[foundation-board] New draft of blog post to accompany publication of Board minutes

Mon Jan 17 17:36:44 UTC 2011

Great! Comments (only two very minor comments) inline below...

On Mon, Jan 17, 2011 at 11:37 AM, Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com> wrote:
> On behalf of the OKF BOard of Directors, today I've published abridged
> minutes of OKF Board meetings dating back to May 2009. Although
> minutes from the Board's two most important meetings during this
> period have been online for some time, publishing minutes from
> intervening meetings and conference calls has been slow-going, not
> from lack of will, but from lack of time, as the Board have been
> running to keep up with the pace with which open knowledge has
> rocketed up the national and international agenda. Apologies for the
> delay - we have resolved to do better from now on.

Suggest: "So apologies for the delay!"

> This set of minutes documents, if only from one rather dry
> perspective, the growth and development of an organisation and
> community that has achieved rather a lot in the last 18 months. It's a
> story worth telling. In May 2009, the OKF Board met face to face in
> the Cambridgeshire countryside for a day-long brainstorming session
> about how best it could contribute to the network's future. Here, we
> outlined a shared vision for the organisation as one that supports
> autonomous projects loosely joined by their endorsement and promotion
> of open knowledge (as set out in the open knowledge definition). We
> looked in detail at compliance issues, sketched out projected
> outgoings, and discussed three promising-looking income streams:
> grants, fundraising from the network, and consultancy projects that
> meet the OKF's goal of promoting open knowledge and generate cash
> surpluses that feed back into the organisation.

open knowledge definition = [Open Knowledge
Definition](http://www.opendefinition.org)

> That meeting defined much of the work that was to come. That Summer,
> while Jordan Hatcher put in a lot of pro bono time cementing
> compliance processes, I produced a selection of potential financial
> plans, and Paula le Dieu worked up a more detailed reflection of the
> OKF vision that would eventually be put out for consultation with the
> community at the end of the year. In the meantime the OKF began
> working with the Cabinet Office, 4IP and others (such as
> farmsubsidy.org and aid.info), contributing legal and technical
> expertise to realise various projects, including data.gov.uk and Where
> Does My Money Go? Rufus Pollock maintained an overview of this work,
> reporting financial and legal issues to the Board at monthly
> conference call meetings, while Martin Keegan contributed accounting
> expertise, helping prepare for the year-end accounts, submitted in
> February 2010.
>
> The following August, when the Board met again for an away day in
> Cambridgeshire, the organisation it was discussing was in radically
> different shape. Thanks to a number of ongoing consultancy projects, a
> significant cash surplus could be projected. And the profile of the
> organisation had increased dramatically. Rufus Pollock was on the
> verge of accepting a year-long fellowship at the Shuttleworth
> Foundation to continue driving forward the open data agenda. The
> number of potential consultancy- and grant-funded projects had
> multiplied, and now included significant EU grant funding on the
> horizon.
>
> It was all good news, but it did present the Board with a number of
> new challenges. Firstly, the proliferation of projects combined with
> his new role at Shuttleworth made it clear that Rufus could no longer
> act as liaison between the day-to-day operations of the various arms
> of the OKF, and the Board. So we resolved to recruit for a new role -
> that of Project Coordinator. Seen as a compliment to the excellent
> work conducted by Jonathan Gray as Community Coordinator, the Project
> Coordinator would keep an eye on all contracted and grant-funded
> projects and report back to the Board so that we could continue our
> legal and finacial oversight role.
>
> The second challenge was how best to manage the operating surplus to
> secure the future of the OKF in the long term. As an organisation that
> may well need to "run on empty" again in the future, what proportion
> of this surplus should we retain as a financial cushion, what
> proportion could we distribute back to the community, and how might we
> go about doing that? Our attempts to respond to this challenge remain
> ongoing, but at the August meeting we resolved to take an incremental,
> experimental approach.
>
> The third challenge is very much linked to the second, and is also in
> some sense the driving force behind this blog post. Since that meeting
> in May 2009 we have been acutely aware of the qualities that set OKF
> apart from other organisations, and of our duty as a Board to maintain
> those qualities. OKF is first and foremost a community, and thus the
> Board's role in shaping OKF's future should be limited to maintaining
> the financial and legal viability of the organisation that supports
> that community. The Board has consciously avoided appointing anyone as
> its Executive Director. We feel that the strategic direction in which
> the organisation travels should be defined as far as possible by
> active members of the OKF community.
>
> As well as resolving to publish the minutes as soon as they have been
> officially approved and adopted, and moving towards publishing
> quarterly account statements, this year the Board will be focussing on
> more ways to get the community involved in strategic decision-making
> at OKF. We're already speaking with members of other collaborative
> organisations, such as the Apache Software Foundation, about models
> that we could adapt or adopt.
>
> //ends
> Forwarded conversation
> Subject: Blog post to accompany publication of Board minutes
> ------------------------
>
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 10 January 2011 15:55
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Hi everyone
>
> I've worked up a draft blog post to accompany the publication of the
> minutes we approved last meeting. Comments and suggestions for
> improvement welcome.
>
> Cheers
>
> Becky
>
> Begin blog post//
>
> It is with a mix of regret and pride that today, on behalf of the OKF
> Board of Directors, I'm publishing minutes of OKF Board meetings
> dating back to May 2009. Regret because these minutes should have been
> made public much earlier than now, and it's just been one of those
> items on the Board's to do list that has been put off and put off
> again in favour of other items, either more immediately pressing or
> more exciting. And pride because together this set of minutes
> documents, if only from one rather dry perspective, the growth and
> development of an organisation and community that has achieved rather
> a lot in the last 18 months.
>
> It's a story worth telling. In May 2009, the OKF Board met face to
> face in the Cambridgeshire countryside for a day-long brainstorming
> session about how best it could contribute to the network's future.
> Here, we outlined a shared vision for the organisation as one that
> supports autonomous projects loosely joined by their endorsement and
> promotion of open knowledge (as set out in the open knowledge
> definition). We looked in detail at compliance issues, sketched out
> projected outgoings, and discussed three promising looking income
> streams: consultancy projects (whose operating profits could be
> "tithed" back to the community), grants, and fundraising from the
> network.
>
> That meeting defined much of the work that was to come. That Summer,
> while Jordan Hatcher put in a lot of pro bono time cementing
> compliance processes, I produced a selection of potential financial
> plans, and Paula le Dieu worked up a more detailed reflection of the
> OKF vision that would eventually be put out for consultation with the
> community at the end of the year. In the meantime the OKF began
> working with the Cabinet Office, 4IP and others (such as
> farmsubsidy.org and aid.info), contributing legal and technical
> expertise to realise various projects, including data.gov.uk and Where
> Does My Money Go? Rufus Pollock maintained an overview of this work,
> reporting financial and legal issues to the Board at monthly
> conference call meetings, while Martin Keegan contributed accounting
> expertise, helping prepare for the year-end accounts, submitted  in
> February 2010.
>
> The following August, when the Board met again for an away day in
> Cambridgeshire, the organisation it was discussing was in radically
> different shape. Thanks to a number of ongoing consultancy projects, a
> significant cash surplus had been accrued. And the profile of the
> organisation had increased dramatically. Rufus Pollock was on the
> verge of accepting a year-long fellowship at the Shuttleworth
> Foundation to continue driving forward the open data agenda. The
> number of potential consultancy and grant-funded projects had
> multiplied, and now included significant EU grant funding on the
> horizon.
>
> It was all good news, but it did present the Board with a number of
> new challenges. Firstly, the proliferation of projects combined with
> his new role at Shuttleworth made it clear that Rufus could no longer
> act as liaison between the day-to-day operations of the various arms
> of the OKF, and the Board. So we resolved to recruit for a new role -
> that of Project Coordinator. Seen as a compliment to the excellent
> work conducted by Jonathan Gray as Community Coordinator, the Project
> Coordinator would keep an eye on all contracted and grant-funded
> projects and report back to the Board so that we could continue our
> legal and finacial oversight role.
>
> The second - and nicest - challenge was how best to manage the
> operating surplus so that we could distribute it to those parts of the
> community that could do with it most. Our attempts to address this
> challenge remain ongoing, but at the August meeting we resolved to
> take an incremental, experimental approach, devolving discussion of
> the possibilities to the Coordination Committee, chaired at that time
> by Board Member Jo Walsh.
>
> The third challenge is in some sense the driving force behind this
> blog post. Since that meeting in May 2009 we have been acutely aware
> of the qualities that set OKF apart from other organisations, and of
> our duty as a Board to maintain those qualities. OKF is first and
> foremost a community, and thus the Board's role in shaping OKF's
> future should be limited to maintaining the financial and legal
> viability of the organisation. The Board has consciously avoided
> appointing anyone as its Executive Director. We feel that the
> strategic direction in which the organisation travels should be
> defined as far as possible by active members of the OKF community.
>
> It may seem odd, then, that we have not published these minutes
> sooner. And it is odd - in fact, the number of times an ACTION item is
> listed in these minutes to "progress publishing the minutes" is almost
> comical, if it weren't, from the Board's perspective, so regrettable.
>
> We have delayed publishing minutes of our discussions from the past 18
> months not from lack of will, but from lack of time, as we have been
> running to keep up with the pace with which open knowledge has
> rocketed up the national and international agenda. As well as
> resolving to publish the minutes as soonas they have been officially
> approved and adopted, this year the Board will be focussing on more
> ways to get the community involved in strategic decision-making at
> OKF. We're already speaking with members of other collaborative
> organisations, such as the Apache Software Foundation, about models
> that we could adapt or adopt.
>
> As a read through of the last 18 months' worth of minutes will
> confirm, governance is rarely sexy. But speaking as one person who has
> been part of this Board during this exciting phase of OKF's
> development, I think it can still be rewarding. I hope that if you do
> take time to read through the minutes we've published, you're inspired
> by the work that we've done. After all, the reason we come together
> regularly to discuss VAT registration, financial compliance, and
> contractual committments is because we're inspired by the work that
> you do.
>
> //ends
>
> ----------
> From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> Date: 10 January 2011 18:26
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Really great post -- and I really like the way it gives a sense of
> what has has happened too. Couple of minor comments inline below.
>
> Rufus
> Worth pointing out that we had published quite a few sets of minutes
> including some of the most significant (e.g. May 2009, Aug 2010)
> already up on the website. Not saying that we haven't been a bit
> delinquent but we shouldn't overdo it :)
> I reiterate my point above. Not sure we really need this level of self
> flagellation. Some of our meeting minutes *have* been put up
> (including the 2 most significant meetings ...)
>> _______________________________________________
>> foundation-board mailing list
>> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
>> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Co-Founder, Open Knowledge Foundation
> Promoting Open Knowledge in a Digital Age
> http://www.okfn.org/ - http://blog.okfn.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-board mailing list
> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
>
> ----------
> From: Jordan S Hatcher <jordan at opencontentlawyer.com>
> Date: 10 January 2011 20:22
> To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org, OKF Board Mailing List
> <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Hi Becky
>
> Thanks for putting this together -- really great stuff! My only comment is:
> Sorry to keep banging on this drum but can we please please erase
> "tithe" from our vocabulary?  "Profit" too as we are a non-profit.
>
> We do projects that generate a **"surplus"** (not a profit) that we
> then use to support the mission of the OKF to promote open knowledge.
> It is not a tithe. We are not supporting the church and clergy with
> one tenth of our earnings taken as a tax. We are doing perfectly
> reasonable and normal contracting work that meets our goals of open
> knowledge based on our expertise and using any surpluses to fund our
> unfunded open knowledge projects.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Jordan
> ____
> Mr. Jordan S Hatcher, JD, LLM
>
> More at: <http://www.jordanhatcher.com>
> Co-founder:  <http://www.opendatacommons.org>
> Open Knowledge: <http://www.okfn.org/>
>
> ----------
> From: Ian Brown <ian.brown at oii.ox.ac.uk>
> Date: 10 January 2011 21:12
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Agree with Jordan below. Becky, personally, I would remove about 75%
> of the below as a narrative that I'm not especially comfortable with,
> and simply state the facts of the situation.
>
> Cheers,
> Ian.
> --
> http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/brown/
>
> ----------
> From: Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> Date: 11 January 2011 09:38
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> This is great to see - thanks so much for taking the time to do this Becky!
>
> For what its worth, I would personally not be so inclined to emphasise
> that we have a big surplus of funds that we are puzzling over what to
> do with. Partly as this might increase external pressure to fund a
> whole bunch of people's stuff, or even people asking us to hire them.
> As we've not had a great deal of public discussion of money, and there
> are now quite a few readers of the blog, this kind of discussion could
> have a significant impact on the way people think about the OKF's
> financial health and financial activities.
>
> I guess my feeling is that even if we do have a surplus, as a
> Foundation we are playing a long long game and want to still be around
> in 5 or 10 years time. We have no idea what the future holds regarding
> the continuation of funding from various sources from which we
> currently receive it. E.g. we don't know what the next few years of EU
> funding wil hold (I suspect there may be a bit less cash in the system
> than there is at the moment), 4IP has just shut down, we don't know
> what will happen to JISC, and so on. Furthermore, as has been
> previously discussed, I don't think we want to build up a dependency
> on having a certain general annual turnover to keep things ticking.
> The big challenge in my mind is how to we make an organisation that
> successfully run on empty (i.e. with next to no money) by default, and
> still receive money from external parties to fund certain projects if
> this helps to promote open knowledge in a given area (e.g. Farm
> Subsidy or Access Info work), or accelerate work on something we
> wanted to do anyway (e.g. CKAN with UK Gov, EU, etc.).
>
> In any case, I'm starting to ramble!
>
> All the best,
>
> Jonathan
> --
> Jonathan Gray
>
> Community Coordinator
> The Open Knowledge Foundation
> http://blog.okfn.org
>
> http://twitter.com/jwyg
> http://identi.ca/jwyg
>
> ----------
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 12 January 2011 09:27
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Thanks to all for quick responses and comments. Do Jo, James, Martin
> or Paula want to comment on this before I start work on a second
> draft?
> Cheers
> Becky
> ----------
> From: Jo Walsh <metazool at gmail.com>
> Date: 12 January 2011 10:08
> To: foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
>
>
> More meta-comments; agreement with Jordan about the vague use of
> "tithe"; agreement with Rufus on the one point of excessive
> self-flagellation. Less sure about Jonny's suggestion that we
> de-emphasise the cash surplus - as one of the first tasks of the
> Projects Coordinator (starting soon?) is to get a grip on publishing
> quarterly accounts. Perhaps "surplus" can be phrased differently to
> reflect that fact that OKF will benefit from having a cushion for the
> next few years.
>
> But i liked the narrative tone and personal-level detail. Very glad
> you found the time Becky.
> ----------
> From: Jonathan Gray <jonathan.gray at okfn.org>
> Date: 12 January 2011 11:15
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> +1
>
> --
>
> ----------
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 13 January 2011 17:03
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Quick thought - are the accounts we've already filed available on the
> OKF website? I can't seem to find them... Also can't find them on the
> Board wiki. Should we be making these available?
>
> I'll redraft this blog post over the weekend...
>
> ----------
> From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> Date: 13 January 2011 18:42
> To: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Yes we should (and I don't think we are at the moment -- though you
> can also get them from companies house (though may need to pay £2 or
> something!)
>
> Rufus
> --
>
> ----------
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 13 January 2011 18:54
> To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org, OKF Board Mailing List
> <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Do you have copies? I'm happy to post along with the minutes, blog post etc...
>
> I actually tried to buy them from CH plus a few other okf-related docs
> the other day, but their payment system wasn't working.
>
> ----------
> From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> Date: 14 January 2011 01:52
> To: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Cc: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Not sure we have CH versions but everything we submitted is on the
> board wiki on the CompanyAccounts page I believe.
> Are arts and memorandum of association is already all posted on our
> site (for quite a while but perhaps not in that obvious a place ;) ):
>
> <http://okfn.org/board/>
>
> Rufus
>
> ----------
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 14 January 2011 08:29
> To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org
> Cc: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> I might be getting confused, (wouldn't be the first time!) but on the
> Board wiki I see pdf files of accounts made up to 31 May 2008
> (http://board.okfn.org/CompanyAccounts), but on the companies house
> page I see we've submitted accounts made up to 31 May 2009
> (http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/e834efae539f31ed9e601eca8a39552f/compdetails).
> Can you give me a bit more of a pointer?
> Yup, got those, it was the forms related to directorships that I
> wanted copies of, as have lost mine. But it's no biggie.
>
> Cheers
>
> Becky
>
> ----------
> From: Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org>
> Date: 14 January 2011 12:10
> To: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Cc: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> Apologies, it seems those set of accounts have not been added to the
> wiki (though trawling my email I see they were sent round to the coord
> list though on 20/02/2010 under title: "URGENT: OKF 2008/2009 Accounts
> for Companies House" :) )
>
> Anyway I've uploaded them now and apologies for the 'wild goose chase':
>
> <http://board.okfn.org/CompanyAccounts?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=accounts-submitted-2008-2009.pdf>
> OK, i guess we should probably list on the website our directors
> (actual and emeritus) and company memberships (identical with
> directors).
>
> Rufus
>
> ----------
> From: Becky Hogge <becky.hogge at gmail.com>
> Date: 14 January 2011 14:30
> To: rufus.pollock at okfn.org
> Cc: OKF Board Mailing List <foundation-board at lists.okfn.org>
>
>
> On 14 January 2011 12:10, Rufus Pollock <rufus.pollock at okfn.org> wrote:
> <snip>
> Thanks, Rufus!
>
> <snip>
> Perhaps. I simply wanted a copy for my own records...
>
> Cheers
>
> B
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-board mailing list
> foundation-board at lists.okfn.org
> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-board
>

-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg