Open Knowledge Foundation
Board of Directors

Board Meeting Minutes, September 2014

A meeting of the Open Knowledge Foundation board was held at the offices of Mozilla, 3rd Floor, 101 St Martin's Lane, Covent Garden, London  at 6:30pm-8:30pm on Wednesday 10th September 2014.

Attending in person: Laura James (exec), Rufus Pollock (exec)

Attending remotely: Martin Tisne (board observer), Karin Christiansen, Jane Silber (first part of meeting), Chris Marshall (latter part of meeting)

  1. Introductions and apologies

  2. Review of minutes

The minutes of the last meeting were reviewed and approved.

  1. Leadership transition and related matters

Martin provided an update on the new Omidyar grant proposal.  This grant is likely to be signed in a matter of days and at that point Omidyar Network Human Capital (ON HC) team will be able to engage and assist with executive search and related matters.

Timescale and process for leadership transition including the future of Rufus’s role were discussed.  It was agreed to announce the transition as soon as possible and Laura and Rufus were tasked to draft a post about this.

Jane Silber left the meeting and Chris Marshall joined the meeting.

  1. Organisational development

Plans for organisational development were discussed, including how much change or development in strategy and operations might be appropriate in the near term. It was agreed that there should be no plans for structural change such as setting up new organisational entities in the next few months.

  1. matters arising from management report

The report was discussed. The finance subcommittee will meet in the next week or two and will report back after that.

It was agreed that Laura and Rufus should discuss the results of the summer staff survey with Penny from the ON HC team.

Laura and Rufus were asked to share a summary of which board members have attended which meetings with Karin.

  1. AOB

Related parties and conflict of interest declarations needed for this year’s audit were discussed.

An update on the EC audit results was shared. The follow up work from the audit is now complete and we have an accurate figure for the reclaim but are waiting on an update from the EC as to any final changes before we adjust the provisions made in the accounts.

Rufus’s status was discussed and it was agreed that the board would prepare a declaration around the salary they would be willing to pay in 2013-14, as part of input to the annual accounts and audit.  It was also agreed that Rufus would sign a declaration that he will abide by the organisation’s rules which would apply if he was an employee.

Rufus provided an update on the situation with a non-paying client.

Chris announced his intent to resign from the board due to relocation overseas.  Karin thanked him for his service. The board agreed to seek out potential replacements with financial expertise.