Minutes/National Council/2015-09-30

Agenda

 * Previous meeting's minutes
 * Royal Commission on Electoral Reform (DanielJ)
 * Post-Canning By-Election
 * Pozible tshirts etc (DanielJ)
 * Upcoming Fundraising and Election warchest etc
 * Membership Database Tender (Frew)
 * Strategy Meeting (Rundll/Keating)
 * State of the Union/Newsletter/Monthly Update/Letter/Member Mail from President etc etc (DanielJ/Frew)
 * Volunteer page (Frew)
 * General Business

Start: 20:34 AEST

End: 22:20 AEST

National Council

 * Simon Frew
 * Thomas Randle
 * Fletcher Boyd
 * Daniel Judge
 * David Crafti
 * Adien Treleaven
 * Mark Gibbons
 * Michael Keating

Previous meeting's minutes

 * held over

Royal Commission on Electoral Reform

 * Alliance meeting response to the electoral royal commission is initially quite positive
 * mostly keen tho 2 or 3 parties want to simply defend GVTs outright
 * the neutral bloc think GVTs are better than proportional rep... which is weirdish
 * Need to get feedback and endorsement on the specific statement asap
 * We may have to drop it before other parties can sign up, if there is any movement from the government and Greens
 * Di Natale mentioned getting rid of GVTs in his press club address today
 * MarkG suggests waiting until oct 9 when the meeting discusses it, but having everything set up & ready to go
 * Concern that this may be too late if the issue starts getting more press, traction and developments
 * Can go soft launch on the website, make it live and just add names/logos as more parties sign on so that it is ready if needed.
 * can probably hold it off until Monday morning, get a PR done between now and the end of the weekend... ask for quotes from other parties

Post-Canning By-Election

 * We got 0.92% which was pretty good, Michelle did well representing the Party
 * We have some loose ends, mainly Pozible, to tie up
 * we should do another update, need to hit people up for shirts sizes etc
 * The Pozible technically finished today
 * Raised total $3,833
 * Stickers and Badges: x13
 * T-Shirt: x13
 * Shirt Stickers and Badges x12
 * Major (inclu shirt): x2
 * so x27 shirts total
 * Will need order say min of x30 shirts, but should consider a larger order so we have a stockpile for merchandise etc
 * Will go with same tapebones design as last time.
 * Should think of a new design next time though
 * While polling places with a volunteer was not quite the near double we've seen in previous cases, it is a harder electorate to assess and also it was still a higher vote where we had someone.
 * Thanks to Michelle Allen: See Motions

Upcoming Fundraising and Election warchest etc

 * Brendan had conversations with a few people a bit over a week ago about the need to raise funds
 * the proposal isn't exactly what he suggested, he suggested a higher target over a longer period
 * Frew thought it would be better to run a shorter and more focused campaign, it is easier to build hype over a more manageable target and we need election money more urgently
 * With a possible early election where we'll need approx $24,000 just to pay for candidates entry fees, we are well short of that
 * The other reason Frew prefers a shorter campaign is that it will give us a good idea if we can get enough regular donations to get a staff member
 * The war chest campaign is to be focused on getting direct donations through our donation page, which can be spruced up for the campaign
 * On fundraising more broadly, Frew would like us to look into a basic merchandise store... ie with T-Shirts, stickers and badges to start off with
 * We can add flags, bandanas, keyrings... whatever you can think of later
 * To do this initially, all we need to do is write a short blurb to put on the donation page and a note on the front page
 * We need a volunteer to take on the merchandising side of things and a volunteer to write up the blurb for the donation page


 * Rundll sees three useful strategiess
 * first short campaigns with targets in the 10K+ range
 * two: monthly small value repeating donations
 * third, tax time, $1500 campaigns
 * and a store


 * Need a volunteer to run the store
 * MarkG has an old merch plan document that can be revived


 * Frew would rather aim bigger than run multiple smaller cmpaigns, as running multiple smaller campaigns runs the risk of donor fatigue, when we will need more crowdfunding etc for other projects


 * Keating points out ideally we need people to set up a recurring weekly/fortnightly donation via internet banking
 * Then when we need a bigger campaign we can reward people higher (ie in individual specific issue campaigns ie pozible etc)?


 * Also perhaps need to ensure we are able to pivot on the issue of election campaign funds if for instance the govt changes the laws for nomination fees again and running in as many states is impractical and funds may end up being better spent elsewhere such as on electoral reform campaigns or a staff members due to increased bureaucratic/admin demands


 * re merchandise we have a sticker and badge supply
 * Perhaps for the pozible t-shirts we make a bigger order
 * DanielJ will get quotes on x50 & x100 shirts+


 * See motions


 * We'll need to set up an online shop
 * Suggest Etsy (or similar) as an easy interim measure
 * Discuss further over email
 * Keating to look into Etsy
 * Seems to be no restriction on political party use etc


 * Note that member db tender has the potential to be a significant source of income since it includes member dues - which is potentially $20k/yr+

Membership Database Tender

 * Still awaiting further feedback
 * We need to set the deadline and get it out... aim for next week?
 * With 1 month from it going out to respond
 * Publication?
 * Likely set up a page and use social media (unless anyone suggests better ideas)
 * Discuss further as needed this week over email

Strategy Meeting

 * Keating and Rundll have both asked for something like this to happen
 * We have never held a strategy meeting before so Frew is not entirely sure what the aim is but is happy to participate
 * Basically it is what it sounds like, where we agree to a common goal and list out the steps required to get there
 * Now we've got past Canning it's a good time to look at some bigger picture stuff we've talked about but haven't really got anywhere with
 * Basically there's a bunch of stuff arising form congress that need to be dealt with.
 * a meeting to figure out how we can best facilitate those goals and ensure we are all working towards them could be useful. Is this a meeting for the NC, or a wider net?
 * the focus is to wrap all this stuff up and list out when we want things done, how we do it and get it communicated to everyone
 * communicate that to the membership base so they know the direction we are going in and use it as a call to action to get volunteers
 * ideally if we can put everything together in one spot, it makes it easy to refer to in NC meetings, make sure we are checking on progress etc
 * Keating happy to start the facilitating on this - and it can be tied in to the President's email or whatever updates we want to send
 * Meeting next Wednesday (NC meeting off week, same time/loc)
 * Also we shgould get the PDC starting back up again

Member Mail

 * Just a formal communication to members, with the fundraising, canning update andannouncing the constitutional reform debate
 * http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/PPAUMemberMail20150926
 * the more communication the better to everyone
 * As long as we dont do it so often we get spam binned, which happened in the past

Volunteer page

 * Mozart has done up an awesome volunteer page
 * draft is here http://pirate.olbrychtpalmer.net/volunteer/
 * Content is here: http://pad.pirateparty.org.au/p/volunteering-form
 * Frew would like to have this up by the end of the weekend, please clean up and edit the content
 * people will be pointed to the NC to volunteer

General Business

 * none

Motions

 * MOTION: The National Council would like to thank Michelle Allen for representing Pirate Party Australia in the Canning By-Election
 * Put by: Frew
 * Ayes: 7 (Rundll, Frew, dcrafti, Adien, DanielJ, Keating, MarkG); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Result: Motion carries.


 * MOTION: Launch a campaign to raise $40,000 for an election Warchest, with the campaign to end January 1 2016
 * Put by: Frew
 * Ayes: 7 (Rundll, Frew, dcrafti, Adien, DanielJ, Keating, MarkG); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Result: Motion carries.


 * MOTION: Close meeting
 * Put by: Frew
 * Ayes: 7 (Rundll, Frew, dcrafti, Adien, DanielJ, Keating, MarkG); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Result: Motion carries.

Action Items

 * DanielJ to ask for sizes from pozible donors and get shirt quotes
 * Keating to look into Etsy
 * Keating to look at tender.
 * Keating to email to NC stuff relating to strategy meeting.