Humanitarian OSM Team/Board/Board Meeting Minutes/5 December 2020

HOT Board Meeting (screen-to-screen) 5th of December 2020, 13:00 UTC

Attending

• Miriam Gonzalez
• Emmanuel Sambale
• Felix Delattre
• Ben Abelshausen
• Tyler Radford
• Gertrude Namitala

Excused

• Tasauf A Bai Billah

Absent

• N/A

Agenda/Notes

• Board roles
• Committee roles
• Code of conduct committee
• Review of bylaws
• HOT’s Objectives and Key Results for Year 1 (2020-21)
• Participation and membership engagement
• Board governance, committees and working groups, managing the amount of work that may be expected from us

Agenda proposed by Miriam

• Welcome (Miriam)
• Survey Results (Miriam)
• Review proposals for board roles and committees roles (Please jump in to help to coordinate)
• Reading and Review each of the Bylaws by each of the Board members (Please jump in to help to coordinate)

Notes

• Survey results - discussion:
  • Rob - Focus going forwards on the work itself rather than the machinations of the work.
  • Tyler - help me think about which partnerships we should be forming years from now.
  • Felix - survey results indicate on edge of burnout but lack of satisfaction, should look to fulfill the wishes of board members rather than assigning tasks.
  • Trudy - start with what you intended to do when you originally joined the board and then add-on roles.
  • Maning - want a better idea of HOT’s operations. Want clarity on how current project focus transitions to audacious. Not sure how to provide colour on what is happening on the board to members and larger OSM community.
  • Ben - survey reveals consensus from board. Can now stop focusing on structure, can now start tackling issues.
  • Miriam - Allen Gunn mentioned great that the board does not hate each other. Great that members love HOT and OSM mission. Felt lost when first joined, would have loved guidance. Need balance between guidance and freedom.

• Review proposals for board roles and committees
  • Current roles
    • President - Miriam
    • VP - Felix
    • Treasurer - Trudy
    • Secretary - Ben
  • Ben would not be against giving up secretary post. Exec committee originally set up to make fast decisions between board meetings, is held by four role holding members but members at large can be invited every time
  • Discussion on how to decide on roles. Rob would like to see a vote, would give space to those that might come up short in a discussion based decision. No other willingness to fill president role but Miram will have to step back in Feb 2021, someone will need to step in at that point. Ben - should cycle through chair role in board meetings between board members
  • Felix - order of voting important, would be good to hear statements from each candidate. Discussion starts with VP role, Felix and Trudy explain candidacy for VP. Trudy wants to help Miriam as much as possible. Deadlock on VP vote. Discussion on Treasurer, Trudy votes for Rob in statement.
  • Miriam breaks deadlock by choosing Felix for VP.
  • New roles
    • President - Miriam
    • VP - Felix
    • Treasurer - Rob
    • Secretary - Ben

• Committee discussion
  • Can’t decide on comms while Ribin is not here. But he was only one who wanted it as a priority, so should go to Ribin
  • Maning interested in supporting Ben in Strategy and supporting Data Quality group. Happy to take the lead in Strategy, Ben would hold one or two meetings first so that Maning can get a sense
  • Felix willing to run risk management committee but does feel alone, invites others to come to that committee. Maning will have a one on one call to discuss this
  • Exec committee is already decided so no need for people to put preference in
  • Each committee must have two board members, suggested to Trudy that she joins the code of conduct committee. Coc committee is reactive rather than active, so does not take up so much time
  • Discussion on merging the Communications WG and Committee, reason to have separation - decision to handle decisions by Exec committee
  • Suggestion that Governance WG becomes a committee.
  • Separation between committees and WG suggested that committees deal with important board related subjects and WG deal with the fun stuff - data quality for example. Felix stresses importance that this separation does not block members from participating in committees
  • Ben suggests that committees should be renamed to Working Groups

Action items emerging from this face-to-face meeting

• Ben to invite Maning to next Strategy Committee meeting so that Maning can get a sense of how to run the meeting
• Maning and Felix to have a one-on-one call to discuss running the Risk Management Committee
• Ben to share OSM MoU
• Miriam to contact Allen Gunn about assisting at next screen-to-screen
• Miriam to finalise new Board working days window
• Sam and Ben to clean up committee roles sheet and finalise roles