From Pirate Party UK Wiki

Attendance

GM (Gavin Meredith),

LK (Loz Kaye),

PC (Phil Cooke),

AH (Andy Halsall),

EG (Ed Geraghty),

MG (Miah Gregory)

Apologies

Minutes

Minutes from last meeting (21th of August 2011) are approved.

Matters Arising

GM was to obtain a signature from JB and forward completed RP4 to Electoral Commission, this will be done on Wednesday.

• AH/LK checked funds transfer

• PC contacted MG and opened nominations for the Data Controller post, nominations opened on Tuesday.

• LK forwarded email from SO to NEC

• AH/LK liaised with SO on conference questions.

• LK sent EG links for news content.

• AH sent Jack Allnutt (JA) an RP4 to complete and passed a digital copy to GM.

Actions from this meeting:

• GM to forward completed and signed RP4 to the electoral commission.

• LK to forward all responses to NEC

• GM, LK, PC and AH to put together a specification for the new site with EG.

• AH organise a meeting with EG on website specifications.

Web site specification

It was decided that GM AH LK and PC were to put together a spec for the new web site. EG would develop a technical specification from these discussions, PC will overlap with membership, and will provide EG with requirements for the election system, AH and LK will deal with press and campaigns requirements etc.. PC stated that he would like to spend time to talk about and decide how the system is going to work. EG reiterated that its starting from scratch and we can fix what is fundamentally broken, but that this required a fundamental redesign.

MG asked if this suggestion was a repeat of what had been said and not achieved many times in the past. GM stated that yes it was, but that now things were working more effectively and that elements had been put in place to facilitate the project. GM was to liase with PC on the election system although PC believed that the election spec will take weeks.

MG stated that he felt it would take 6 months to get similar functionality to the current site. LK stated that the will and direction had changed and that delivery would be expected before then. Ed stated that he felt he would be able to move forward with this and LK stated he felt that things were moving.

AH suggested getting EG up north for meetings and LK suggested that there were alternatives. AH was asked to organise a meeting to discuss the specifications.

LK made clear that the time scale would be up to the web team, but that it needed to be realistic.

Policy platform.

AH stated that he felt Ed had everything on the policy process now, is looking for a time scale. Delivery by end of week if at all possible.

LK wanted to ensure that there would be coordination with the media, AH stated he had spoken to HP on the matter and that it was still planned for LK to take a lead on announcing the initiative

Press and communications

LK wanted to make people aware that coming into autumn, the plan is to radically up the amount of press and communications rate. The amount of output from the party had been woefully poor and utterly unacceptable in the last period.

GM questioned this position, he stated that he wasn't sure if the rate of press releases the party was issuing was similar to that of other parties such as the Liberal Democrats, Labour, The Conservatives and the Greens. LK stated that the problem was that we release one a month, and that the releases were being ignored. LK further stated that attention so far had come from individual contact. One of the problems was that often in social media we have had to link to external sources, sending people away rather than to us. LK further pointed out that the new press process brings visitors and interested parties in. LK stated that we would monitor responses to releases and that he wanted bigger footprint.

AH also stated that the changes to the press release system were in line with other parties and that in terms of volume and content we had slipped a little.

GM asked how many releases other parties put out. AH stated that it depended but that the rate was high from other parties, essentially they commented on anything of interest.

LK stated that the party had been analysing the releases that we have been putting out and that we needed to trust the press team to do that. Recent responses to releases underlined the point that we need to take education issues and other issues up and that such issues were a news hook.

AH stated that the party needed to maintain consistency and work on both the length and precision of it's releases, and to note that the education release from the previous week had somewhat broken the rules but had resulted in good responses.

LK/AH reiterated that they had purposefully stood away from the formulation and release of that press statement, and that that had been the point, an attempt to push people to take action.

AH reported to the NEC that the amount of visitors looking at the PPUK site on the basis of the education release had been 10k in the space of 48 hours.

Conference

LK reported that he had talked to SO with regard to the date for conference 2012, a consensus had been reached suggesting that the conference should be in March, specifically the second weekend in march, (10-11 march). LK stated that the party wanted to focus on the political work at conference and that we were keen that there is space for outside speakers, for debate and for policy suggestions from members (non nec/board) as well as room for argument and debate on policy.

The issue was to be placed back in committee's hands to allow them to get on with the organisation.

GM wondered if as with last year the conference was going to be aimed aimed at members. LK stated it should be open to the public, but that a distinction between member and non-member events would be made.

GM discussed how payment would be made with AH. AH had suggested that taking payment directly would be something work investigating, rather than outsourcing the entire process to a third party. EG stated that for that to be possible the party would have to become a Payment processor. Ed stated he didn't want to become a broker. AH thought that wasn't the case anyway and that using a payment processor would not require the party to become a broker. LK stated that there was a preference that multiple payment mechanisms be available.

EG made clear that at present the party only takes paypal for other payments, because of the way the site was written.

LK stated he wanted multiple avenues for payment, GM stated that anyone could be passed to GM to do so.

After much discussion and some objections from AH, the consensus was to use event brite for the ticketing of the conference unless the conference committee found an alternative that was acceptable to EG and GM.

Membership strategy

LK stated that we have been lining our ducks up to start to grow again, weve been putting people in place to start getting the party moving He stated that getting policy together was the next thing. LK further stated that increasing press presence is part of that and that he felt we were increasing visibility.

LK further stated that we need to start thinking about (other than on the back of stories) doing more to push membership and asked who was responsible?

GM stated he was responsible for membership, AH thought bringing in new members was largely his responsibility.

LK stated that there need to be a number of fixes - LK reported that each week he talked at events with audiences of 100 people or more, he stated we needed a membership post card or some method of signing people up.

GM and AH stated that they had discussed the practicality of establishing this. AH has this as a priority and finding a solution acceptable and workable for all was ongoing.

AH felt that membership was still a panic priority for the party and that he was working on getting everything in place to make a large push in that area, using the policy process and press as a spur.

LK stated he intended to make this a continual point on NEC meetings.

AOB

• MG stated that he was due to visit Manchester on monday and would be available to meet people. LK stated that he would meet with MG on Sunday and AH will try to get over too. MG offered his appologies for being unable to attend the next meeting.

• PC stated that the Board of governors vote would finish tonight. He further stated that no results would be issued before noon tomorrow. PC also wanted to issue a reminder that he would be away from next Friday through to Tuesday and that he would not be contactable for anything bar major incidents and hoped his appologies would be accepted.

• [Redacted - PC report on a privacy issue]

• LK also stated that he may be late for the next meeting in case of delay to his flights.

• AH stated that he would be formally requesting that the board consider disciplinary panels for Pete Liddell and Finlay Archibald (FA).

• LK wanted to note that he values FA and his contributions greatly, but that the party needed to be transparent on what has and is happening.

• GM stated that he is still waiting for official confirmation as to what is happening over FA, as is AH.