General Assembly 2021
| APPROVED |
| Language: | English • Deutch • français • Nederlands |
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Wikimedia Belgium invites all effective members to the General Assembly.
Venue
Saturday 26/06/2021 at 14:00
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Meeting procedures
We will perform the secret voting via the built-in Google Meet enquête. You can find this option at the right bottom of the screen (click on the triangle, square and circle, then choose “Polls”). Google Meet Poll ensures that any person can only vote once. We will ask all participants to present themselves at the beginning of the meeting (preferably using audio and video) to avoid false identities.
Some of you hold a proxy for another member. To be able to vote for yourself, and your proxy, you should connect a second time via the browser option “New incognito window”. Enter the name of the person you represent followed by a “(proxy)” suffix . Do not activate your microphone, neither your camera in this second session (simply close the popup messages “Accept that Meet used your camera and microphone” and “Meet want to use your microphone and camera”).
Some of you are not eligible to vote (only effective members can vote); we trust that those participants do not click on the voting buttons. Anyway, after the meeting the voting details will be available to the meeting organizer (myself), so abuse and fraud will be obviously detected.
You can ask questions via the chat box. We will also post additional hyperlinks to other documents, as necessary. We are with less than 15 participants. To improve the quality of the sound for all the participants, make sure to disable your microphone, unless you are talking. I propose to activate your camera only when you are talking? If you have connectivity problems, or further questions, please contact +32 471 82 20 26.
Introduction
Because of the videoconference, the chair gives a brief explanation about the use of:
- Chat box, questions and answers
- Voting session
- Hands up
- Microphone and camera
There were no objections to the meeting being recorded for internal records, on the premise it is not published/distributed outside the board.
[ starting the video recording ]
Meeting administration
- Chair of the meeting: Geertivp
- Vote counter: Mike
- Note taker: Mike
- Chat follow-up: Ciell
Presence
It is a standard General Assembly, so a normal majority is sufficient to approve any agenda topic.
- Count of presence: 11 (12 of which 1 left before vote)
- Count of proxies: 4
- Associate member: 1
- Total represented: 15
- Ordinary majority: 8
Effective members present
Only Effective members have voting rights. In order of registration. (+1) denotes proxy.
- Geert Van Pamel (+1)
- Rony Vissers
- Gereon Kalkuhl
- Vinciane Lacroix
- Ciell (+1)
- Dominique Labar (+1)
- Sam Donvil (+1)
- Anne Jea
- Andra Waagmeester (left before the voting started)
- Antoine M0tty
- Johannes Grillet
- Mike Nicolaije
New effective members
Associate members who are members for 6 months may be admitted by the Board as effective members.
- Willi Huyghe
- Kathelijne De Vos
- Ronald Torfs
2 of the 3 board members were present (Anne Jea only arrived later in the meeting), so the board could legally decide. The affiliated members mentioned above were accepted by the board.
Votes by Proxy
Effective members who can't be present can give a proxy to a trustee.
Only 1 proxy per member allowed.
Please provide the name and the email address of one member via
board
wikimedia.be.
| Member name | Proxy holder |
|---|---|
| Willi Huyghe | Geert Van Pamel |
| Kathelijne De Vos | Ciell |
| Ronald Torfs | Sam Donvil |
| Hubert Christiaen | Dominique Labar |
Associate members
Associate members can attend the meeting but do not have voting rights.
Luk Vollon is an associate member, so had no voting rights.
Activities in 2020
14:15-15:10 - The chair gives a presentation on the annual accounts and activities of Wikimedia Belgium. Due to the corona crisis and a lack of volunteers there has been less activity and about ⅔ of the funds planned for this year were returned to the WMF unused. Currently a lot of activity of Wikimedia Belgium is directed by Geert in person. Wikimedia Belgium needs new board members and project leaders. Sam has volunteered as new board member.
Approval of the Annual Accounts 2020
- Annual Accounts 2020
- Financial report 2020
- Report of the Accounts Committee
15:10-15:25 - Report by the audit committee. Ciell formed the committee on her own this year. She had full access to the accounts. The committee found no discrepancies in the accounts and advised the general assembly to discharge the board for the 2020 financial year.
Discharge of the board 2020
Ciell presented how she audited the General ledger and Annual statement over 2020.
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I did not find any irregularities during my audit, and would like to thank Geert and the board for the once again clear accounting and the complete openness that was given. I would like to advise the General Assembly to approve the Financial Report 2020 and thus grant discharge to the board 2020.— Ciell, 26 juni 2021
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Approval of the budget 2021
We received from WMF a grant of 16.500 € for 2021, the same amount as in 2020. Details:
15:25-15:30 - The chair gives a presentation on the plans and budget for 2021.
Board elections
Association rules
- A mandate as Board member is valid for 2 years
- The Chair needs to be re-elected every year
- The number of Board members is between 3-6; Board decision 2015-12-05 approved at the 2016-01-23 General Assembly
- Effective members can become a Board member after being candidate board member, and after election by the GA
- Associate members can become effective member, after 6 months being associate member, upon request, and after approval by the Board
Board election 2021
Can continue their 2nd year Board member without re-election:
- AnneJea (Gender and Diversity)
Up for re-election:
- Mike Nicolaije
- Geert Van Pamel (Chair)
Candidate Board member:
See also Wanted - Board members for Wikimedia Belgium.
Activities in 2021
For 2021, we want to continue to grow as Wikimedia Belgium. We received sufficient funding to organise new activities. We want to use this opportunity to explicitly call for volunteers who would be interested in organising activities or projects, and can use financial and logistic support by Wikimedia Belgium for this. So we strongly encourage you to show up to our General Assembly.
Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund
15:30-15:45 - Introduction Friends of Wikimedia Belgium Fund. The Fund has collected 10.000 € in the period December 2019-June 2021. It is looking for projects to invest into and is considering Wikimedia in Residence (WiR) partnerships.
Ciell pointed out that WMBE should not be involved in engaging into an employer or content relationship in order to stay neutral.
Geert indicated that WMBE does not have staff yet, so engaging in social security responsibilities is not foreseen.
Antoine indicated that the French speaking museums would prefer if a Flemish museum could produce a working example how a WiR could operate.
Voting by the General Assembly
15:45-16:10 We are using the Google Meet survey system. In principle this is a secret voting system (only Board members and Advisors of Wikimedia Belgium have read access on the Google Suite account).
| Round | Statement | Yes | No | Abstention |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Testing of the voting system | Are you happy to participate with this General Assembly? | 14 | 0 | 1 |
| Formal voting | Approval of the Annual accounts 2020 | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Agree to Discharge the board 2020 | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Approval of the Budget 2021 | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Approval of Board member Sam Donvil | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Approval of Board member Mike Nicolaije | 13 | 1 | 1 | |
| Approval of Board member Geert Van Pamel | 15 | 0 | 0 | |
| As a final question | Are you satisfied with this General Assembly? | 12 | 0 | 3 |
Conclusions:
- The test showed 15 people (Andra left before the voting started).
- All statements were approved.
- There were 11 effective members and 4 proxy holders that voted.
- The associate member present did not vote.
Antoine and Ciell were unanimously approved as audit committee members for 2021 (next general assembly).
Questions to the board
Questions to the board can be asked in advance via
boardwikimedia.be.
There were no additional questions.
16:10 The chair closes the meeting.