OTW 2015 Election
Nov. 24th, 2015 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennystThe Fanlore page now has some links to most of what's been happening and some good summaries, for anyone who's not already aware.
I have been on various committees across the org, and am still friends with a number of people in it, though I haven't done anything active for a couple of years, as I was recovering from my time on Board. In the current mess, both my time on Board and my time on Finance are particularly relevant.
I am still figuring out what to say publicly, but I am also keen to talk about it, in between being nervous of hearing stuff dragged back up that will upset me. I'm tentatively hopeful but also slightly cynical at the moment. Matty and Atiya are great people and I look forward to seeing what they'll do. They're not perfect people, and fandom's idealisation-devaluation cycle can be vicious. There is a distinct risk of us getting a situation where they make a mistake and a lot of people turn on them at once. I hope that doesn't happen.
A clean slate is easier in some ways than changing a culture when you're a minority, but there are bits of problematic culture that have been spread across the org for so many years that I really doubt they're all gone, and I don't think the Board is the only problem culturally or ethically, let alone in any other way. This is a great opportunity for the org to improve some things, but it won't be the solution to everything.
In other news, I have been sick for the past week, I'm still recovering, and I have my day job to catch up on from a week of sick leave, chores to do, and a pile of fun stuff including Dreamwidth coding that I'd like to get to at some point. But I've volunteered to share my knowledge on the finance side, because institutional history can help, provided you can prevent it perpetuating bad culture (which I'll do by not actually joining whatever new committee or post gets set up, and staying out once I've shared my info).
So, a few clarifications and corrections, in no particular order. Some people may have forgotten or not realised just how dysfunctional things used to be, and how much better the current state of the Org is, even though it's a long way from where it needs to be. If you want more history, look up the 2011 elections on Fanlore. There is a large sum of money in Paypal. It would be much wiser to move that to a bank account at the very least. However, beyond that, options for savings for non-profits are more complex than for individuals - where I could easily open an instant-access savings account with a reasonable-though-not-good rate of interest, it's not that easy for the OTW. They've used Certificates of Deposit in the past, but many of those actually pay a worse rate of interest than leaving it in the checking account, and they require you to lock the money away. When I was on the board there were a couple of points where the then-Treasurer (sanders) showed us the options and we agreed to keep it in the checking account because the CDs were rubbish and we might need it for new servers.
There were several points, both before and during my time, when the Treasurer told the Board we really should have a budget. On some occasions, it was not a high enough priority for the rest of the board, for various reasons. On some occasions, we made a start, had internal versions floating around, or had drafts. I can see from the board minutes that there was a draft of the 2016 budget shared at the meeting in October 2015. I'd be interested to see that draft and/or the information that went into it. Frequently budget creation required input from committees that they were unable or unwilling to give the treasurer or the board, such as what they planned to do in the coming year. This is not an excuse - as many people have said, with the size the OTW now is, it's no longer an optional extra. But it may be interesting information for some people, and I've seen some people implying that no-one in the OTW has ever produced a budget or tried to publish a budget, which is not correct.
Similarly with profit-and-loss reports. I can still remember Sanders telling us all she wanted to publish them publicly quarterly. I have a couple of the ones she shared with the board back then, but various communication issues and other priorities meant we never got them published. One of the choices the new board will face is how much of the financial information to publish straight away, without comment, and how much to hold back until you can add explanatory text with what it all means. Many fans aren't used to reading company/charity financial reports, and even for those who are, some of the categories will need explaining or prompt further questions. Is it right to publish them and then not answer the questions, or should you wait until you can answer the questions you know will be prompted?
I would be interested for someone to look at last year's Annual Report section on finances and list out in the comments their questions from that, and previous years, and see if there's anything I can answer. Even if I can't answer, it will be useful info for Comms and the Board to prepare for when they publish 2015's report.
The OTW website has 2007's Form 990. It would be good to get all the later years published there as well - that should be a relatively easy task for someone with website access and one Board member working together. Sanders made some more comments about recent financials at the latest post on the OTW website. Useful general information in the following: "The IRS's initial deadline for nonprofits with a fiscal year ending on 31 December is 15 May. They offer an automatic, no questions asked 90 day extension to any organization that wishes to take it." "A copy of the 990 [] should be available from [the Board] by request. They are legally required to provide it to any who request it. Copies of the previous filings from 2008 forward should also be available, as copies were preserved in the Board and Finance document vaults prior to my dismissal." This is one thing that's fairly easy to check and can help reassure people.
Delaware state filing has to be done every year around February. Past copies are stored in the Vault, the OTW's internal secure file storage system. I'd need to look up if the results are publicly available.
The three signatories to the bank account always used to be the Finance chair/Treasurer (which was always the same person while Fincom existed), the Board President and the Devmem chair. Each time the finance chair changes, as primary signatory, they have to meet in person at the bank to sign stuff. When board president or Devmem chair changes, they can sign their stuff and post it back. This can get complicated with an international org where those people may be on different continents. It makes things a lot easier if the Treasurer is a US citizen resident in the US with no complications, good credit history, etc. It also helps if the Treasurer is within easy reach of a physical bank branch, for paying in the few cheques we get. This is a much trickier thing in the US than most European countries, which took me a while to figure out. At one stage we paid for a special machine from the bank so that we could pay in the cheques remotely.
990 filing has to be done each year. The first couple of years, we could do the simple exemption form version, as our income from donations was under $25k. Now we have to fill out the full thing.
That's enough typing for now. Are there any particular bits people want to hear more about? I also have a giant half-drafted post about the AO3 servers and performance and options for throwing money at the problems - are people keen on me dusting that off as well?
I have been on various committees across the org, and am still friends with a number of people in it, though I haven't done anything active for a couple of years, as I was recovering from my time on Board. In the current mess, both my time on Board and my time on Finance are particularly relevant.
I am still figuring out what to say publicly, but I am also keen to talk about it, in between being nervous of hearing stuff dragged back up that will upset me. I'm tentatively hopeful but also slightly cynical at the moment. Matty and Atiya are great people and I look forward to seeing what they'll do. They're not perfect people, and fandom's idealisation-devaluation cycle can be vicious. There is a distinct risk of us getting a situation where they make a mistake and a lot of people turn on them at once. I hope that doesn't happen.
A clean slate is easier in some ways than changing a culture when you're a minority, but there are bits of problematic culture that have been spread across the org for so many years that I really doubt they're all gone, and I don't think the Board is the only problem culturally or ethically, let alone in any other way. This is a great opportunity for the org to improve some things, but it won't be the solution to everything.
In other news, I have been sick for the past week, I'm still recovering, and I have my day job to catch up on from a week of sick leave, chores to do, and a pile of fun stuff including Dreamwidth coding that I'd like to get to at some point. But I've volunteered to share my knowledge on the finance side, because institutional history can help, provided you can prevent it perpetuating bad culture (which I'll do by not actually joining whatever new committee or post gets set up, and staying out once I've shared my info).
So, a few clarifications and corrections, in no particular order. Some people may have forgotten or not realised just how dysfunctional things used to be, and how much better the current state of the Org is, even though it's a long way from where it needs to be. If you want more history, look up the 2011 elections on Fanlore. There is a large sum of money in Paypal. It would be much wiser to move that to a bank account at the very least. However, beyond that, options for savings for non-profits are more complex than for individuals - where I could easily open an instant-access savings account with a reasonable-though-not-good rate of interest, it's not that easy for the OTW. They've used Certificates of Deposit in the past, but many of those actually pay a worse rate of interest than leaving it in the checking account, and they require you to lock the money away. When I was on the board there were a couple of points where the then-Treasurer (
sanders) showed us the options and we agreed to keep it in the checking account because the CDs were rubbish and we might need it for new servers.There were several points, both before and during my time, when the Treasurer told the Board we really should have a budget. On some occasions, it was not a high enough priority for the rest of the board, for various reasons. On some occasions, we made a start, had internal versions floating around, or had drafts. I can see from the board minutes that there was a draft of the 2016 budget shared at the meeting in October 2015. I'd be interested to see that draft and/or the information that went into it. Frequently budget creation required input from committees that they were unable or unwilling to give the treasurer or the board, such as what they planned to do in the coming year. This is not an excuse - as many people have said, with the size the OTW now is, it's no longer an optional extra. But it may be interesting information for some people, and I've seen some people implying that no-one in the OTW has ever produced a budget or tried to publish a budget, which is not correct.
Similarly with profit-and-loss reports. I can still remember Sanders telling us all she wanted to publish them publicly quarterly. I have a couple of the ones she shared with the board back then, but various communication issues and other priorities meant we never got them published. One of the choices the new board will face is how much of the financial information to publish straight away, without comment, and how much to hold back until you can add explanatory text with what it all means. Many fans aren't used to reading company/charity financial reports, and even for those who are, some of the categories will need explaining or prompt further questions. Is it right to publish them and then not answer the questions, or should you wait until you can answer the questions you know will be prompted?
I would be interested for someone to look at last year's Annual Report section on finances and list out in the comments their questions from that, and previous years, and see if there's anything I can answer. Even if I can't answer, it will be useful info for Comms and the Board to prepare for when they publish 2015's report.
The OTW website has 2007's Form 990. It would be good to get all the later years published there as well - that should be a relatively easy task for someone with website access and one Board member working together. Sanders made some more comments about recent financials at the latest post on the OTW website. Useful general information in the following: "The IRS's initial deadline for nonprofits with a fiscal year ending on 31 December is 15 May. They offer an automatic, no questions asked 90 day extension to any organization that wishes to take it." "A copy of the 990 [] should be available from [the Board] by request. They are legally required to provide it to any who request it. Copies of the previous filings from 2008 forward should also be available, as copies were preserved in the Board and Finance document vaults prior to my dismissal." This is one thing that's fairly easy to check and can help reassure people.
Delaware state filing has to be done every year around February. Past copies are stored in the Vault, the OTW's internal secure file storage system. I'd need to look up if the results are publicly available.
The three signatories to the bank account always used to be the Finance chair/Treasurer (which was always the same person while Fincom existed), the Board President and the Devmem chair. Each time the finance chair changes, as primary signatory, they have to meet in person at the bank to sign stuff. When board president or Devmem chair changes, they can sign their stuff and post it back. This can get complicated with an international org where those people may be on different continents. It makes things a lot easier if the Treasurer is a US citizen resident in the US with no complications, good credit history, etc. It also helps if the Treasurer is within easy reach of a physical bank branch, for paying in the few cheques we get. This is a much trickier thing in the US than most European countries, which took me a while to figure out. At one stage we paid for a special machine from the bank so that we could pay in the cheques remotely.
990 filing has to be done each year. The first couple of years, we could do the simple exemption form version, as our income from donations was under $25k. Now we have to fill out the full thing.
That's enough typing for now. Are there any particular bits people want to hear more about? I also have a giant half-drafted post about the AO3 servers and performance and options for throwing money at the problems - are people keen on me dusting that off as well?
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Date: 2015-11-24 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-24 08:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-24 08:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-24 08:58 pm (UTC)I've only been on the fringes of fandom for the last few years, so I haven't really kept up with what's going on with OTW, but the one thing I found myself thinking as everything imploded recently was that you could not pay me enough to be on the Board, let alone get me to do it for free. I didn't really have concise words for that gut feeling, but you've summed it up quite nicely with "fandom's idealisation-devaluation cycle." Either the praise is overflowing or the criticism is devastating, but there doesn't seem to be any middle ground, and public sentiment can turn on a dime, which (to me, at least) is a terrifying prospect.
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Date: 2015-11-24 09:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-24 10:25 pm (UTC)My - admittedly limited - current understanding is that the Board functions are an operational Board as well as having a strategic/advisory role?
Sounds like there;s be a pressing need to get some professional outside help to revisit the structure and separate out advisory from operational perhaps keeping the elected reps for the strategic/advisory Board and having the operational function more like committees?
Or could the operational work be delegated down to committees - which may mean resourcing up the committees so they can handle the workload!
But yeah - expecting people to handle 30+ hours a week is just not sustainable and now I see why so many people burn out so very fast regardless of what else may be going on!
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Date: 2015-11-25 09:55 am (UTC)There was a proposal for an advisory board back in 2011, revised and nearly approved in 2012 - I would love to see that dusted off and implemented. That would give a good place for the emerita board, founders and people like Orlando Jones and Cory Doctorow to network and advocate on behalf of the Org. Doing that alongside delegating more of the operational work to committees should get the board workload a bit closer to manageable. But several committees would then need another review, as some of those committee chair roles are also 30+ hours a week, though a lot better than they used to be.
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Date: 2015-11-24 11:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-27 12:58 pm (UTC)(Also, hi! I also haven't been involved for a couple of years, but am thinking about joining Testing again once I see how this all shakes out.)
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Date: 2015-12-02 02:05 pm (UTC)I've written 5 posts on the server set-up, a couple of them very long, and am waiting for them to go through approval by AD&T, Systems, Legal and Comms before they go live via the OTW website.
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Date: 2015-12-03 01:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-01 01:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-12-02 02:04 pm (UTC)There are a bunch of minutes up which I hadn't seen before, so here are some initial reactions:
The minutes of 18th Oct have just gone up, and include authorisation for a new SSL certificate, which should have been covered by pre-authorised Systems budget, and MJ checking with Legal about opening a second bank account which is a good thing.
Point 2 of closed session on 25th Oct is interesting - Elections Chair previously contacted candidates as a group, and Elections Chair in the past has been a board member sometimes. So it would depend on what the proposed message was about, which we're not told. All water under the bridge now anyway, but useful to have clear precedent for the future.
Point 3 of that set of minutes is encouraging - hope we get to see it soon.
I wish some of those Closed discussions could have been had in Open session.
31st Oct again has several promising finance things, but point 7 looks dodgy. Did Andrea abstain? I know this has been done for other staffers before, but it needs a clear explanation when there's a conflict of interest like that.
Closed session of 22nd November is interesting - it used to be the first meeting after new members took office. Did all previous boards misunderstand the byelaws, or did this board misunderstand them? Having a new board member as Chair was generally avoided, but having someone new as Secretary was often useful.
29th November mentions the draft budget again, so at least they're still talking about it, but we still haven't seen anything. Interesting about the overlap having been removed last year - I hadn't spotted that, and I think it's a bad idea. Overlap is helpful for a smooth transition.
And they've stopped listing date of next meeting in the minutes, so we don't know when the next one is.
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Date: 2015-12-03 01:56 am (UTC)Oct 18: The new checking account is a really good thing, though I confess I don't understand what happens if we go over 250,000 in the same bank?
Points 1 & 3 about CCAP complaints and outside council seem ominous when viewed in hindsight.
October 25: decided not to do so on the grounds that it is unprecedented and might therefore be construed as an attempt to influence the election outcome.
Uh, yeah, that would not be appropriate action! What on earth would the outside council be talking to them about??
It's good to see that the budget looks to be almost done.
Point seven is interesting:: Voted to make M.J. MacRae an ex officio member of the Development & Membership committee as part of her duties as Treasurer. This position will end when her service as Treasurer concludes.
I wonder if the new board will allow the old board members to stay on with the Org in their non-board positions. I don't think they should be allowed to keep any positions at all. What do you think?
I wish all of it were in Open so we could have a better idea of what goes on. I know they can't discuss HR type things in the open, but basically all the new candidates said they shouldn't be handling staffer complaints and approvals anyway (it looks like that's half of what they do!), and that makes sense to me. Even if just the other Chairs could sit in on Closed meetings I think that would be better than no one seeing what they discuss/do. I realize that's a sad state of affairs to not trust people to do the job right, but that's where I am (and I think a lot of others) and perhaps we could have avoided this position if there had been more communication/oversight.
Oct 31: Good point - I don't trust that she abstained.
I'm glad they're looking into international donations - people outside the US deserve to get a vote, too.
Nov 22: WOW WOW WOW How can they be president/vice pres/treasurer/secretary if they aren't on the board anymore?!? The minutes say nothing about them resigning, did all the voting happen before or after they resigned?? Can Matty and LO undo those appointments? I don't even know what to say about that.
And that's a good question. The bylaws need to state that the new members MUST be there for all that, the old members shouldn't be doing all the voting by themselves. Of course, they probably couldn't have foreseen this situation when drafting the bylaws...
Your points about the Chair and Secretary are good ones, but I think this board is simply not making good choices.
Nov 29. Ok, they all resigned positions, I'm relieved. I guess all the voting happened before resigning - or someone told them in no uncertain terms that they couldn't continue on.
I agree about the overlap, it would seem to be extremely beneficial.
Yeah, I don't understand how a month ago we were basically ready to publish, but we still don't have it. But that should mean Matty and LO can get a budget out fairly quickly, which is very good.
Well, there is some suspect stuff, but mostly it seems to be business as usual. But with vague minutes it's hard to get a real sense of anything going awry until it's already gone awry. I don't understand why they purge the Open meeting transcripts - maybe Matty and LO will stop doing that. I wonder if "regular" non-profits publish their detailed meeting minutes?
Have you seen that svmadelyn is putting together a group to advise the board? And a Google group for the members to keep up with OTW progress/activity. http://svmadelyn.tumblr.com/post/132655326146/there-are-so-many-otw-election-posts-and-votings
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Date: 2015-12-04 11:37 am (UTC)I think letting the old board members stay on in some positions could be okay, depending on what those positions were. Particularly where transition is needed, losing someone too hastily with no handover can cause a lot of problems. A volunteer with a known history of ethical mistakes can be managed, with care. A gap in knowledge where a volunteer has left the org altogether is sometimes harder to fill. There are positions where the org could retain their knowledge while ensuring they don't have inappropriate decision-making power.
It's also worth bearing in mind that although they made some horrific mistakes recently, and so have others in the past, most ex-board members aren't evil people, just misguided, and so can learn in the future. The current and past board culture has caused a lot of otherwise good people to lose perspective and do horrible things, and I think it's good if we can help those people to recover and learn rather than abandoning them.
Purging Open transcripts used to be for space, though Legal are also keen on not having old stuff hanging around forever. They should be able to be kept a little longer. Closed is more of an issue and unlikely to change.
I've seen and signed up for svmadelyn's group a couple of months back, but haven't heard anything since. Has it actually started?
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Date: 2016-01-22 10:29 pm (UTC)"A volunteer with a known history of ethical mistakes can be managed, with care.... The current and past board culture has caused a lot of otherwise good people to lose perspective and do horrible things, and I think it's good if we can help those people to recover and learn rather than abandoning them."
That's probably a very fair, professional reaction, the exact opposite of my reaction, and probably the same for many others! I think it would be reasonable to try it, at least on a probationary timeline. I don't think we the public have heard if they're still working in their other roles?
It looks like the Board aren't doing much of anything in Closed, which I think is good. Have you read the new minutes? Either we now have a lot of bystanders they didn't used to have or they just never recorded the guest names! I think it's good to have people viewing the proceedings. There isn't much to make an opinion about, but so far I have no complaints :)
I'm glad you signed up. I haven't heard anything either, sadly. I was hoping it was all going on behind the scenes and we just hadn't heard about it yet! There isn't anything I can see on her Tumblr or LJ about postponing it or anything.... I hope it gets made and doesn't get forgotten about.
I don't know if you saw this post, but I thought it was fascinating and I reblogged it with some of my own thoughts. http://pslasher.tumblr.com/post/137835108403/so-even-in-the-make-belive-world-people-cant-get
Also, the Slash Report podcast is doing an OTW episode that should be out this weekend. They said they were going to have a staffer on, I'm REALLY interested to hear it: http://www.slashreport.com/wp/?page_id=36
I'm sorry about the delayed reply, December and January were super busy!
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Date: 2016-01-24 09:46 pm (UTC)I've looked at some of the new minutes, and it's looking promising, yeah. It's still not perfect - a lot of the work they're doing is discussing with committees via email or in those committees' rooms, which means it doesn't show in the minutes. But it's a lot better, and they're more approachable.
I think the number of guests has probably increased now that people have more hope of being listened to and having information in Open rather than Closed Session, but I suspect there were also a fair few meetings where guest names weren't recorded. The transcript of Open Session has always been visible to all volunteers.
Thanks for that link on Tumblr - I hadn't seen all the further discussion on it.
Let me know how the podcast goes - I tend to have trouble listening to them, but would be interested to see a transcript or summary write-up.
No worries on the delay - I know how things get. And it's a good reminder for me to write a fresh post.
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Date: 2016-01-31 09:06 pm (UTC)Ahh, interesting. I wonder what went down there, though we'll probably never know.
"But it's a lot better, and they're more approachable."
I agree, and that makes me happy.
I didn't know the transcripts were available to all volunteers, that's interesting.
I'm glad you enjoyed the tumblr post!
I asked and the podcast said they have no plans to transcribe it (they typically don't). They put out a tweet asking if anyone else would be interested in transcribing it, I don't know if anyone is. I'll let you know if one does pop up. It was an interesting conversation.
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Date: 2015-11-24 11:13 pm (UTC)The 990's seem to be up there now - the 2014 one certainly is.
Financially I think there are a couple of routes to addressing people's concerns.
a) Make the finance/account stuff easily findable on the OTW website. Don't expect people to know to look in the annual report - maybe have an easily locatable tab e.g. How we spend your money/donations? With a clear and short narrative story about where the money goes.
b) Put the balance sheet and P&L accounts on the How We Spend The Money page but cut the jargon and make them accessible. I spent a couple of decades in social housing and any housing association or other charity has lots of info on their websites showing how to present complex financial info so laypeople without financial backgrounds or uni education can see how cash is being spent. If necessary make it really really simple - and go for the how each £1 is spent type pie chart :) If you want more details I'm happy to go away and dig out some of these for you :)
c) Scanning the accounts for 2013/14 there's nothing in them that makes me clutch my pearls and think about some of the more serious allegations I've seen bandied around. Sure the travel increased in 2014 but I understand there was a 3 day planning/face to face meeting and for a worldwide org getting people together face to face is going to cost a bit!
d) A simple narrative explaining some of those expenses could help reassure the more concerned elements of the membership - plus a willingness to be open and accountable about how money is being spent and some footnotes to explain what some items are. I mean I can guess what Systems Expenses are - but having a note to explain in a bit more detail what's covered would be good.
In my day job (I work for a very large professional membership org - 160k members and 450 staff) and manage a budget roughly the £1m mark so I'm used to dealing with financials and am not sure I'm the target audience for the baseline membership of the OTW. But that said the bigger financial concerns for me would be:
a) the lack of an annual budget and a 3-5 year financial plan (which should be reviewed annually when the budget planning is done). This is something I think is worth bringing in outside paid for help to get in place ASAP. I can't see any reason why both the budget and the financial plan shouldn't be available for members to see - it's not like these are trade secrets - there's no competitor waiting to steal the info and if publishing that reassure the membership then why not?
b) Where's the external validation of the accounts? Who audits them? If they're not audited, why not? Again - it's another worthwhile route to reassuring members that there's nothing shady going on. Memberships and donations are critical to the sustainability of the OTW and it seems short-sighted to me not to take every possible step to make sure members feel that their money is being responsibly dealt with and invested/spent.
c) Is it true there's no internal finance/audit committee - if not why not? I'm unsure of why there seems to have been a decision to do away with it and make the Treasurer (and Board?) responsible? Would having a proper finance/audit committee relieve some pressure on the board so they can focus on strategy but still have oversight of spending? Are there sensible policies in place for committees to spend to threshold (dependent on committee chair approval),with expenses above a certain amount needing finance/audit committee sign off and significant expenses needing both finance/audit committee sign off and Board sign off? (Sorry if all these answers are obvious somewhere on the website but it seems really weird to me not to have an internal finance/audit committee - because those are a particular and very specific set of skills that some people excel at and which a Board should not get bogged down trying to do)!
d) get the cash out of the paypal account and move it somewhere else - even if it is more complex than people think :)
e) I really think Sanders idea of publishing a quarterly P&L account or even an summary P&L quarterly account is excellent and again would do wonders for reassuring members.
This is just a quick set of thoughts but happy to go away over the weekend and take a more considered look!
no subject
Date: 2015-11-25 10:13 am (UTC)Reading 2014 990, interestingly, the code contractor in 2014 was less than 2k. I'm glad they're now putting more cash into code. And the servers are evaluated at over 100k, though they've just done purchase price without depreciation, which looks odd.
I'm sure the board will want that advice on explaining the financials once they take office.
There's no reason not to publish a budget as soon as it's agreed and approved. People understandably hesitated to publish a draft that some people still disagreed with, but that should be quick to solve.
They weren't audited in the first few years because we were too small and it wasn't worth the cost. Auditing should have started several years ago, and needs to be done as soon as the board can organise it.
There used to be an internal finance committee. It got disbanded, mainly because the chair struggled to delegate so no-one was doing anything, and no other protests had worked. I think it should be set up again as soon as possible. As you say, it would relieve the board of the details, and one or two board members could sit on it, and report to the rest of the board.
Edited: There used to be policies in place for committees to spend up to a certain limit, Treasurer to approve small amounts, and larger amounts need Board as well as Treasurer. The exact figures are on the internal wiki which all volunteers (of which I am currently not one) have access to. Apparently that policy is no longer followed.
Definitely getting the cash out of paypal and into the back account should be very quick and easy, and is much safer. Where it goes next is complex but much less urgent.
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Date: 2015-11-25 10:25 pm (UTC)I'd love to see any and all posts on OTW. :)
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Date: 2015-11-25 11:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-27 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2015-11-27 09:21 am (UTC)OTW Treasurers have actually had pretty good continuity for an OTW role - 3 in 8 years until this recent mess. That's better than any other role in the Org apart from Journal editor, I think. And two of them were pretty well qualified for the job, one with a day job as a CPA.
I think the normal checking is less of an issue, it's more having someone on call to review and to advise on the complex stuff. So get an auditor first, to do the annual audit before the annual report, and then an accountant to help advise, while building up a group of internal people who can help review things - the key thing is having three or four people double-checking different aspects, and a board who review the right stuff. Replacing a single point of failure volunteer Treasurer with a single point of failure paid Accountant is not actually that much of an improvement.
So I think it will eventually be a good idea, as the org grows, but the way you've worded it wouldn't be my first priority.