Humanitarian OSM Team/Board/Board Meeting Minutes/24 January 2022
HOT Board Meeting 24 January 2022, 14:00 UTC
Attending
Felix Delattre, Kuo-Yu “slayer” Chuang, Shoaib Burq, Nate Smith, Courtney Clark, Kate Chapman, Rebecca Firth, Paul Uithol, Carly Redhead.
Excused
Tyler Radford
Absent
Gertrude (Trudy) Namitala
Observing
Russell Deffner, Romeo Ronald Lomora, Marc Mashawu, Rory Nealon.
Chair
Kate Chapman, (Felix Delattrewas Chair for the last 2 agenda items).
Minutes
Inna Nogeste
Call to order
Meeting called to order at 14:04 UTC by Chair Kate Chapman.
Quorum
Yes
Approval of Previous Minutes
Approval of the December 2021 HOT Board Meeting minutes.
Motion by Felix: Approve the December 2021 HOT Board Meeting minutes. Motion approved.
Previous Action Items
- Board to review the draft of the whistleblower process (Felix,Tyler) - Done
- Board member for only one year - Board members are to think about who wants to volunteer for a 1-year term, or whether to vote on which Board members are to serve for 1 year (Kate) - Done
- Board member for only one year - ask Felix and Trudy what information they have about this because they’ve been in this situation before (Kate) - Done
- Board Committee roles - email Heather Leson about the Code of Conduct Committee and CC Shoaib (Kate) - Done
- Metrics at a glance - it would be helpful to have more nuanced data for this. Tyler invites ideas/thoughts about how to do so (Kate) - Done
- Board’s virtual meeting in Q1 2022 - propose a start time based on the Board member’s time zones (Kate) - Done
- Operations Update - review Wikimedia’s example provided by Kate (Tyler) - Done.
Circular resolutions approved since previous meeting
None to report.
Contracts approved since previous meeting
- 31 December 2021; Letter of Intent between Open Mapping Hub - Asia Pacific and International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
- 31 December 2021; Staff contract; Ana Prada, Partnerships Associate
- 3 January 2022; Staff contract; Can Unen, OSM Trainer for the Asia-Pacific Hub
- 3 January 2022; Staff contract; Kristen Tonga, Android Engineer
- 3 January 2022; Staff contract; Nirab Pudasaini, Open Tech and Innovation Specialist for the Asia-Pacific Hub.
Agenda
HOT Senior Management Team (SMT) presentations
Presenting: Kate
The following SMT members presented their areas, followed by a Q&A from the Board:
- Carly Redhead - Senior Manager, Impact Partnerships.
- Paul Uithol - Director, Data.
Notes/Discussion:
The Board mentioned the Locus Charter to the SMT and asked if this can be of interest to HOT. The SMT said that they hadn’t read this and will read the charter and see if it fits with HOT’s values.
There was a general discussion about the reason for HOT restructuring the organisation with Rebecca providing examples of why and where changes have been made. Organisational restructure was also mentioned during the SMT presentation at the December 2021 HOT Board Meeting.
Operations update
Presenting: Rebecca
Rebecca provided an overview of the following:
Organisational structural changes began October 2022, are almost complete and include:
- Creation of the Strategy and Implementation Team
- Creation of the Impact Partnerships Team
- Re-engineered the Data Team
- Disaster Services is now integrated with both the Community and Impact partnerships Teams and is no longer a distinct team
- Tech Team is now reporting to the regional hubs.
Strategy process
- HOT is starting this process with the Board’s Strategy Committee
- The Strategy Committee is to communicate with the Voting Members (VM) on the pieces that require community engagement and be the public face of this
- How to engage VM to join the Strategy Committee for longer term engagement and projects.
Quarterly OKRs
- This was set across the whole organisation last week.
- The regions set their goals first followed by the functional teams.
Notes/Discussion:
The Board requested a diagram of the new organisation.
The Board sought clarification about being the public face of the HOT Strategy. Rebecca explained that the Board is to be the public face of HOT strategies which require engagement from the Voting Members (VM), for example, where VMs are owners of strategies and their feedback is critical to the revision process. Other strategies don't need community engagement. The total number of strategies and prioritizing them was also discussed.
The Board suggested that quarterly OKRs was too short a time period for the Board.
Whistleblower policy
Presenting: Felix
The Whistleblower Policy document was to be approved by the Board. Heather Leson recommended the policy and that a good process is in place. See this website for more information.
What does the Board think and how does it want to proceed? HOT does need this document. Should it be opened to contractors and the community?
Wikimedia’s Whistleblower Policy is a preferred document and format.
Notes/Discussion:
There was an agreement that this policy is important and is similar to other organisations’ policies.
Motion by Shoaib: Approve the Whistleblower Policy. Motion approved by a majority. One Board Member abstained.
Board reports
Presenting: Kate
Do the following Board reports exist from previous years (before Miriam’s time)? Were Voting Members notified of these reports in the past:
- Board members annual (term) report (OSM diary?)
- Annual reports - Miriam’s Annual Report
- Presidents’ reports - Miriam’s President’s report.
Notes/Discussion:
The Board’s role, level of reporting and obligations can be discussed during the Board’s Virtual Meeting on 18 February. Different alternatives of reporting were suggested, such as writing a letter to be part of HOT’s Annual Report, or to be more community-facing and request assistance from the Community Team.
Board’s virtual meeting - Fri 18 February 2022
Presenting: Kate
Allen “Gunner” Gunn will facilitate the agenda creation.
The agenda and notes are available for the Board to view from the April 2021 screen-to-screen meeting and the December 2020 screen-to-screen meeting.
The April 2021 meeting suggested that the following agenda items and tasks be discussed further and followed up by the (previous) Board:
- Aligning the work of the HOT Board with the mission of HOT
- Expectations for board members
- Continuity.
A proposed draft of the Board’s internal communication practices also needs to be discussed by the Board.
The Board will need to be focussed on outcomes and discuss what is relevant to this current Board.
The Board’s EA and “Gunner” will work with the Board to set up the agenda.
Executive Committee update
Presenting: Kate
The Executive Committee discussed today’s Board Meeting agenda.
Risk Management Committee (RMC) update
Presenting: Felix
The RMC has been meeting for approximately one year since it was formed. The HOT Staff Member facilitating the Risk Management (RM) workshops has left, this was taken over by Rachel and now after the restructure, an external consultant will be hired instead.
The RMC sees itself as having an oversight role and would like a contact person, or ownership, within HOT Staff. If there are some HOT Staff hiring processes can the person have ownership of RM?
There are approximately 8 risk areas in HOT. The general feeling at the volunteer RMC meetings is that people don’t have the time to address this and there needs to be a fulltime resource dedicated to this.
Notes/Discussion:
Rebecca explained that the transition of RM ownership within HOT Staff is currently in progress and will be owned by HOT’s Senior Finance Manager, who has prior experience with risk.
The RMC would like to have a meeting with the Director of Finance and Operations to discuss and define the steps moving forward with RM, make HOT Staff aware of the breadth of RM (which includes the wellbeing of people) and have an overall view of RM.
MoU with OpenStreetMap Foundation
Presenting: Felix
This was an update from the last Board. There have been discussions around this MoU. One of the difficulties in the past has been the temporal agreement, but there is no need for this?
A permanent MoU could be looked at to:
- Formalise the relationship with OSMF
- Ensure that the HOT Brand name is not in danger and is formerly in HOT’s hands. Amanda from the OSMF is handling the MoU process from their side and has two solutions:
- HOT will be similar to a local chapter and has permission to use OpenStreetMap. However, the OSMF can potentially revoke this permission. If the local chapter does not agree, they can request a memorandum from the organization's membership to confirm or overturn the decision.
- Continued financial support of OSMF by licensing the OpenStreetMap brand name to HOT (could be defined as a percentage of HOT budget) with clear, irrevocable rights to the name.
Community presentation - OpenStreetMap South Sudan (OSM SS)
Presenting: Kate
Romeo Ronald Lomora presented their project which is to improve the routes and street naming of roads in South Sudan to enhance services delivery and online enterprises to enhance the economy of a war and post conflict place like South Sudan.
Notes/Discussion:
The Board requested more information from Romeo about how OSM SS was bringing different ethnic groups together.
Romeo explained that OSM SS looked at how OSM can help to look at similarities and not differences because peace building programs generally look at differences.
OSM SS had a new approach to look at similarities, for example, they brought 3 different tribes together and interchanged the areas that they needed to map so they mapped each other's areas. This gave a sense of something good and no fighting occurred during the 2 hours of mapping.
The Board thanked Romeo and the OSM SS for their work and that OSM is helping bring people together. They thought that the OSM SS project should be documented and applied elsewhere. Romeo said that OpenCage had contacted OSM SS for an article.
OSM SS is interested in other open source documentation tools, other than GitHub repository, that can be used to document lessons learnt. This documentation and experience could be used in other areas of conflict and post-conflict, for example, Chad.
Questions from Voting Members
No questions were raised by Voting Members.
Other business
No other business was discussed.
Tabled topics
The following are not reflected in the notes because there has been no action since the last Board meeting or there was insufficient time to discuss the topic at a Board meeting.
- Role of local boards
- Strategic plan 2022-2025
New Action Items
- Operations update - Rebecca to share strategy scope document with the Board (Kate) - Pending
- Operations update - Rebecca to provide a diagram of the new organizational chart to the Board (Kate) - Pending
- Risk Management Committee update - Rebecca - will connect Liz with Felix (Felix) - Pending
- MoU with OpenStreetMap Foundation - send a summary via email to continue this discussion asynchronously (Felix) - Done.
Next board meeting
Monday 28 February 2022 @ 14:00 UTC
Adjournment
Chair Felix Delattre declared the meeting adjourned at 15:40 UTC.
Minutes approved
These Board Meeting Minutes were approved by the Board on 28 February 2022.