Council 2007 03

Council Minutes March 2007

• Facilitator: Martin
• Scribe: Seamus
• Attendees: Matteo, Eugene, Tim, Bobby, Clout, Aaron, Ali, Elizabeth, Wren, Richard, Laurel, Dave, Jeff, Oso, Shwan, Roger, RevPhil

Commits

• Oso: update council on ewaste - done.
• Outreach: endorse ewaste - We made an endorsement, in the form of a press release asserting our priorities for ewaste legislation: prioritize reuse, and encourage transparency in recycling. Ali and Shwan going to Salem to participate in bill revision hearing
• Matteo: put zen on an email list - done
• Reuse: will talk about ebay sales at their next meeting - done
• Richard: will wikify the long term hiring
  • done Hiring Strategy
  • (similar) Staff Categories
• Revphil: commits to telling the board about the emerging media grant - http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/directors/2007-March/001030.html : outreach discussed the grant, decided "not this year", decided to push FG to start looking at doing media hardware evaluation and encourage people to make some movies.

Reports

• Database - going along... classes will start this summer to hopefully bring more people into the project. FG Vancouver want to use it.
• Priorities committeeeeeee - met. integrated some stuff into the general lists of priorities. see wiki for current list.
• Hiring - sales coordinator has finished interviews, look to offer by end of the week. recycling intern starts interviews next week. temp hire to cover printerland for three months.
• Budget - numbers are really good, facilitating hiring plan. raise / retirement match proposed! numbercrunchers group trying to get better about posting data on the wiki.

Old Business

• Commissioned sales - Ebay Sales Policy & http://lists.freegeek.org/pipermail/reuse/2007-March/000475.html

Jeff presents. Current policy implemented in 2004 as a temporary, three-month policy, to be reevaluated at end of that time. No review happened until 2007, when Reuse reviewed and recommended ending policy and ending commissioned sales. Staff endorsed ending the ebay policy. At last month's Council, a block ended discussion on adopting that proposal.

Policy is limited to ebay, has no protection for minimum wage requirements.

Proposal: Revoke eBay sales policy.

(Subtext: encourage new online sales coordinator to develop a new, better thought out and more comprehensive policy, which might or might not include commissions)

Concern: commissions are an opportunity for volunteers to come in and make a statement and some income.

Responses to that concern:

• limited resources make this tough to administer fairly, take away from the volunteer nature of volunteering, might lead to jealousy, competition, etc.
• giving volunteers income stream not part of FG mission. staff necessary. paid volunteers legally problematic.
• the existing policy sucks and doesn't do a good job of allowing volunteers to make money
• revoking the ebay policy is not the same as adopting an anti-commissions policy. it just eliminates the existence of a poorly written policy.

Concern: why are we addressing this, when staff have the power to choose not to have ebay sellers? (Policy is poorly written, starting over gives Sergio an opportunity to craft a better policy)

Listed concerns were not addressed to the satisfaction of Eugene, who stands aside. The group comes to consensus: revoke the existing eBay sales policy.

Next Meeting

• April 18, 2007
• 7:15 PM, Meeting Room
• Facilitator: Jeff
• Scribe: Elizabeth
• Consensus Training: Richard on "Blocking", also Laurel commits to making a list of possible topics for future trainings.

Announcements

• Eugene wants to start a fund for next year's Media Grant, looking for process help - talk to Outreach or email outreach@freegeek.org, also see wiki "Propogation of Concerns" page
• RevPhil sez : more naked self-publicity - trial rescheduled for April 18-19.
• Thirsty-Third Thursday for April 19th is a local filmmaker's horror/comedy
• Board meeting April 11th.