March 2021 Board Meeting Minutes

Board Meeting Minutes for the Open Space Institute-US - March 16, 2021

Present - Karen J. Davis, Harold Shinsato, Myriane Ouellette, April Jefferson, Jake Yeager
Absent - Barry Owen

Checkins.

Karen facilitating. Harold taking notes.

Budget

Clarify on our Own Budget - decided last time not to spend very much until we do the purpose work.

Sponsoring Future of Work 24 Hour Gathering (May 7-8)

We spent $250 plus a little more for one attendance, $24. Harold will reimbursed OSI. April is saying that everyone on the board can get a free ticket.

OSI-US Funding Proposal

Jake - thank April and Karen for all their feedback and help. Consolidated the feedback received from the community and incorporated it into a new draft - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w_MyQ-hjqxq1S0TnRWoYBV9c0b11gLf_TjQ4dJ5guPg/edit. Jake will send it out for review to the board with a due date. The subcommittee believes it is in a good place. Jake mentioned a few larger changes. How to make sure we don't exhaust all our funds with a deluge of applications. At the beginning of a 12 month period how much of the funds to allocate, and divide that by 12 for a maximum monthly amount. So if there are applications we can't fund one month, we can roll over to the next month. Jake has seen that method used by organizations in the past, to at least try out and adjust as we move forward. Also tried to streamline the document, and put everything under question headings to make it more understandable. There will be a description on the website and they can apply via the website. The info itself would be on the website, but maybe use google forms. Make the process more open spacey - but for now just move forward with straight forward approach and add open spacey elements when we get moving.

The intention is the subcommittee that supports this is something that comes out of it to create sustainability, not just that it be until the well runs dry. How to create a community that supports funding this kind of work. This is partially a community building mechanism to invite people to co-create and is open to modification as we go.

There are open questions. Some are around the funding for the board as to how much is funded for the coming year, to understand how much we can spend. Can we put the funds in a separate account. We don't have to have a separate account, but we create enthusiasm around the initiative. As the funds increase and deplete, showing that. Having the capability to solicit and donate, not just one way.

It might not be so easy to make separate accounts, but it is possible. We can use GNU Cash software to set up a budget and other fund allocations.

A fun question - is this possible to set up a new email? Yes - either as a real email address with a mailbox, or as a forwarding email address.

Ideas for a snazzy name? If you come up with anything, let Jake, April or Karen know.

Purpose Facilitation

We planned to schedule time, not to actually start in this meeting. April 13, April 20 - 6-8pm edt. Myriane will set up a Miro board.

GDPR - Add a Privacy Policy to the Website

Harold shared a draft of the privacy policy. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bof9SfQTJ_qYsUD5vVB1iH7_aWZg0E_UBzZlUDrsN5w/edit?usp=sharing

OSList Update

Learning more about GNU Mailman 3. Harold is doing more research. Tom Brown might be able to help.

OST Wikipedia Article

Was fixed about seven years ago, but has had more problems recently. Michael Hermann tried to fix some issues recently and was barred from making changes. Karen says she will look into this.

Next Meeting

Purpose Meeting April 13, 2021 6-8pm edt.