Development Group Report 2017 10

Development Group Report : October 2017

77 members

Task 60 - Defining Failed Groups

This task from the 2016 AGM has been completed. The document http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/Disaffiliation_Procedure has been amended, with Board approval, to include the definition:

“There are also cases where a group is sadly failing for a number of reasons. A 'failing group' is indicated by a group which has been open for members for longer than 12 months, where the monthly posts are 20 or fewer, and where the general trend does not show any increase in posts or members over the previous 6 months. However, this is not a straightforward decision and will depend on the level of interaction and cooperation with national support and other external factors.”

New Group Support Procedures

This procedure - http://wiki.ilovefreegle.org/New_Group_Support_Procedures - has been slightly amended, following a joint recommendation to the Board from GAT and Mentors. It shifts the onus of sorting out any problems with possible early abandonment from GAT to the Mentor Team.

Contact Procedure

After discussing the idea of allowing use of Modtools as passive annual affiliation confirmation, it was agreed that an annual confirmation process was a good tool to enhance wider communication with groups. Edward will look into the contact process further.

Task 77 - Restrict Platform Option for New Groups

We have started to look at the changes needed on various procedures and guidelines to implement the first of the 2017 AGM decisions regarding discarding Yahoo.

• Alison has reviewed the Best Practice guidelines, we are finalising those now and then they will be added to the wiki.
• A check of all pages that need review in light of a Yahoo free future has shown 172 pages that need deleting or amending. This will probably be done by a small workgroup rather than a whole group discussion for each one.
• A poll to recommend a change for the Affiliation Procedure will be done to accommodate a small amendment.
• A model set of group Rules which can be accessed via an FD link will be discussed soon.

Freegle Direct Back-up Plan

During discussions on Task 77, the question of what back-up we have if Bytemark were to stop supporting us was raised. Edward explained the various scenarios, but also the arguably riskier scenario of what happens if we don’t have succession and longer planning, which includes securing sufficient funding. This is important and volunteers are urged to join the Funding group (http://freegle.in/Funding) to discuss and plan for our future.

All volunteers are very welcome to join Development Group - http://freegle.in/Development - and participate in discussions and decisions.

Our task list can be found at http://freegle.in/Developmenttasks

Jacky Development Coordinator

Links

• Development Working Group
• Previous report Development Group Report 2017 09
• Following report Development Group Report 2017 11