Minutes/National Council/2017-11-01

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Meeting Minutes
This document is a record of a meeting. Do not edit this document without contacting the relevant group first.


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

Housekeeping

Do not start meeting until Quorum is met

Previous meeting minutes (Tom)

Audit (Tom)

  • Tom provides an update.
    • 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.

Emergency National Congress (acronym: ENC) (Tom)

  • Tom provides an update.
    • ENC this Sunday, please be there
    • Requests Fletcher/IEWG prepare the voting server ready for the hopefully one ballot to go out.
    • Preparing to send a newsletter mailout to members with a final reminder.
    • Tom will work with Emily on the flow of the meeting.
    • After ENC meeting there may be time for an NC workflow discussions, projects and confirm what everyone is working on, strategy, etc.

AEC Audit social media campaign expenses (Tom)

  • Tom provides an update.
    • $200 Facebook / almost $50 Twitter so far to Tom's personal credit card, will ask for reimbursement once sure there are no more charges (expenditure has been previously approved).

Party's Deputy Registered Officers removal with AEC (Tom)

  • Tom provides an update.
    • Alex has sent off forms, awaiting AEC to process.

Party policy / platform updates (Tom)

  • Tom provides an update.
    • Mark Gibbons is working to update the Party policy / platform in the Wiki, next update before end of Nov.

Discussion Forum (SimonG)

Simon Gnieslaw provides comments: 

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.

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

  • Constitution warning regarding section 10.1 (6) (Tom)
    • John August's position is at risk of automatically being declared vacant if he doesn't attend the next NC meeting.
      • Emily to contact him about this
  • Party Financial Audit (Tom)
    • Tom comments "Each year the National Congress has waived the Financial Audit requirement which would otherwise be needed, I would like to ask Treasury guys to have a think about changing that from this year."
    • 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
  • Party 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
    • Estimates range between 500 to 1200 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 printing can occur.

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.
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