Structure Group Report 2012-08-31

STRUCTURE GROUP REPORT

August 2012

http://freegle.it/Structure

1This is a summary of discussions since our last report of 31st July 2012, covering messages 10448 to 10622. Our membership stands at 74 (two more than last month).

The topics we have discussed this month are below.

Task 78 and 80 - Check Affiliation and Complaints are Working (continued)

POLL QUESTION: Task 78 and 80: Check Affiliation and Complaints are working.

We should adopt the following procedure:
1. Mark group calendar dates for annual reviews of Affiliation (end Oct) and Complaints processes.(end March).
2. Group's coordinating team will produce a brief report of year's activities for process under review.
3. This group to discuss and make appropriate recommendations.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Yes, I agree with this proposal, 12 votes, 100.00%
- No, I disagree with this proposal, 0 votes, 0.00%
- Abstain (please explain on group), 0 votes, 0.00%

Group calendar dates have been duly marked and this task is complete.

Task 84 - What resources do groups want?

Brainstorm what resources groups would value. This is part of the strategy - "To provide more (and more importantly, easier to use) resources to local groups"
Discussion continues...

Group Assessment Team (GAT) Recruitment Process (continued)

POLL QUESTION: We should propose that the Reps endorse a change to http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Group_Affiliation_Team_Role_Remit_Membership:
Membership: "If GAT need additional team members, the vacancy will be advertised on Freegle UK Central Group and/or GAT will approach likely candidates. Any Freegle Volunteer can apply and also have the opportunity to log their interest at any time via the Volunteer Coordinator. GAT will record the selection process/rationale and will decide who they would like to join the team. This decision must have the support of all of the GAT members. The name(s) will be put forward to the Reps for ratification and the decision will then be final. A list of the names of suitable candidates who were not selected will be retained by GAT and Reps for consideration for future vacancies."

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- No, I disagree with this proposal, 1 votes, 4.55%
- Abstain (please explain on group), 0 votes, 0.00%
- Yes, I agree with this proposal, 21 votes, 95.45%

Freegle Direct (FD) and Member Lists

We're trying to establish what happens to membership lists if a group decides to leave Freegle Direct. (The info available to Freegle via FD doesn't include whether a member is also a mod or owner.) We ran a poll:

This poll is to establish the principle of who should be able to use the group membership list kept by Freegle Direct.
Q: Is it acceptable for Freegle centrally to use the list without permission from the group's Volunteers?
We will discuss the implications/alternatives to this whether the majority answer is yes or no. This question will be carried by a simple majority.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Yes, it is acceptable, 4 votes, 17.39%
- No, it isn't acceptable, 19 votes, 82.61%
- Abstain (please explain on group), 0 votes, 0.00%

Discussion continues...

Equality and Diversity Policy

As we have group autonomy and don't have resources to monitor policies to any great extent, we need something that is simple but states quite clearly what we commit to. The policy should be for Freegle, as a central network.

POLL QUESTION: Equality and Diversity Policy:
The policy document https://docs.google.com/document/d/17toA4u2kMHoi--0nhBXvc7a-Bj0I7ULvPtKxOPcbO-c/edit should be recommended via the Reps for adoption.

CHOICES AND RESULTS
- Yes, we should propose adoption via the Reps, 16 votes, 100.00%
- No, we should discuss further, 0 votes, 0.00%
- Abstain (please explain on group), 0 votes, 0.00%

Mediation

There are occasions when mediation might be useful between a group member and group Volunteers. We would like the Ombudsmen and Mediation Pool to discuss and recommend a way to deal with this, including drafting any extra guidelines over and above http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Mediation_Service that might be required for either the Ombudsman to deal with directly, or for the panel to do so as part of their role. The Mailbox can supply anonymised examples to help the discussion. The recommendation to be given to Structure by the end of November 2012.

- Yes, I agree to send this request
- No, I disagree with sending this request
- Abstain (please explain on group)
- Discuss further on the group

This poll is still running. If you would like to vote please join us.

Full Volunteer Polls

We've not had many of these recently, and part of that is because it's quite a lot of hassle all round to run. So we've shifted more to an approach of announcing things on Central to see if people are OK with them.

That's not a bad approach, but there are a couple of problems:

• It means that we pay most attention to the people who are most vocal, either for or against whatever it is.
• It means our decisions have less democratic legitimacy.

We are considering whether we could have a scheme whereby we run polls on Central.

• If the results are close, we trigger a full-blown poll with mails to -owner etc.
• If there is a two-thirds majority, we treat it as binding in the same way in which we would if we'd done the full procedure.

Maybe if we had that, we'd do a few more such polls, and that this would be good for Freegle's participation levels.<nr> Discussion continues...

Task List

Our Task List can be viewed at http://freegle.it/StructureTasks
If any of the above topics interest you, or if you have proposals about the structure of Freegle to suggest, please do join our group. http://freegle.it/Structure

The Coordinator for this group is Jacky (Great Yarmouth) Deputy Coordinator is Peter Johnson (Hunts) and Secretary is Wendy (Woodley) Owners are Jacky, Peter and Wendy.

Back to Structure Group Report 2012-07-31, or onto Structure Group Report 2012-09-30