Minutes/National Council/2017-11-01

Start: 8:37 PM AEDT

End: 10:36 PM AEDT

Attendance
John Jeffery (Chair until 9:02 PM) Simon Gnieslaw Simon Frew Tom Randle Mark Gibbons Emily Sievers (Was on Mobile and then Chair from 9:02 PM) Miles Whiticker (Late, from 9,51PM)

Apologies
Emily Sievers Miles Whiticker Alex Jago

Absentees
John August

Other Attendees
Fletcher Boyd (ITT / IEWG)

Minutes
Simon Gnieslaw: Just a reminder that we do have a discussion forum on discuss.pirateparty.org.au, it is quite active, but I have noticed that not everyone in the NC participates on it very much.
 * Housekeeping
 * Do not start meeting until Quorum is met
 * Previous meeting minutes (Tom)
 * https://pirateparty.org.au/wiki/Minutes/National_Council/2017-10-18
 * Audit (Tom)
 * Word from Alex Jago (RO) is that the AEC has put audit on hold while New England by-election is running until writs are returned (Tom)
 * ENC (Tom)
 * ENC this Sunday, please be there
 * Fletcher: will need the voting server ready for 12:01 Monday morning for the hopefully one ballot to go out.
 * Send a mailout to members to remind: https://emailpad.pirateparty.org.au/load/mailout-2017-enc-reminder
 * Tom will work with Emily on the flow of the meeting
 * After-ENC meeting to catchup on workflows, projects and confirm what everyone is working on, strategy, etc.
 * Audit / socmed expenses (Tom)
 * $200 Facebook / almost $50 Twitter so far to Tom's personal credit card, will ask for reimbursement once sure there are no more charges.
 * DRO removal (Tom)
 * Alex has sent off forms, awaiting AEC to process
 * PDC wiki / platform update (Tom)
 * Mark Gibbons is working to update the progress to the Wiki, next update before end of Nov.
 * Discussion Forum (Simon)

To make it more useful, Fletcher was so kind enough to put in a new secret category called "Internal Business" and there is also an existing category for "National Council" which only us (and IT) can see.

I think that it is a useful tool to consider instead of a long email chain if it's more of a general discussion type of topic.

The more activity we have on our Forum, the more momentum we generate outwardly to our members, as well as more participation if it's on something which doesn't strictly need to be between us.

So even if forums are not your thing, please check in from time to time :)

With a discussion forum you don't need to read every single topic, but do check in case something does cross your area of interest.

Fletcher Boyd: One of the big benefits of the NC category vs emails is that conversations via email are transient when you have NC members changing every year. Occasionaly this results in conversations being repeated or forwarded simply because a new councillor doesn't have the shared experiences of past councils to draw on.

The internal business category to a similar extent

A good example is the AEC Audit, Tom and Simon can't easily draw on the discussions that arose between Daniel and myself etc last time around, etc.

You can also set up email notifications specifically for the restricted categories if you're not into checking the forum frequently


 * General Business
 * 10.1 (6) (Tom)
 * John August's position is at risk of automatically being declared vacant if he doesn't attend meetings.
 * Emily to contact him about this
 * financial audit (Tom)
 * Mark Gibbons is happy to have a financial audit as long as it's free or low cost, thinks it should be simple.
 * Perhaps look for a volunteer who is an Accountant
 * dual-citizen position.
 * Tom would like to capitalise on it more
 * Simon Gnieslaw, Simon Frew think that there are far greater issues to worry about, ie. Adani.
 * Tom and John Jeffrey are about respect for the constitution
 * Some NC would support Duals being in parliament if it were allowed, some not, no consensus.
 * Simon Gnieslaw thinks for that a referendum should be saved for constitutional reform on more important topics, like Aboriginal rights.
 * ACTION ITEM: Talk about it on Discuss
 * PAX recap
 * A few hundred attendees
 * Handed out some flyers
 * No new memberships came through after
 * Simon Gnieslaw would like to organise Gambling/Video Game panel for next PAX once dates announced. Hot topic in gaming.
 * Emily Sievers will be scrutinising PAX Panels in future, apparently there were some complaints, not going into it yet.
 * qld election materials spend (miles)
 * Miles to find art work, get a quote for printing it, discuss it with us, CFV, then order it

Motions

 * MOTION: Accept the 2017-10-18 minutes as presented.
 * Put by: Tom Randle
 * Ayes: 6 (Tom Randle, Simon Frew, Mark Gibbons, Simon Gnieslaw, John Jeffery, Emily Sievers); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.


 * MOTION: close meeting
 * Put by: Miles Whiticker
 * Ayes: 7 (Miles Whiticker, SImon Frew, Emily Sievers, Mark Gibbons, Tom Randle, John Jeffery, Simon Gnieslaw); Nays: 0 ; Abstains: 0
 * Motion carries.