Meeting agenda for Monday 10th April, 2017

This is the proposed agenda for the SPI board meeting of Monday, April 10th, 2017, to be held at 20:00 UTC in #spi on irc.spi-inc.org.

  1. Opening
  2. Roll Call
  3. President's report (Martin Michlmayr)
  4. Treasurer's report (Michael Schultheiss)
  5. Secretary's report (Valerie Young)
  6. Outstanding minutes
    1. Monday, 13th March 2017 (Valerie Young)
  7. Items up for discussion
    1. Resolution 2017-04-10.vy.1: Adopt Scottish STV for Board Elections
    2. Review progress of reimbursement streamlining
    3. External advice for 2017 financial audit
    4. Review of action items
  8. Any other business
  9. Next board meeting: May 8, 2017, 20:00 UTC

President's report

pending

Treasurer's report

pending

Secretary's report

pending

Resolution 2017-04-10.vy.1: Adopt Scottish STV for Board Elections

WHEREAS

1. SPI's voting system for Board elections is unique to our
   organisation and has several problems; notably, a lack of
   proportionality.

2. SPI is not equipped to effectively design or analyse voting
   systems.  We wish to adopt a system widely used elsewhere, and
   which is recommended by civil society organisations specialising in
   voting reform.

3. The Single Transferrable Vote is the only proportional voting
   system, suitable for SPI, which meets these criteria.

4. The Scottish STV variant is clearly specified; we have an
   established and stable Free Software implementation of it; and it
   is straightforward to (re)implement.  Other STV variants appear to
   lack some of these good properties.

5. Ian Jackson has offered to help with the implementation of STV for
   SPI.

THEREFORE THE SPI BOARD RESOLVES

6. Future elections to the SPI Board will be counted according to the
   Scottish Single Transferrable Vote.  Scottish STV will also be used
   by SPI for any other multi-winner election.

7. Specifically, the algorithm to be used is that specified in
   Rules 45-52 of the Scottish Local Government Elections Order
   2007 (a UK Statutory Instrument):
      http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2007/42/schedule/1/part/III/crossheading/counting-of-votes/made

8. The practical implementation will be by means of software; for
   example, perhaps the openstv package in Debian.  The choice of
   software is up to the Secretary.  However, any differences between
   the Rules in the Order referenced above, and whatever software
   implementation is chosen, are to be resolved in favour of the
   Rules.

9. The SPI Secretary is requested to liaise with Ian Jackson, so that
   the necessary changes to SPI software and infrastructure can be
   identified and implemented.

Action Item Review

Luca Filipozzi

  • work with Martin Zobel-Helas on Infrastructure including
    • ask DSA for permission to use older blades for SPI
    • configure said blades for use by SPI (ganeti mini-cluster, RT)
    • buy bigger on-blade disks? (maybe zobel can do that)
  • work with Martin Zobel-Helas, Valerie, Dimitri and Michael on Reimbursement Process
    • Dimitri, Michael and Martin to provide accounting structure (Projects; Chartfields)
    • Dimitri and Valerie to provide front-end web forms with injection to RT
    • Luca and Martin to provide RT configuration (queues, custom fields, workflow, etc.)
  • work with Valerie to prepare notes for this face-to-face
  • build a roles/responsibilities grid for officers and appointees (accounts, etc.)
  • ask tax lawyer about impact of contracting (to supplement SFLC answer)
  • discuss with former ECE colleagues whether they would like to provide services to SPI under contract

Martin Michlmayr

  • Send legal questions to Mishi
  • Document procedure what to do when director positions change (banking)
  • Identify how we can get a professional opinion on our financial workflow and fiscal controls and policies (present plan at MAR meeting; present report at APR meeting)

Martin Zobel-Helas

  • Finalize the monthly reports
  • ask SIO to setup website with passwords for Project liaisons to access transaction data from ledger
  • work with Luca Filipozzi on Infrastructure (see above)
  • work with Luca, Valerie, Dimitri and Michael on Reimbursement Process
    • with Michael and Dimitri: accounting structure (Projects; Chartfields)
    • with Luca: infrastructure

Jimmy Kaplowitz

  • Send Mishi bylaws for her review and legal fixes
  • Send Mishi a summary, for her to write up documentation and a plan of adoption:
    • what SPI's relationship with our projects is supposed to be,
    • what services we want them to have access to
    • particularly what legal counsel we want to offer them,
    • how we might want to handle defunct projects.

Michael Schultheiss

  • Sign up for travelingmailbox.com with NY address
  • Go to USPS and setup Premium Forwarding Service® for our PO Box to the NY address
  • Work with Luca, Valerie, Dimitri and zobel on reimbursement process
  • Work with zobel and Dimitri on accounting structure
  • Assist Luca and Zobel with RT transition
  • Work with tbm and Valerie and Luca to adjust signers on accounts

Valerie Young

  • Mission on the website
  • work with Luca to prepare notes for this face-to-face
  • work with Martin Zobel-Helas, Luca and Michael on Reimbursement Process, specifically:
    • work with Dimitri on development of the web-form and integrate it with RT
  • write resolutions re: membership

Dimitri

  • Year End processing and documentation
  • Complete paypal importer
  • Forms design (and/or implementation with RT or members website)
    • new project application
    • liaison re-appointments
    • activity pings (already in members website)
    • expense report
    • po / invoice generation
  • work with Martin Zobel-Helas, Valerie, Luca and Michael on Reimbursement Process
    • with Martin and Michael, work on the accounting structure (Projects; Chartfields)
    • work with Valerie on development of the web-form and integrate it with RT