Table of Contents
Agenda of the 3rd PPEU Board Meeting on the 21st of April 2014
Participants:
@Popol349 | Paul Bossu
@tvelocity | Antonios Motakis
@teirdes | Amelia Andersdotter until 22:20 CEST
@CristianBulumac | Cristian Bulumac
@LunaLoof | Martina Pöser
@AndersPirat | Anders Kleppe
@marou_pp | Maxime Rouquet
Excused:
@Gilles_PPDE | Gilles Bordelais
@Radeks00 | Radek P. (stuck in traffic, may be joining in later)
Guests:
@dichter | Gregory Engels
TOP 0 Formalities
Martina is opening the meeting at 21:21 CEST.
Chairman: Cristian (agreed)
Minutes (Secretary): Martina, Maxime
Approval of the minutes of the last Board meeting:
http://ppeu.net/wiki/doku.php?id=ppeu:board:minutes2014-04-06
Amelia explains that some annotations in the minutes are not fully clear and somebody should have a look at it first and clarify it before we vote on approval of these minutes.
Martina proposes do this task.
Vote: Approved
Anders : +1
Paul : +1
Cristian : +1
Tony : +1
Amelia : +1
Martina : +1
Maxime : +1
Approval of the agenda:
Cristian proposes to postpone point 2 (IT structure) as Gilles could not be here tonight.
Approval of the agenda (without point 2)?
Anders : +1
Paul : +1
Cristian : +1
Tony : +1
Amelia : +1
Martina : +1
Maxime : +1
Approved by all.
Proposal : for consensual votes, we don't ask everybody to vote but mark in the minutes that the point is approved by the Board. Nobody seems to be against. It will be the procedure for today.
Agenda
TOP 1 Procedural Rules for the Board
TOP 2 IT Structure - Postponed to next meeting
TOP 3 Registering the party
TOP 4 Banking account
TOP 5 Registering of Logo as European Trademark
TOP 6 Communication Strategy
TOP 7 Press Releases
TOP 8 Other Stuff
TOP 9 Next Board Meeting
TOP 1 Procedural Rules for the Board
*Draft: https://eu.piratenpad.de/ppeu-board-rules-of-procedure
Are there any suggestions on how to adapt the draft?
Please put them here:
Proposals of change have been made in the pad. Amelia agrees with most of the changes, but warns that writing strict timelines for the work (like “publishing the minutes within X days”) could be too difficult. She propose that 2 or more people have a look at it.
Martina, Anders and Maxime volunteer to take another look at the rules of procedure. They coordinate via Doodle for a mumble meeting and inform everybody else afterwards.
Approved by all Board members.
TOP 2 IT Structure -postponed
* Begining of part not discussed but keeped for next meeting *
Gilles is reporting:
PPEU mail server (groupware as an option)
PPEU mailing lists
(PPEU) mumble server
PPEU pads
PPEU websites http://ppeu.net/ | https://europeanpirates.eu/
PPEU wiki http://ppeu.net/wiki/doku.php
Gregory has set up a mailing list on the PPI servers for us (and the Delegates and the work group on educational issues) to use until we have our own infrastructure:
http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu.board (and a private ml that is not listed)
→ Gilles and Martina have admin rights there.
http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu.council
http://lists.pp-international.net/listinfo/pp-eu.education
Martina is trying to get admin rights for the mumble room PPEU on the German NRW mumble server and has written an email to the responsible persons, but didn't get an answer yet.
Martina: I got admin rights now, but haven't tried to use them yet.
* End of part not discussed but keeped for next meeting *
TOP 3 Registering the party
Decision from the last Board meeting: We delegate to Radek, Paul and Cristian to organise the founding of an ASBL and initiate at the same time the procedures to upgrade it as an AISBL as soon as we will fullfil the requirements. But if they get new information, they have the discretion to change the decision for the better.
Radek, Paul and Cristian report on the progress here:
Cristian suggested to found only an aisbl because a legal organisation will probably not be needed quickly. If it does, we could still found an asbl in a week-end. To found only one organisation would save money. He talked to Gregory who suggested to use another notary than PPI did, because the relationship to that one wasn't a very good one.
Paul said that there would be a translation of the statutes into Flamish or French necessary. The ones existing would need to be improved.
There is a strong possibility that we need to register the association with Statutes in either French or Flamish. It could require either that we ask all the PPEU members to approve a translated version of the Statutes, or that we make an official translation of the current English Statutes. Cristian explains this last option should be possible for a few euros per page. But it would have to be a registered official translator.
Martina: I don't think that we will need the approval of the members for a translation, as Art. 3 of the PPEU statutes says that the English translation should prevail, if there is any doubt about the interpretation.
Cristian : We also need to find a notary. The AISBL would take 2 to 3 months to be registered.
Proposal: Paul is in charge of coordinating a translation of the Statutes. Cristian, Paul and Radek stay in charge of this point until next meeting.
The work with Cristian is here: http://www.titanpad.com/aisbl
TOP 3 bis Registering PP-EU Member's list
This point is about the list of PP-EU members we have to handle to a Brussels structure after annoucement of the Statutes.
Not all the members of PPEU have answered yet.
We have to determine what is the relevant Court where the list shall be registered. Paul and Cristian have had a look at it and it looks like it is not legally mandatory for us to deposit such a list somewhere. We are not sure where this list is coming from. There is no Court in Belgium where we could deposit such a list, at list until we are registered as an AISBL.
Proposal: Maxime will ask the last PPs to put the required information in the pad. The list will be published on the website and ready to handle to any Court or Belgian authority asking for it.
Here is a pad of maxime : https://piratenpad.de/w1PjaPWNoI
TOP 4 Banking account
Radek will prepare a list of the interesting options available and of their main differences for the next Board meeting:
Paul explains he don't think we need a bank that is inside the European Parliament as the extraction of money will be limited to some events.
Amelia advises not to use her office as the office registering an account since the outcome of the elections are unclear. She advises to take into account the practical side, and therefore to be careful not to have too much administrative constraints with our future financial operations. She propose to ask the Board to vote between TRIODOS (better on the ethical but not on the practical side) and “any other” bank, to have a first idea of the position of the Board. Paul explains he is attached to the idea of ethical banking, not TRIODOS in particular. “If there areother ethic bank ineurope and online, i'm also ok … and just to add, there will be bancard at triodos in 2015.”
Cristian would like to discuss with Radek on the possibility to manage some of PPEU's money in cash at the beginning, provided the accountability of PPEU is well and transparently managed.
Paul: Radek comes each month to Brussels (he said it during last meeting)
Proposal: The subject will be further discussed with Radek to determine in particular what we can or cannot do before we open a bank account.
→ Approved
TOP 5 Registering of PPEU Logo as European Trademark
Martina: The German Pirate Party is thinking about registering the PPEU logo as a trademark in Germany and perhaps as a European trademark, too. I asked them to wait until we have reached a decision about the question, if we want to register it as a trademark for PPEU ourselves. The registration as a European trademark is pretty expensive, as it will cost about € 1.200,-.
What do we want to do?
Ask Maxime, they have also managed this in France. They registered Pirate Party logos to stop abuse by people pretending to be Pirates but having position against privacy. Registering the Parti Pirate mark appeared as the best way to legally prevent them of using the PP-FR logo on their anti-pirate websites, flyers, etc. Cristian and Amelia are against registering a trademark because it would be kind of ironic for Pirates to register trademarks.
Martina says that she believes that the German Pirates registered trademarks to have a handle against right wing websites using Pirate signs. The German Pirate party's lawyer seemed to be wanting to register the logo in any case, either for the German Pirates or allowing PPEU to do this instead. But she has to ask him about it. Martina will invite Jochen Bokor (the lawyer hired part-time for the German Pirate Board) to the next meeting to talk about the intentions behind registering it.
AMELIA LEAVES THE MEETING AT 22:20:00.
Cristian : sometimes trademarks can be a good tool to fight against abusive use of logos. But anyway it is not possible to register PPEU's logo until the PPEU itself is registered.
Proposal : Jochen, member of PP-DE and part-time layer for the Board, who is proposing to register the trademark, will be invited to discuss this in a next Mumble meeting.
→ Approved
TOP 6 Communication Strategy
A meeting was called by Cristian and held on Mumble on 16th April, with one more planned for 24th April.
The main points were:
- brainstorming communication issues:
New website on europeanpirates.eu, with our colors and specific branding: Cristian spoke with Amelia and her office, work is in progress ⇒ Kash can help
Repository of all campaign materials with sources and copyright: German and Catalan pirate already gave the materials, more info on copyright needed. Work in progress in obtaining the Czech materials.
- kickstarting a scientific process of building a communication strategy
Cristian will write to all PPs members of PPEU asking them to provide a person that guided by Anders (PPEU board member) will provide the answers that will help in having a strategy.
Cristian: I have now access and manager rights on both PPEU pages on FB.
Next steps:
- sending the abovementioned email to all members
- identifying a calendar of events that need press releases (see also TOP7)
- finishing the work on the website
Martina: Here is a prepared website for the European elections: http://piraten-steinfurt.de/u/ppeu/. It just needs to be transfered to the europeanpirates.eu-site. The person to talk to who has prepared this site is Florian Wagner / flow (f.wagner@piratenpartei-nrw.de).
TOP 7 Press Releases
Maxime shall report on how we want to organise press work effectively: There has been some basic rules discussed up to now in the Board : Press releases can be written by anybody but have to be approved by at least 2 members of the Board to be sent. The idea of multiple writers/checkers is good, shall we restrict the people who can say go (for e.g. at least one person amongst a shorter list shall be one of the two ?)
Cristian: we need a calendar in order to be able to prepare for the events that we already know there will be organised.Example 15th May TTIP protests,EC presidency debates, other TV debates, protests, big street actions
Maxime : +1, we should prepare 2 or 3 different versions of important pirate events we do not now the outcome in advance (like elections : 1 for “success”, 1 for “not far from winning”, 1 for “better than last time”) and be ready to send them as soon as we get the information. This is the only way to get our interpretation of facts spread with the news in media. Our spokesperson(s) shall be aware of the version that will be sent to the press in advance, so that she (they) can answer interviews in time.
- It could be good to write a list of big/small mistakes to avoid. For example : don't consider CEEP is PPEU's program (as some PPs are not in EU or did not sign it but are members of PPEU), etc. Anders thinks it would be better to adapt communication a EU State level. He proposes to have 3 Board members approving a press release before sending it.
Proposal: Press releases can be written by anybody, but have to be approved by 3 Board members.
→ Approved
Proposal : A calendar of next European Pirate events shall be maintained up to date on our website or a wiki page, and press releases shall be written in advanced to be published before or during the events.
Proposal: Cristian with the help of Maxime and Lisa will maintain the calendar
→ Approved
Proposal: Maxime and Anders will maintain a list of usual mistakes to avoid on a wiki page to help the writers and approvers of press releases to do their job.
→ Approved
TOP 8 Other Stuff
Primary contact person(s) in the PPEU Board for non-EU member PPs Anders: Proposal to delegate two primary contact persons towards non-EU member Pirate Parties. These two should first focus on issues important to members outside the EU.
→ Anders is taking his proposal from the agenda and will reintroduce it after the EU elections.
EU.coordinators mailing-list is hosted by PPI and controlled by PP-CZ. It is proposed to discussed that with Gilles at a next meeting, things are fine now anyway.
TOP 9 Next Board Meeting
Dudle/Doodle to determine the next board meeting time? Martina makes a doodle for the 5th to 9th of May as possible dates to determine the next Board meeting.
The Board will convene again on the XX/XX/2014 at 21.00 CEST on the German NRW Mumble server in room PPEU.
Cristian closes the meeting at 22:55 CEST on the 21/04/2014.