Humanitarian OSM Team/Board/Board Meeting Minutes/8 September 2011

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Annual Board Meeting (SOTM) - Sept 8, 2011

Attending:

  • Kate Chapman
  • Nicolas Chavent
  • Dane Springmeyer
  • Mikel Maron

Apologies:

  • Harry Wood

Observing:

  • Ivan Sanchez

Actionable:

Everyone

  • communication as a deliverable
  • use public blog posts as internal communication (seriously)

Kate

  • annual report

Dane

  • help with annual report
  • focus on software strategy
  • look into why taginfo is slow

Structure of HOT

  • 501c3 status and responsibilities
  • we are an incorporated "non-profit" but not yet filed as tax exempt
  • tax exemption will require an amendment to be able to declare where assets go if we dissolve (must go to other 501c3) - EFF (http://www.eff.org/) may be a good option.
  • Annual report required (for filing and also to maintain vendor status for wb). responsibility of Secretary and Treasurer
  • Incorporation Document (under legal review, will be resolved soon) and Bylaws
  • http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Humanitarian_OSM_Team/U.S._Bylaws
  • Annual meeting w/ Membership ... official call 1-2 month after SotM
  • Need to call an election for board (currently 1 year terms). will discuss at annual meeting
  • Transparency. What is the right level? Meaning we can't have everyone involved in everything. Meaning we should be publishing an annual report on finances but what beyond that as far as book keeping?
  • So I've been thinking about the best way for us to be more transparent. I think the in-person meeting relates to this. I think we should compile these topics into a wiki page and ask for feedback on the HOT list.
  • communications
  • publish budgets. board transparency
  • HR transparency
  • new projects are announced on website, list, wiki
  • expectations of board members - time commitment and involvement requirements - e.g. in situations like me (dane) where taking a full time job radically reduced my ability to track communication and stay involved - how/when to pass on responsibility and how to stay involved in needed ways.
  • periodic meetings
  • awareness of projects
  • board a member of every group, but not notified on every group
  • Membership: what is their role? core in remote activation and deployment. ways to express interest in membership, if not nominated.
  • prior to election, ask if they are still consider themselves an active member
  • also ask if people want to express interest
  • Start having regular meetings. 1-2 hours every month.
  • Raise number of Board members? elections could be run by Harry, or Mikel (makes it later)
  • Define a couple new roles within the Board: technical strategist? partnerships strategist?

HR

  • Policies for hiring people for specific missions
  • We need a policy - right now adhoc with various companies, individuals, and other orgs
  • job profiles posting: website. HOT list.
  • application process
  • contracts. need a template.
  • Insurance: I think we should maybe look into getting an overall insurance policy rather than buying it in pieces. I will try to do some research before the meetings
  • board liability insurance
  • financial admin
  • paying people (for example we have 2 part-time interns now, having simple infrastructure so they can record their time) -- admin will figure out this system
  • kate will open personal indonesian bank account
  • need to be tracking time: writing proposals, administration, included
  • who's on books now: kate, jeff, nicolas, emir, va, bookkeeper, administrator. rob baker and chris blow. seb as volunteer. (robert, severin and dane previously). corps: camptocamp, possibly geofabrik

Projects

Funding

  • Review of financials
  • Possible sources of funding
  • Fundraising for core funds ... admin, and to develop response capabilities and protocols
  • can be sought, but marketing is an issue.
  • devseed could potentially help make some pretty maps for homepage
  • new website is coming out. vision was clear, there would be a lot of support.
  • regular strategic communication
  • small grants are out there, if we're marketed
  • Training for remote and deploy activation, workshops, materials. Humanitarian Innovation Funds.OCHA can be very supportive
  • CrisisCommons ... worth investigating w/Andrew their strategic direction and dynamics now?

Activation

  • Focus on fundamentals: preparing OSM for the next response
  • Activations: when do we activate how do we decide to "officially activate" and what that means?
  • can we be effective in the crisis?
  • dependent on activation in humanitarian community, the UN community (reliefweb)
  • other volunteer communities activating. SBTF? Ushahidi instances?
  • availability of resources on site
  • scale of emergency
  • blogging and communication during activations. Activation protocols
  • training so membership can lead an activation
  • mechanism to switch things around if things go awry ... fixed in the training level
  • need to communicate well the uses of the data, to motivate volunteer mappers
  • activation wiki template. this would define the protocol
  • list key hum resources for crisis awareness (cod/ reliefweb-crisis page/ un cluster-crisis page
  • have links to key responders, and to core data set list maintained by OCHA. ways to track usage on ReliefWeb.
  • deployment after disaster
  • how to link w/ MapAction ... build their capacity. or deploy w/ them
  • approach UNDAC with the idea
  • what is the defined role for HOT in the immediate response

Tools

  • tools - review of software we using in the field and with remote support: 1) what do we need that does not exist, 2) what should we be recommending/tracking/encouraging, 3) is it documented and easy to find out how to use and help with?
  • camp2camp tasking server needs blog post
  • rob baker is standing up indo site (with icons from chris blow) portal.kompetisiosm.org
  • Tasking server almost ready. Can be tested with Indo imagery, Swazi traces.
  • resources:
  • easy generation of data downloads
  • vet and revisit workflows: osm2pgsql/qgis vs osmlib vs geocommons
  • generation of custom renders: train nicolas in tilemill, identify potential needs
  • cleaning of tags often needed - taginfo/tagwatch is to slow - need solution for

Capacity Building

  • Training to partners
  • SBTF
  • HOT workshops
  • HOT simulation - workflow
  • who's ready to deploy? buddy system and in field volunteer. leads to roster of deployable people from observing their abilities
  • University

Documentation

  • Guides
  • Procedures
  • HOT activation procedures tasks

Communication

  • devseed model: communication is always expected: everyone writes. Often when a major issue is closed (on atrium or github) an internal blog post is usually made, and then 3-4 gathered into a public blog post. one person is watching to push things public. one person is responsible for quick review/edits.
  • INTERNAL COMMUNICATION:
  • streamline the current project design: emails, atrium group, atrium post & google docs (coordination & concept note & budget)
  • project implementation: explore atrium ticketing or stick to TODO and Calendar on Google

Strategy

  • Where do we want to be in a year?
  • MoUs with partner organizations
  • Strategy w/ COSMHA
  • subcontract w/ PLOTS
  • mapaction
  • Ethics: example if we work in countries where bribes are common how do we handle that?
  • Risks: equipment and customs. understanding from partners
  • Partnerships
  • Ushahidi: persue partnership, heather leson
  • SBTF: other iteration of training. HOT guys can do this.
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