Wednesday 17th October, 16.30 CEST

Participants: (Doodle)

• Zara Rahman
• Christian Villum
• Neal Bastek
• Laura James
• Tom Alvarenga
• Charalampos Bratsas
• Anastasios Ventouris
• Rayna Stamboliyska
• Oleg Lavrovsky
• Heather Leson

Apologies (unable to attend):

• Prakash Neupane (Nepal)

• Daniel Dietrich (Germany)

• Julia Kloiber (Germany) – at Code for America summit

• Rufus Pollock (on holiday)

Agenda and meeting minutes

1. #topic Update on Actions from last call + introduction

• Introduction – new member of Local Groups team, Heather Leson!

• Better folder management of documents to share with International Council
  • website now updated, and one folder shared with you all, linked to from website page
  • Participants invited to look at above links and come back with questions, if any.

• Standard mail aliases for all Local Groups requested from sysadmin

• info@xx.okfn.org ; our new Technical Director, Nick Stenning, has advised against having this but would rather have @_____.okfn.org addresses standardised across community.

• Codes of Conduct signed by all Ambassadors (to roll out this/next week for Local Initiatives)

• Projects page from OKFN Central has been updated: https://okfn.org/projects/

• Forum suggestion – we started using Tenderappas a helpdesk, it can also be used as an online forum home. Should we follow up on this?
  • possibly integrating Forum functionality into the wikispace

• Community Resources page on the site now up

• Fundraising help – have liaised with James Hamilton, our new Development Director; his suggestion = a concept note hack session, bringing together group of 5-8 people including himself to look through concept notes, on a monthly basis.

2. #topic Other updates within Local Groups network

a. OKCon

• Representatives from 55 countries, including many Local Groups (picture)

• Feedback survey for participants

  • In general people had an awesome time, great meeting new and old faces etc.
  • Next year’s OKFestival – longer, festival, with heavy international community involvement. Updates / input to be sought soon!

a. Local Groups Community Fund

• The Local Groups Community Fund – administering 100-150 euros to groups, more details: https://okfn.org/local/community-resources/#local-groups-community-fund
  • How to decide who gets these resources / review process? Selection process document started here.
  • Lots of interest in this from the community + brainstorming
  • Need transparency when it comes to distributing the funds, perhaps making use of the wiki

c. Open Data Partnership for Development

• Project launched in collaboration with World Bank and the UK Open Data Institute, more details to focus on developing countries. Led by Heather Leson from Open Knowledge Foundation, more updates coming soon.

d. Data gathered from Ambassadors

• Asked to sign Codes of Conduct and fill in Workplan forms (sample here) outlining their scope of activity over next 12 months

• Biography and photo from each Ambassador – to be put online in country profiles

• #todo – same information from Local Initiatives and Chapters

3. #topic Input sought

a. Email addresses for community members (individuals)

• Domain suggestions? @okfn.org to be used going forward for paid staff members only. Suggestions:

  • @network.okfn.org
  • @local.okfn.org
  • @community.okfn.org
  • suggested that we have country specific domains, but that could possibly alienate working group and other community members
  • other suggestion from the community was @net.okfn.org

b. Communications channels with community

• #suggestion – a weekly community hangout, like ‘office hours’ where people are free to come and chat with Local Groups team / community members

• general positive support for something like this

• #suggestion – more use of IRC ?

• neutral response, not many alternative suggestions

• wiki came up again as a place for spontaneous connections

• #suggestion online skillshare sessions – eg. social media use, customising blog sites.

• yes, a good idea

c. Knowledge sharing within community

• #suggestion – reviving the wiki as the main community knowledge space [currently very out of date]

• Participants were generally in favor of this.

• Have to deal with the spam issue constructively.

• How to, for example, share information on transitioning from Initiative to Chapter / challenges facing Local Groups, lessons learned cross-network?

• mentioned by Finnish Local Group (Jaakko)

3. #topic Upcoming

• Upcoming events: Open Data Day, February 22nd 2014

  • Updates coming soon – anything planned?

  • Get it on the wiki and/or a public calendar

• International Council – any members you would recommend being added? Full list on website

• #suggestion having representation from each Local Initiative and particularly active Ambassadors ?