EXPENSE - making a stake in Web Architects to get access to git.coop

The proposal to join Web Architects in order to get access to git.coop has passed, and the decision was to buy the suggested 100 shares (£100).

If anyone thinks we missed anything or has anything else to add, please speak up! Thanks :)

If anyone feels better qualified to perform the next steps, please also speak up!

Assuming there are no objections, my proposed next steps would be to email Web Architects, to announce our intent to join and clarify what "whitelisting" means in our context. (As I said elsewhere, I suspect it's a convenience rather than a requirement.)

Joining, according to the git.coop front page requires filling out this PDF and sending them a copy (by email), then they will invoice us (or, Open Collective).

Info we need to supply on the PDF form:

• name of applicant
• contact name
• address
• telephone number
• email address
• signature, name and date
• amount to be transferred (I bet we don't have a cheque book)

And:
- select the membership type: user or investor
- agree to the rules of membership
- agree to being contacted by email

Which poses some open questions:

(Italics for emphasis of the actual questions.)
- name of applicant: Who? Is this social.coop, or IoC or something else?
- contact name: I think this needs to be a representative (representatives?) for social.coop within the Web Architects organisation. Who shall I put? (I think we should pick someone provisional initially, possibly, but not necessarily me, then revise it later according to consensus.)
- address: What should I put here?
- telephone number: I would guess either I can leave this blank, or add the contact(s) numbers if they supply them
- email address: this is the most important contact method, so do we have a long-lived official email address we can use here?
- signature, name and date: can I sign it on behalf of social.coop? I would guess not, but who can sign?
- amount: £100 to purchase 100 shares (whatever this translates to in, I assume, US dollars at the time of transfer)
- membership type: "user" - I don't think we want investor shares
- rules: I've scanned these, and the full rules, they seem acceptable to me, but I Am Not A Lawyer, please can other people check this too and leave some feedback. Section 2.4 is where it says we need a representative.
- agree to be contacted: of course (via the official email)

And in the social.coop bylaws for expenses, it seems we've done steps 1 and 2, steps 3/4/5 merge into one (right?), and then it's up to Open Collective to handle the payment, which takes up to two weeks. Phew.

• invoicing: do we need to ask WA to invoice Open Collective explicitly, or social.coop?
• open collective: can someone assist with managing that aspect? And, how long do they normally take to pay? Two weeks seems a bit long, I'm wondering if we should find a more expedient method.

I shall summarise any conclusions in the thread overview.

So this is fantastic. I'm sure we others will have some suggestions on the specifics but what I would love to see and think would be most helpful would be get the Tech Admin Ops Team Formation proposal passed and at least the coordinators volunteering and being voted in so that they could be empowered to do a lot of the the organization's behalf. Also there would most likely be a shared Tech Admin (maybe email) handle that all this could go through so as maintain the correspondence for future coordinators to refer to if need be.

Barring @mayel or @victormatekole getting back to you on your list in the next few days is there something specific that the proposal needs to include to move forward?

For those that didn't see it there is feedback poll for the proposal to form the Interim Tech Admin Ops team live right now. https://www.loomio.org/p/Cg05DEfZ/feedback-for-the-formation-of-the-initial-interim-tech-admin-ops-team-

is there something specific that the proposal needs to include to move forward?

Just to be clear, which proposal do you mean, a) the git.coop proposal, or b) the one to form the interim ops team?

If a) then all the above questions answered, no objections, and money forthcoming :)

If b) then nothing specific I can think of, although obviously I think people will be much happier to volunteer for well-defined roles with some idea of the time and skills required, rather than a "just sort everything that comes up until you burn out" kind of role. 🤔 Which is what makes sysadmins such notoriously prickly, but also hard to replace, individuals :)

In was in reference to b) the draft proposal. Agreed on the well-defined roles though I would be looking at the Coordinators to (given the proposal passes) to get us there. You have already done a tremendous amount in this area with the recent proposals and my hope is that you volunteer and are voted in as one of the coordinators - with the other interim coordinator most helpfully being @victormatekole or @mayel to help the transition. If not then hopefully they would be stay on as part of the overall Tech Ops team or just make some training time available.

Bump! Can anyone answer any of the questions listed?

If I don't hear I'll have to escalate to the main list, or seek out and ask people directly.

@ntnsndr is the acting Treasurer who approves the final transaction part of the process. @mattnoyes is Social.Coop's IoC representative. Maybe they can weigh in on some of your questions above. cc @matthewcropp

My two cents (on top of the 100 pounds):
Name of applicant: Social.coop
Contact name: if there is no objection, why not Nick S for six months, subject to renewal/recall?
Address: I don't know - @ntnsndr ?
Telephone number: I don't know
Email address: we may have one -- @matthewcropp ? @ntnsndr ? [If we need a new one, let's not use gmail...]
Signature, name and date: [@ntnsndr treasurer makes sense]
Amount: £100 to purchase 100 shares (whatever this translates to in, I assume, US dollars at the time of transfer)
Membership type: "user" - I don't think we want investor shares
Rules: @thomasbeckett ? I've scanned these, and the full rules, they seem acceptable to me, but I Am Not A Lawyer, please can other people check this too and leave some feedback. Section 2.4 is where it says we need a representative.
Agree to be contacted: of course (via the official email)

Thanks for this.

Sorry to be MIA. So, the payment happens through Open Collective. We could have git.coop just submit an invoice directly to our OpenCollective page, and I can approve that, or else one of us can pay for it and request reimbursement.

For the email address, we can use mine, or yours. But I think it would be best to have a generic social.coop email address that one of us (at least) is checking. Is that possible? That would be better for continuity.

We don't have a physical address.

Thanks. I'm not sure who can sign it on behalf of the coop - can either of us do that or does it need to be you?

I'm not sure if we can create email aliases yet or not - our domain's MX goes to some third party, I'll have to ask our admins.

Ok, I've filled in the PDF with my details and my signature, and will email it to Web Architects tomorrow. I assume that's ok.

I can't see how a 3rd party can submit an invoice on our OpenCollective page - there's an 'submit expense' button but that appears to need a login, which I guess isn't appropriate in this case. So I'll just ask them to email it to our contact address.

I asked Mayel and he created an email address for this purpose: tech.group@social.coop. Currently just he and I are recipients, but I can add you too or tell you how to do that yourself (likewise anyone else). If you send me you email address and I can email you a copy of the PDF directly.

Sent, invoice received, and I've submitted it to our Open Collective account on behalf of Web Architects.

I just saw the invoice. Does this need some kind of proposal and decision? It seems like any new use of funds should require a proposal in the working group, at least.

The invoice relates to the following passed proposal https://www.loomio.org/p/6NbgwTVp/social-coop-should-join-the-web-architects-co-op-in-order-to-get-access-to-the-git-coop-service and this poll for the membership contribution amount https://www.loomio.org/p/fwQqbTZF/expense-if-the-git-coop-proposal-passes-what-stake-should-we-buy-

Oh sorry, yes! That's right. Thanks.

@ntnsndr, can I just confirm that the metaphorical cheque is in the post for this? I suspect you're busy, but I'm keen to get started using it and I want to make sure there's no more pending actions delaying it. :)