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tags: Annual Meeting

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# Annual meeting 2024

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**General info**
- **Video connection details:**
- Zoom invite link: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/62426845282
- Zoom ID: 624 2684 5282
- **Contact:** [e-mail]
- **Date and time**: Friday 25th October 2024 at 13 CEST (14 EEST, 11 UTC)
- **This page:** https://hackmd.io/@nordic-rse/annual_meeting_2024
- **If you cannot edit this document**: Add your HackMD username below and we will add you
:::

## Participants

- Jarno Rantaharju, Matteo Tomasini, Samantha Wittke, Luca Ferranti, Sunniva Indrehus, Ruslan Zhuravchak, Thomas Pfau, Radovan Bast (first 30 min and again after 60 min), Shashank S. Harivyasi, Johan Hellsvik, Richard Darst

## Summary schedule

1. opening the meeting
2. choosing a chair, secretary, two auditors of the minutes and when necessary two vote counters
5. determining quorum and legality of the meeting
4. approving the agenda for the meeting
6. the associations financial statements, annual report and the statements of the auditors are presented
7. deciding on approving the financial statements and the discharging of the board and other accountable persons
8. establishing the action plan, the revenue and expenditure estimate and the amount of the membership and membership fees
9. choosing the chair of the board and other board members
10. choosing one or two auditors and deputy auditors (auditor = toiminnantarkastaja or tilintarkastaja depending on the size of the budget)
11. discussing other issues mentioned in the invitation to the meeting
- Annual meeting timing: should it be around the conference?
- Accounting period: Change to January - December?
- Conference sponsors: Do we solicit and accept private business sponsors?

## Opening the meeting
- Opened at 13:05 CEST
- Note that prefilled items are suggestions from the board (and may be altered in the meeting)

### Choosing chair
- Chair: Jarno Rantaharju
- Note taker: Matteo Tomasini

### Choosing votes counter
- Voting procedure: anyone can make proposals, vote arises only if there is opposition
- We pick voters if a vote arises.
- .
- .

### Choosing 2 auditors of meeting minutes
- Need volunteers, easy job: Read and sign the meeting minutes after the meeting. Either print, sign and scan, or sign electronically.
- Thomas Pfau
- Sunniva Indrehus

## Determining legality and quorum
- Invitation was sent 7 days before the meeting by email. The meeting is in accordance to the statutes and has quorum.
- Upheld.

## Accepting the agenda
- This meeting follows the agenda for the annual meeting presented in the statutes.

## The associations financial statements, annual report and the statements of the auditors are presented
- Annual report:
- Management:
- Day to day affairs mainly managed by the biweekly meeting
- Significant sponsorship from the SSI for the 2024 conference and organizing later conferences.
- Domain registration fee sponsored by IEDL
- [Events](https://nordic-rse.org/events/):
- The first in-person conference in Espoo in May
- Advent of Code event Dec 19 (half-day)
- Weekly coffee break
- Unconference
- Biweekly community meeting
- Other activities:
- JUFO class 1 recommendation for JOSS
- JUFO is Finnish ranking system of publication forums. JOSS currently not recognized (JUFO 0), lobbying to get it recognized
- still following up
- Budget:
- Discussion ensues about how to change the budget period to align with year. There is support to the idea of closing this year's budget this year and align with a shorter budget period next.
- Question arises from how to use membership fees, especially if they get increased to 20€.
- Sunniva's suggestion: paying fees to speakers for seminar series
- How to invoice? Does it fall on the speaker to invoice us? Would that be enough?
- To discuss at biweekly meetings in the future.
- Auditors statement (Sunniva Indrehus is the auditor)
- Sunniva raises an issue: the auditors have not received the invoice, but only the list of expenses as it happened on Wise.
- We need to get more rigorous on how we deal with invoicing and how it matches the budget.
- Ultimately Sunniva thinks the board did a proper job.

## Deciding on approving the financial statements and the discharging of the board and other accountable persons
- The current members of the board and other accountable persons are discharged from duty. This releases them from accountability.
- Either by unanimous agreement or by majority vote.
- Nobody wants to bring it to a vote. Unanimously agreed that the current members are discharged for 2023/2024.

## Establishing the action plan, the revenue and expenditure estimate and the amount of the membership and membership fees
- Suggested membership fee: 10 eur
- Action plan:
- In person workshop
- [Seminar series](https://nordic-rse.org/events/seminar-series/)
- Advent of Code event
- Weekly coffee break
- Biweekly community meeting
- How to attract more paying members?
- [Budget](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16XH8uQCTw7ANI4ht7gqYM-98i6HQXrAsnPpTVWcLYms/edit?usp=sharing)

## Electing the chair and vice chair and members of the board
- Need
- secretary
- chair and vice chair
- 1-5 more members
- possibly alternate members for each full member

- Call for volunteers
- Suggestions / Volunteers:
- Chair: Matteo Tomasini SE
- Vice chair: Jarno Rantaharju FI
- Samantha Wittke FI
- Radovan Bast NO
- Luca Ferranti FI
- Rohit Goswami IS
- Patric Holmvall SE
- Ruslan Zhuravchak NO

## Electing auditors
- choosing one or two auditors and deputy auditors
- Volunteers:
- Thomas Pfau

## Discussing other issues mentioned in the invitation to the meeting

1. Annual meeting timing: should it be around the conference?
- Suggest updating relevant paragraph of statute 8 into "The association's annual meeting is held annually in January - March."

2. Accounting period: Change to January - December?
- Suggest updating relevant statute 7 into "Accounting period: The associations accounting period is 1.1 - 31.12."
- Move annual meetings to January

3. Conference sponsors: Do we solicit and accept private business sponsors?
- No binding vote, close the meeting and continue discussion

## Closing the meeting
- closed 14:06 CEST

## Signatures

<pre>

---------------- ----------------
Sunniva Indrehus Thomas Pfau

----------------
Matteo Tomasini

</pre>

# Invitation Email

Dear Nordic RSE members and followers,

We would like to invite you to the Nordic RSE associations annual meeting in 1 week, on October 25th at 13 CEST (14 EEST). The meeting will take place over Zoom meeting 624 2684 5282 (link: https://aalto.zoom.us/j/62426845282). The meeting should take about one hour.

If you cannot make it to the meeting, but would like to make a suggestion or vote, you can do so by emailing [e-mail] before the meeting. Note that only Nordic RSE members can vote.

Our planned agenda for the meeting is below. The most important issues in the meeting are choosing a board and mandating the new board to register the association.

In addition to officially required decisions, we will discuss 1. conference sponsorships, 2. the timing of the annual meeting and 3. whether we should change our accounting period.

Schedule for the meeting:
1. Opening the meeting
2. Choosing a chair and 2 auditors of meeting minutes
3. Determining legality and quorum
4. Accepting the agenda of the meeting
5. Associations annual report and statements of the auditors
6. Approving the reports and discharching the board
7. Establishing an action plan and budget for 2025
8. Electing the chair and other the board members
10. Electing 2 auditors
10. Other issues mentioned in the invitation:
- Conference sponsors: Do we solicit and accept private business sponsors?
- Annual meeting timing: should it be around the conference?
- Accounting period: Change to January - December?
11. Closing the meeting

Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions.

See you there!

Regards,
Jarno Rantaharju