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GA Minutes May 2007

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Location: 1000 Brussels

Meeting started at: Saturday, 13:00

Present members (14): Anja, Antonello, Claudia, Florian, Frank, Gregoire, Irina, Jean-Yves, Micha, Pascal, Peter, Matthias, Natàlia, Merce

Represented members (10):Hannu, Jonas, Kjell, Kristaps, Maria, Martin (neo82), Philipp (Lange), Pierre-Charles, Stefan (daydreamer69), Tiziano

Absents (not represented): (14)


Contents

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Saturday: official GA

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New Statutes and Internal Regulations

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Statutes


  • new points: changes were worked on in detail:
    • honorary members added, many details removed to be defined in Rules and Regulations
    • absolute majority for keeping the anti-discrimination passage in the statutes
    • further changes based on Pascal's (playschool's) suggestion, but not only, were worked on in detail and approved by absolute majority;

Changes of the statutes implemented during GA - detailed list

Statutes_(approved_May_5th,_2007)

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Internal regulations

The GA conferred the authority to the BoD to modify the Rules and Regulations according to the changes in the statutes (approved by absolute majority) Points that were already decided:

  • Internal regulations should from now on be Rules and Regulations
  • number of seats and election modus for BoD:
    • there should be 3-12 seats depending on the number of candidates
    • to prevent a person not considered suitable by a vast majority to become a BoD member, just because there are not 13 candidates altogether, every candidate has to have at least 10 % of the votes to be elected
    • the number of votes each member has is equal to the number of candidates
    • each candidate can get a maximum of one vote from each member
    • election is to be held with a single ballot displaying the list of all candidates and a boxes next to the names to be ticked (or crossed) in case of casting a vote for the candidate
  • apply the new membership terms set in the statutes to the Rules and Regulations
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Budget

  • 2006-2007 accounts : approved
  • 2007-2008 budget: approved
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Election of the new Board of Directors (BoD)

All candidates got more than 10% so the new BoD consists of

  • Claudia (Claudiaab)
  • Florian (kiwiflave)
  • Frank (Thorgal67)
  • Irina (irinka)
  • Jean-Yves (jeanyves)
  • Marco (junglerover)
  • Micha (lupochen)
  • Peter Lind (fake51)
  • Pierre-Charles (Pietshah)
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Strategies of BV and BW

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decisions on points debated during preparation of the GA

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Policy regarding Inactivity of BeWelcome members

Summary: http://www.bevolunteer.org/forum/index.php?topic=684.0

  • deleting profiles: email address, address, full name, pictures linked to profile
  • agreement on reminder mail:
    • point out possibility to put oneself inactive or to require cancellation of membership (deleting profile)
  • agreement on a second reminder mail to announce further step: automatic change of status to inactive
  • time frame:
    • first reminder: 6 months
    • second reminder: 6 + 1 months
    • after second reminder: change of status: inactive member
  • possibilities to see inactive member:
    • search (option for including inactive members in search result)
    • preferences: show / hide inactive members in countries / members' list
    • different colour for inactive status chosen by members themselves, and automatic inactive status (important for local volunteers if they want to reactivate members)
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Design: Logo

Micha presented two new drafts and announced that Sebastian will also have new drafts soon.

  • Micha will put the new drafts on the forum, Sebastian, too.
  • time frame: 4 more weeks for submitting new drafts, after that 2 weeks of discussion and poll (two rounds!)



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Workshops Sunday, 6th May

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Improving participation of people

suggestions:

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improving discussion process:

  • reorganization of the forum
    • closing threads
    • finally moving the forum to BeWelcome (no separate login)
    • newsletters: digest of the forum (one newsletter every 3-6 weeks)
  • more skype meetings about individual tasks announced on the forum / newsletter
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getting things done: task-oriented structure on top of team structure

  • teams are still responsible for the overall running of their big task and routines
  • on top: individual tasks are assigned to volunteers (crossover teams)
  • required:
    • list the work that needs to be done
    • communication between volunteer managers – BoD (road map, priorities) – team coordinators: team coordinators should regularly inform the volunteer coordinators

volunteer coordinators should function as ‘project managers’

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Roadmap: draft

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Step 1

Main objectives on short term, on which the activity of BeVolunteer should focus :

  • 1. prepare launch of BeWelcome website (="BeWelcome ready")
  • 2. prepare the running of BeWelcome website (="BeWelcome running")

Other objectives, like developing new "Be-" projects or evolution of the BeVolunteer structure to reflect its international activity, are to be considered on a longer term.

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Step 2

Identification of "the fields of operational activity" of BeVolunteer (future developments not excluded, classification established for workshop purposes) :

  • a. administration & organizational aspects of BeVolunteer ;
  • b. IT, programming,… ;
  • c. media, internal and external communication ;
  • d. administration & organizational aspects of BeWelcome.
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Step 3

In each operational field, identifying tasks to be undertaken in order to accomplish development of BeWelcome (objective 1) :

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a. administration and organizational aspects of Bevolunteer :
  • Volunteer management:
    • communication between volunteer managers – BoD (road map, priorities) – team coordinators: team coordinators should regularly inform the volunteer coordinators
    • improve communication BoD - team coordinators - volunteers (example of ideas given : more use of internet conference when appropriate to shorten debates, make forum clearer, at least for the general topics ;
    • try to find a form of organization relying more on "tasks" then on "teams" for the development phase of the website (certainly already what happens within the programming team) ;
    • motivation and training of volunteers : underlying the previous points, always keep in mind that what is chosen should keep the involved volunteers motivated, give motivation to the "inactive" volunteers and help training the new volunteers ;
    • short-term: increase efficiency of teams: What can be done in case of ‘slow’/ inefficient teams?
      • BoD should contact team coordinators, analyse the problem, offer help temporarily
  • Develop and integrate Values (short term)
  • Rules and Regulations - finalize according to statutes / GA  very short term!!!
  • verify validity, scope of disclaimers and rights regarding published material and the website. Check if they are sufficient ;
  • work on donations possibilities (from third parties to BeVolunteer, in particular for tax deduction starting with western European countries).
  • mid- long-term: changing BeVol structure to an international organization
    • +: donations: tax refund possible
    • + sustainable volunteer work (internships possible) etc.
    • suggestion: check out Belgian ASBL for subsidising workforce
    • – problem of legal expertise (there are probably no experts in that field, not to speak of us knowing them)
      • people checking out if donations could be tax deducted in: Germany (Anja), UK (Florian), Spain (Natàlia)
      • what is required to be ‘gemeinnützig’ in France (do we really need to be an international organization after all?)
    • suggestion: cooperating with Servas on these issues
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b. IT, programming,
  • define the required features to launch the website BeWelcome 1.0 (meaning for users, which features should the site provide at first = basic features. The ones that will be developed later are the advanced features)
  • work on navigation facilities
  • implementing design framework (WML)
  • figuring out programming framework / settling program framework
  • work on integration of Travelbook and BeWelcome
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c. media, internal & external communication
  • choose logo and define associated corporate identity ;
  • implement the media platform in the website (many ideas already developed by Sebastian) ;
  • have contacts with other hospitality networks to define the possible links between them, in particular links between profile pages of same member in different communities ;
  • clearly formulate what BeWelcome is doing (the hospitality exchange issue)
  • continue translation (would there be an objective of minimum number of languages or required languages for launch of BeWelcome 1.0 ?) ;
  • local volunteer strategy ?
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d. administration & organizational aspects of BeWelcome.
  • checking that the groups are clearly defined, that the routines are well documented (forum moderation, accepting, geography, abuse, comments and messages) to be sure they reflect the work to be done, the way they are made are logical and they are understood (short term);
  • involve programmers to check that the developed tool will reflect what is defined and establish cooperation between programming and team using the tool
  • description / documentation of the status quo (what do different buttons do) (short term)


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Step 4

The brainstorming around objective 2 (="BeWelcome running") couldn't take place; just few basic ideas were given:

  • administration BV will have to deal with volunteer management
  • IT with database maintenance, server maintenance, bug fixing
  • media/comm.. with newsletters (including managing the members willing to receive or not), spreading logos/identity (cards,…), continue contacts with other networks, participate in volunteer management, …
  • administration BW with keep running the different teams

About the features of BeWelcome website:

The goal of this work is to identify all tools that have to be developed for the site to be ready to run and turn them into tasks, in order to organize and manage volunteer work and priorities.

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Step 1 - features of BeWelcome

Identification of main group of features :

  • members profiles
  • search members (advanced Search)
  • communication tools
  • other : background, navigation, non dynamic,…
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Step 2 - features of BeWelcome

Identification of features for each group (advanced functions are the ones that are not necessary in first stage of BeWelcome and could be added later) :

  • members profile
    • layout, content of profiles
    • comments : design, functions
    • … ?
  • search members
    • browsing (list or criteria based: members in …, recent members, …)
    • map (geo based)
    • multicriteria search (advanced ?)
    • … ?
  • communication tools
    • messaging
    • forum
    • group / local communities (advanced)
    • meetings (advanced)
    • blogs (advanced)
    • newsletter feature  mid- longterm
    • developing flyer / material for promotion (downloadable for members)
  • … ?
  • other
    • Introduction Tour  short term
    • main page
    • menu page
    • media page / platform
      • including: picture database: (legal aspects!!)  short term
    • about BW/BV page
    • gallery (advanced)
    • business cards for members
    • checklists etc for meetings*
    • … ?
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Step 3 - features of BeWelcome

Identification of tools for team in each group of features

  • members profile
    • comments (abuse)
    • accepting
    • abuse
  • search
    • geo-tools
  • communication
    • forum moderation
    • messages (abuse, spam)
Retrieved from "http://www.bevolunteer.org/wiki/GA_Minutes_May_2007"



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