Teams

Teams are groups at HSBNE that are funded and work amongst their group of volunteers to achieve a goal. Teams can be permanent or for a time period. Teams are allocated a budget from the group and may vote amongst their named volunteers to allocate that budget.

Minimum Requirements

At a minimum, to exist and be funded a team will consist of:

  • A minimum of 3 named volunteers.
  • A nominated leader from the volunteers in the team at any one time.
  • Approval from the exec or membership majority vote.
  • Registered themselves with the treasurer
  • A HSBNE Wiki page stating:
    • The current leader
    • The team volunteers and their responsibilities
    • The team objectives
    • The current budgets
    • A schedule for regular team meetings
    • The team meeting notes / record of votes
    • Where a team manages a physical area:
      • The area consumables the team commits to maintaining
    • A team plan

Team Objectives

A team must document on the wiki their objectives clearly. An objective may be to upkeep an area, to run events, to perform some general task in the space, to be responsible for some part of the space like IT infrastructure, vending machines, etc. An objective is just a paragraph that details this.

The team objective can only be changed by vote at general meeting.

Team Volunteers

Teams are composed of a named list of volunteers. Volunteers are HSBNE paid up members who have signed a ‘volunteer contract’ which states some basic responsibilities.

We encourage people to stick to one team, however thats not always possible and some members may choose to sign multiple contracts for different teams. This policy does not disallow this.

Team volunteers must be listed clearly on the wiki, along with their responsibilities.

Accepting and Rejecting Volunteers

Members who sign volunteer contracts will then be accepted by simple majority at the next team meeting. Teams will make volunteer contracts and appropriate roles for any member who wishes to join. If a team rejects a volunteer application, a reasonable reason must be documented. (ie, this person was a team member of this team previously and we do not have confidence they will perform their responsibilities)

A member who has an accepted contract is referred to as a volunteer. Ordinary members remain members.

Team volunteers may be ejected automatically after two consecutive reports from the team leader that they are not meeting their volunteer contracts for a given month.

Team volunteers may also be ejected from the team by simple majority vote of the team.

Team volunteers may also be ejected by vote at general meeting or by vote of executive.

Volunteer Contracts

An example volunteer contract might be something like the following, however they should be written for each person.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zJwzdScFOEzIfZ4Gb_F_kzXrW6uZC1Qj0p-VpfwShz8/edit

Please use this template to make team contracts. Team members (volunteers) sign their contract with them and their team leader, Team leaders sign their contract with the executive.

This template is wide ranging on purpose, and is ‘too much’, it is an example. Volunteers should be given extremely reasonable workloads from a few hours a month up to whatever they’re comfortable with.

Team Leaders

Team leaders are a nominated volunteer from the team. It is up to the team to determine the their leader at any given time by voting at a team meeting.

Team leaders may be replaced by general meeting vote, or a vote by the executive.

Team leaders may not be elected where they are team leaders in other teams already, or are part of the executive.

A Team leader is required as a representative of the team to:

  • Represent the team in general, and team+exec meetings
  • Tie break team votes
  • Be the nominated person who holds any payment mechanisms the exec issue (ie divipay) for for discretionary spend.

Team leaders are also responsible for, on top of their contract:

  • Assessing volunteers monthly and reporting on any volunteers who are not meeting their agreements. This is done by submitting the volunteer contracts with signoffs each month to the exec.
  • The upkeep and potential presentation of the team plan.
  • To schedule and run team meetings, and ensure notes are posted on the wiki.
  • Attend exec + team leader meetings

Team Leads can delegate their responsibilities if necessary.

Team Meetings

Teams will meet on a regular public schedule, either in person or digitally. The voting block for the team is its named volunteers. As per the procedure with HSBNE General Meetings, meetings must be announced with >5 days notice and all voteable agenda items must be announced publically with 5 days notice.

Teams may vote on:

  • The expenditure of their balance and allocation of their master budget from HSBNE.
  • Policies relevent to the teams scope as defined by their objectives.
  • Acceptance/Rejection of team volunteers
  • Updating the team plan

Teams will take meeting notes and publish them to the wiki within 3 days after each meeting.

Quorum

  1. Is defined as 25% (rounded down) of the mean number of members who have attended the last four meetings, plus 2x the minimum volunteers (currently 3).
  2. If team volunteer count is below the mathematical minimum of #1, (10 people), quorum is 51% or greater, unless:
    1. The team consists of the minimum 3, where quorum is 100% of the team. This works out to be this table:
  • 3 Volunteers, 3 Quorum
  • 4 Volunteers, 3 Quorum
  • 5 Volunteers, 3 Quorum
  • 6 Volunteers, 4 Quorum
  • 7 Volunteers, 4 Quorum
  • 8 Volunteers, 5 Quorum
  • 9 Volunteers, 5 Quorum
  • 10 Volunteers, 6 Quorum
  • >10 Volunteers, consult #1

Proxy Votes

Proxy votes may be offered as per the procedure utilised by the greater group.

Team Funding and Budgets

A Team is funded by a budget allocated by HSBNE. The budget is for the requirements of the team for Operational Expenditure (OpEx). OpEx is expenditure such as repairs, maintenance, consumables, etc. Project based and Capital Expenditure (CapEx) purchase budgets, such as purchase of machines, will go through the general group via General Meetings as normal.

The budgets as currently defined must be on the teams wiki page.

The team budget may be structured in any way the team requires. Some examples:

  • $500 per month accruing
  • $300 per month non accruing with $2k per year.
  • $3000 per year

A team may vote amongst its named volunteers to allocate this budget and how it is spent as they see fit.

If the executive finds a team is dysfunctional for any reasons, such as not meeting requirements, committments, not publishing plans, holding meetings, etc. The executive can and will withold funding.

Team Policies

Teams may write policies to explicitly and clearly achieve their team objective and plan. Team policies can be passed by team vote. Team policies can be overturned or removed by team vote, general vote, or executive vote. Overturned policy can only be reinstated by HSBNE General Meeting vote, and cannot be reinstated by team meeting vote. Policies will be published on the wiki. Policies will be printed and displayed in appropriate places also.

Team Plans

A team must maintain at all times a team plan, which details the future looking direction of the team and the things that they manage. A team may be asked to present how they are going with their plan to the general membership.

The plan is how the team will achieve their team objective.

A plan is a living document a team must keep updated. So this is not onerous, the plan will just be a simple list of goals and timeframes.

Team plans will contain:

  • Immediate: Outlines in detail the plan for the next month.
  • Short: Outlines in reasonable detail the plan for the next 3 months.
  • Long: Outlines in rough detail the plan for the next 6 months or longer.

An example plan may be:

Immediate:

  • Do induction video for MACHINE A
  • Finalise repairs to MACHINE H
  • Finish documenting PROCESS
  • Run class on TOPIC

Short:

  • Deliver final part of Project Y
  • Do induction videos for 3 machines.
  • Run EVENT

Long:

  • Finish all induction videos for machines
  • Finish Project Y and Project Z
  • Start Project D
  • Buy Machine Q On grant

Starting a Team

To start a new team, the team must come to a general meeting with:

  • All volunteers and their agreements
  • Nominated team leader
  • Proposed team budget
  • Schedule for meetings
  • Team Plan

Failures to Operate

If a team has been determined to be failing to operate, by not meeting its obligations per its objective, not making reporting, or upkeeping the plan (or other reason), the exec can:

  • Withhold funding
  • Shutdown the team area
  • Disband the team
  • Require the team to appoint a new leader
  • Or other remediations as required

Exec taking actions on a team failing to operate must announce the actions and reasoning at the next general meeting.

Causes Carryover

The teams policy replaces the previous cause policy. To this point:

  • Causes who meet the teams minimum requirements will be automatically turned into teams.
  • Causes which are automatically turned into teams will retain any amount of monies in their cause.
  • Causes which do not meet minimum requirements for a team will be disbanded.

Causes should find that changing to a team will significantly reduce their roadblocks, as the reduced voting block and simpler money management should help achieve their goals. Teams also have no obligations to run classes or events.

What was originally regarded as a “Cause Operating Policy” will be simplified into their wiki page as detailed in the teams policy.