GM 2013-09-25 minutes

NOTE: quotes below were selected from the full discusion.

The regular General Meeting of the Pirate Party of Canada was called to order at 20:30 Eastern Time, May 15 2013 at ca.pirateirc.net irc channel #canada. The President was the chair. 'anon_can' pointed out that (at least two) of the ops were not actually active in the meeting. The chair did not notice that objection: but two extra people were voiced in the first minute of the meeting (before any discussion took place).

The Chair started off by explaining that we missed an extented deadline for filing paperwork (financial statements) with Elections Canada. 'trailblazer' linked to the GM notice that goes into more detail. Wilson explained that the financial statements are currently being audited. As of September 24th, we have not received the "you have 30 days or else" letter.

There was some discussion about how we should handle our documents so that such situations do not happen again. Mikkel Paulson suggested that we "reach out to other pirate parties and/or other small Canadian parties; to find out how they've handled the (problem)." 'anon_can' wanted to raise a point of order but was over-ruled by the Chair since they were refusing to contribute to quorum.

Ric Lim gave a brief financial report. "Our Paypal balance is at about $180. Bank is at about $7,400 plus the outstanding cheques (64 of them) which have now been deposited. That is about $1,291.01 if nothing (gets) stale dated." Wilson asked why we still use PayPal, which led to a discussion about Bitcoin. Ric Lim said the lately, most of our activity has been cheques. It was pointed out that we do accept Bitcoin donations.
 * Craig Nobbs expressed the opinion that:
 * "We shouldn't be using BitCoin. It's not Canadian tender."
 * MononcQc asked:
 * "Isn't there an issue of traceability and transparency in using bitcoins to finance a party?"
 * Ric Lim answered:
 * "If it's under $20 it could be anonymous."

Craig Nobbs MOVED that: "The issue of BitCoin be moved to the Executive Board for further discussion and resolution." SECONDED by Mikkel Paulson. Motion was CARRIED with 14 votes in favour, 0 against (not counting 'webchat_5963').

Next, the discussion moved to to how to hold meetings. IRC is not always the most efficient. Mumble and several multimedia alternatives were brought up; but there was concern that special hardware/software requirements may hurt attendance. The discussion moved to forum software. At 9 posts per minute, the Chair commented he could not keep up.

DataPacRat MOVED that: "The PPoC look into hosting a forum on its site, with the possibility of non-synchronous official meetings hosted thereon to help improve attendance." SECONDED by Pappasadrian.


 * Craig Nobbs pointed out that "THE EB ALREADY IS DOING THIS".


 * Pappasdrian explained:
 * "What was (decided) was that we would form a committee to look into various systems for asynchronous meeting."
 * Chair asked:
 * "Does anybody want to join the committee?"
 * Pappadadrian:
 * "I do, I did in the past too, but I was the only one."


 * Wilson said:
 * "many of the problems discussed come back to lack of volunteers, and poor use of volunteers. The party needs people willing to help out with social media,
 * forum admin (if it gets back up), organizing locally, IT, research, etc. If you have time, even a little, and want to help drop the party a line at info (at) pirateparty.ca".


 * Ric Lim said:
 * "ok anyone interested in helping out message me with your contact info."
 * Chair:
 * "Ok, we had a very similar resolution in the MAY 15 meeting."

After seeing no immediate calls for ammendments, the Chair called for a vote on the motion. It was CARRIED with 12 in favour, 1 against. The Chair interpreted Craig Nobbs' dissent immediately before and during the vote as a request for an ammendment.


 * Craig Nobbs:
 * "The motion was directed at the party in general. It should have read something more like 'The EB to research and report back to the next GM about moving the GMs from IRC to an asynchronous meeting style as well as a timeline to implimentation.'"
 * Chair:
 * "The may 15 motion mostly captures that we could just implement it :)"

The meeting was adjourned at 21:40 Eastern time.

View transcript.