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  • #4757 Reply
    Steve Digwood
    Guest

    This is my suggestion as to how give members easier access to CAWA committee minutes

    Create a page on the CAWA website to hold the committee (and AGM etc) minutes for each year. There will be one page/year and all the committee minutes for a year will be put onto this page. There will be no links from the public accessible areas of the CAWA website, to any of these annual minutes pages. Each page will have a single link to the CAWA Home page and no other links. These pages will act as permanent stores for the CAWA records and as an access area for members. I believe that this already exists, but is only accessible by committee members.

    As the minutes of each committee meeting are comfirmed at the next meeting, the minutes will be copied to the page for that year.

    Members who wish to access the minutes will send a request to the Secretary (not the President, as the Secretary is responsible for all records). The Secretary will verify that they are a current member and will just send them a link to the web-page with the minutes for the current year.

    The link sent to a member will only allow them to access the minutes for that year. Since CAWA membership is valid from July to June, while a committee is elected from January to December, members who have access in December, should automatically receive the link to the next years minutes page, when it is created.

    In theory members who do not renew their membership after June, will continue to have access to committee minutes, but I consider this a neglible problem. Also from article 6.7 (c) it seems that a member can view the committee minutes for the entire committee year as long as they are currently a member. So someone who joins in say July, can view the minutes from January.

    Members who wish to continue to have access in subsequent years will need to re-request the link to the current years minutes web-page.

    I also suggest that a regular emailout be sent to members, updating them of trips, gym crashes, climbing issues etc. These should include a standard line to say that members who wish to see committee minutes should contact the Secretary. This way CAWA members will know that they can access committee minutes & how to go about getting access.

    #4758 Reply
    Toc
    Member

    Hi Steve,

    The committee was a little bit busy earlier on this year. Your proposal will be discussed at the next meeting. My personal view is that any proposal must be no more complicated than what we presently have and certainly must not add to the work load of the secretary particularly as I am presently taking the minutes. Would you like a job?

    Cheers,

    Toc.

    #4759 Reply
    Dinah
    Member

    I would think that placing the minutes on the web (which is what already should happen) and then allowing access to interested CAWA members would not increase the secretaries work load. It should actually decrease the workload.

    #4760 Reply
    Toc
    Member

    It will be discussed at the next committee meeting.

    Cheers.

    #4761 Reply
    Ross
    Member

    http://www.claremont.wa.gov.au/publications___documents.html

    The link above gives access to all of agendas+minutes for the Town of Cottesloe. As you can impagine, the Council there is dealing with all sorts of pressures and agendas from developers of multimillion $ projects, vested interests, personality clashes, neighbour disputes, her-dog-ate-my-cat issues etc.

    Don’t know about now but in the past CAWA was perceived as a bit of a closed shop. How about opening it up some more? This may encourage discussion, which after all is the basis for democracy…and membership, which is the thing that gives CAWA credibility.

    It’s also easy to administer, no passwords etc.

    Food4thought.

    #4762 Reply
    Angus
    Member

    I thoroughly agree.

    Transparency is important if an organisation it to be taken seriously by external parties. It might even help to encourage non-members to join – should they come across items in agendas/minutes which interest them.

    #4763 Reply
    Toc
    Member

    Hi Angus, Dinah and Steve,

    Not all external parties are groups CAWA needs to have looking into our discussions, which at times have to be frank and in depth. On at least one occasion CAWA has had to deal with a matter which was subject to suit.

    At the moment all members who want to have access to the minutes do have access to the minutes. Angus, if you are a member, email me at toc@iinet.net.au and this can be arranged for you.

    Furthermore, and to touch upon another matter, when I first joined CAWA monthly meetings started with the president outlining issues that had arisen during the month or were ongoing. Members and also non-members could then debate them right then and there.

    We are holding such a meeting on Thursday, 20th July at Rosie O’Grady’s, Northbridge, starting af 7:00pm. Items for discussion are principally but not limited to, the Safer Cliffs WA rebolting initiative and the lead and top-rope climbing competition date and formats. Afterwards we will sit back, have a few drinks and watch something from Phil’s collection of climbing DVDs. All welcome.

    #4764 Reply
    Steve
    Member

    Toc & others

    Exactly the point. In the past when we had monthly social meetings the President would outline what the committee were doing at each meeting. It was not really necesssary for members to access the minutes as there was direct communication each month. With the demise of monthly social meetings that means of communication is gone – hence we need a simple way to allow interested members to keep informed on what the committee is doing.

    Also remember the proposal is give access to MEMBERS ONLY. It is NOT intended to make the minutes publicly available. I agree, the minutes can at times have details that CAWA would not want available to the public, but the overriding principle is that of open & tranparent management to the members.

    #4765 Reply
    Dinah
    Member

    Toc

    Lets get the record straight.

    1) NO ONE is asking for PUBLIC access to minutes, they are asking for easy MEMBERSHIP access through the web.

    2) Minutes should reflect what happened at a committee meeting. A responsible committee will not be afraid of letting the membership know what activities and topics are under discussion. If there are sensitive or extenuating issues then these can be covered in extraordinary meeting minutes.

    3) The comment about social meetings is irrelevant. CAWA social meetings are so few and far between you cannot seriously consider them a vehicle for letting membership know what is happening.

    This issue is not “dead”. Can you not understand that the membership, collectively, wants to have easy access to minutes through the web. This was voted at the 2005 AGM and again the majority of attendees at the 2006 expressed this same wish. Why are members wishes ignored?

    Dinah

    #4766 Reply
    Toc
    Member

    TO all concerned,

    Every member who has asked for copies of the minutes has been getting them within two weeks of them being confirmed.

    I hope to see all of you at the social meeting tonight.

    Regards,

    Toc.

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