Minutes Montreal 2009.07.19

From Pirate Party of Canada

Contents 1 Website français 2 Quebec OSS Groups 3 Main Website 4 Video Conferencing 5 Online Voting 6 Advertising 7 One Paragraph 8 TODO list software 9 Wiki Edits 10 Membership Cards 11 Bylaws 12 Seating Arrangements 13 Next Meeting 14 Other

Website français

At the moment our site is not very français-friendly. I think all the French speakers on our forums are bilingual, we should get a friendlier version for them to find their way.

There's a forming site called pp-francophone, which groups the French Pirate Parties from around the world. Canada will be one of these (hopefully).

Quebec OSS Groups

There are a few OSS groups around Quebec that we can hopefully talk with to get some more press/support:

• savoirfairelinux
• Facil (the ones who sued the Quebec government for not using OSS)

Main Website

What's going on with the website? If people are too busy, we can transfer it to someone else.

For the basic site we have now, we should make the registration link more visible as many people seem to miss it.

Video Conferencing

Some groups meet all at the same time, perhaps it would be good to have an audio/video conferencing system going. Suggestions were:

• Skype
• DimDim
• Teamspeak

Online Voting

This can have problems with security in the long-run, however we think in the short-run it will be more feasible to vote this way. We would like to move to paper ballots once we are more established.

Advertising

• Bumper stickers - Michel (fx) said he knew someone who does bumper stickers.
• T-shirts - Daniel (LasD) said he knew someone who could get cheaper T-shirts than Zazzle.
• Montreal Tech Watch
• Twitter/Facebook reminder that people can sign up

One Paragraph

We need a one paragraph description of what we stand for. One for both English and French. See here.

TODO list software

We decided that Mantis is a bit too complicated a management software for what we're doing. Does somebody know of a simple task-management software? Or should we just stick to the wiki page?

Wiki Edits

• What's going on with the greyed-out buttons on the edit page? Makes it look like you can't click the buttons.

(Fixed, sorry about that. Do a hard refresh and they should appear as normal. JSagert 05:03, 20 July 2009 (UTC))

• Discussion about a page should happen on the discussion tab of the page, not the page itself.

Membership Cards

We talked briefly about the membership cards, we think it is a good idea because it adds legitimacy to the party.

Bylaws

• Have a few people go through with a fine-toothed comb. Volunteers were:
  • Rob
  • Michel
• quorum: % vs. absolute number vs. % with minimum? We decided that 20-40% of the membership would be good, with a minimum of 10 people.
• annual member meetings are required
• Council is confusing - let's just stick with Board of Directors, it is unambiguous
• Number of people for proposing an amendment: use same system as quorum, maybe 10% of the membership.
• Membership after 30 days rule - this should take effect once the party has been created
• Ballots - should be mail in. We can have a PDF form to print out, or people can request them in the mail

(A random bar code could be printed on each PDF / mail in ballot to ensure that people only vote once. We could tag a member that received a ballot in the CRM. Nuitari 01:55, 20 July 2009 (EST))

• Contact from party - mail and email
• Authentication of members - some talk of a bar code using a hash - all of this process would be described online of course. Nothing was decided on here.
• Bylaws vs. Party Requirements - Bylaws are necessary for the non-profit corporation, but not necessary for registration of a party - we should try to separate the information. However some of the bylaws will be used for the management of party members.
• Draft and update later - we can come up with a draft for our bylaws and then finalize it after we have the corporation - provided we put a clause for altering the bylaws.
• Split Constitution and Bylaw documents - these are two unrelated things, bylaws are for how the corporation is managed, constitution says what we stand for. Let's separate these documents.
• Minimalist approach - let's minimize the amount of stuff we put into constitution and bylaws - the less we put in, the less restrictions we have. Let's only put what we need to register.
• Proofreading - get this done by an editor and then by a lawyer - this could cost some $$$, does anybody know a lawyer?
• Need an auditor - maybe talk to professors or accounting teachers? We'll likely need someone certified

Seating Arrangements

To match faces and names, the people were seated like so (if names are misspelled I'm sorry, but the writing is not always perfectly legible :) ):

• First row (not against the wall):
  • Sébastien Duquette (ekse) - was the guy with the laptop
  • Warren Huard (Kaeso)
  • François Chagnon
• Second row (along the wall):
  • Michel (fx)
  • Rob (rob.s.brit)
  • Stephane (Nuitari)
• On the end:
  • Daniel Lasalle (LasD)

Next Meeting

We might want a new venue for the following reasons:

• wall outlets for power
• a projector so that everybody can see
• place where food and drinks are accepted
• wireless Internet

Some places were suggested:

• Daniel's place - pretty far out, a 10 minute drive from Honoré-Beaugrand at the east end of the green metro line
• In McGill - Warren mentioned he might be able to get a room
• In Concordia maybe
• Foulab?

Next meeting date:

• Monday, August 3rd at 6pm, location TBD

Other

I have "copyright talk" written, I don't remember what it was for. Consultation on the copyright reform process is about to begin. I said we should start working on a proposition we want to send. It would be a great opportunity to try to gather attention about these issues and the party. ekse