Freegle Board Minutes 26 August
A meeting of the Board of Freegle Ltd was held on 2 September 2015 at 8pm GMT by Skype chat. Postponed from Wednesday 26 August.
The meeting started at 20.00.
DIRECTORS PRESENT
Andrew Ludlow (Andy), Andrew Trusty (Trusty), Cat Fletcher, Christian Brenninkmeijer Edward Hibbert, John Carroll, Ollie Clark
Chairman Edward Hibbert
Minutes Taken by Alison via a text transcript sent after the meeting.
The Board decided to continue with text meetings via Skype but review the situation if anyone wished a change.
DECLARATIONS OF INTEREST
Edward is no longer associated with Recycling Lives or Careicon. He has other relevant interests:
Trustee of Volunteer Centre Edinburgh.
Trustee of the Congenital Anaemia Network.
Andrew Trusty has a financial interest in trash nothing! (TN).
Christian confirmed that he has no conflicts of interest.
Edward will prepare a separate Register of Interests
Action: Edward
RISK REGISTER
Edward asked everyone to review this and report back on whether the mitigation steps and scores need changing.
Action: All Directors
MATTERS ARISING
Cat reported on Nimber and Brighton City Reuse Depot later in the meeting.
Business Card Handover
Cat is still dealing with all requests. Cat agreed to organise the handover this month. Action: Cat
Bytemark
Edward is negotiating with them regarding hosting on their new centre in York.
REPORTS
Fundraising
Funds continue to come in at approximately £700 per month. This is mainly from GAYL and Paypal. Cat reported that we would receive £250 from Nimber once she has sent out the enewletter
Finance
1. Current FY position for – for Freegle UK
a. Income - £2,254
b. Expenditure - £1,420
2. Current Forecast Summary for Freegle Ltd (since 24th Nov 2014)'
a. Income Financial YTD - £1,112 b. Expenditure YTD - £2,319
'3. Status of Funds
a. Freegle UK Bank account currently stands at - £2,969 (after £15,854 transfer to Freegle Ltd)
b. Freegle Ltd Bank account currently stands at £14,767 (Including £110 share capital)
4.Stuff to do:
a. Tax Return now sorted out HMRC registration - this is becoming urgent.
b. Sort out Freegle Uk Bank account closure
c. sort out account signatories
d. See if the platform discussion will change the Tech budget
e. Reconcile the Tech budget for a quarterly return
Action: Edward to mention to John re asking Jane or Karen (Chris’ contact) re tax return.
Board Secretary
The Board agreed unanimously to accept Alison’s offer to continue taking the Board meeting minutes. Edward will send a copy of the text transcript. This will be redacted if necessary.
Cat will prepare the agenda notes for meetings and post reminders. Each Director will add their report to the agenda prior to the meeting.
Company Secretary
Membership There has been no change in membership which remains at 108 Members and 11 pending. Andy will chase pending members.
Action: Andy
The Board expressed their disappointment at the uptake in Membership. The possible reasons for this were discussed and ideas for encouraging membership were considered. There was also a discussion on recruiting new volunteers, in particular, active Facebook and Twitter mods. Edward has some ideas on how this could be done.
Chief Technology Officer
We continue to see Yahoo losing messages. Edward has raised this with them and had some contact but it is not resolved. There is evidence that Groups are not a priority. Edward has discussed with Trusty the means of mitigating message loss that he uses on TN and Edward will consider implementing them.
ModTools
Edward is developing a new version and includes the new spam detection features. Edward confirmed that ModTools covers its costs but does not generate income for him.
Trash Nothing!
Trusty has got a lot more Freegle groups listed on TN now. Generally, only open membership groups are listed by default on TN..
App
Chris is developing a Windows version of the app.
Media
The media report is at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OAU2DN0nKCcRFawSoZWzETTzArlkMjaX-lCYR9Fy5JE/edit
Brighton City Reuse Depot
Edward said the options for the Board to consider were:
- Freegle ask for their money back.
(This option will be offered to other crowd-funders too). The donation is safe in capital assets (8 shipping containers) which can be sold one by one to fulfil any refunds.
- Donors give Cat some time to find a good city site to move on to so that I can progress setting up the planned operation and thus fulfilling all agreements.
The Board agreed that Freegle will not rush to ask for their money back as long as other funders do not get first rights to the money because Freegle did not ask The Board will review the situation in three months unless Cat says we should ask earlier.
Votes: 6 For, 1 Abstention
Volunteer Support
It was agreed that future action in this area will depend upon what funds may be available after the report on platform options.
Health and Safety
No issues to report.
Policy
Edward will ask Jacky if she would be prepared to remind the Board if there are policy issues to discuss.
Action: Edward
Any Other Business
There are 2 vacancies for Directors. The Board can co-opt external people as well. Edward requested all Directors to think of suitable people to ask.
Action: All Directors
GAT Observer
It was agreed that Christian would be an observer on GAT.
Votes 6 For, 1 Abstention
Christian said that he was very pleased that Sheila had been appointed to GAT. Edward said that he was pleased she was active nationally and that Alison and Jacky still continue to be active nationally.
Returning Officers
Cat will contact the Electoral Reform Society.
Action: Cat
Public Liability Insurance
The board have agreed to renew this. John will provide Edward with the necessary figures. Action: John
CONSENT AGENDA
The minutes of the last meeting were agreed as a true record.
Votes: 4 For, 3 Abstain
Future board meetings will commence at 8pm.
The meeting finished at 21.24.
