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.
At a minimum, to exist and be funded a team will consist of:
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.
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.
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.
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 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:
Team leaders are also responsible for, on top of their contract:
Team Leads can delegate their responsibilities if necessary.
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:
Teams will take meeting notes and publish them to the wiki within 3 days after each meeting.
Proxy votes may be offered as per the procedure utilised by the greater group.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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
To start a new team, the team must come to a general meeting with:
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:
Exec taking actions on a team failing to operate must announce the actions and reasoning at the next general meeting.
The teams policy replaces the previous cause policy. To this point:
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.