimously resolved to use the remaining funds for the consultant from APG 2018 H2 as a hours bank from Jean-Philippe Béland for 2019.

Consultant for 2019

• The Board unanimously resolved to renew the contract of Jean-Philippe Béland as Institutional Advancement Manager for 2019.

Announcements and discussions

• Some members reproached WMCA to have a lack of transparency. However, the Board believes that it is not a problem of transparency since everything is made public on the chapter's wiki, it is a lack in communications. We need an active Communications Committee to facilitate the communication with our members and the access to our documents.