Approx attendance in person: 53 (34 in-person and 19 online). More people arrived later, but not significantly more.
Chair: David Matthewman
Note-taker: Elizabeth Barner
Housekeeping
The chair (David) explained that the planned chair was recovering from appendicitis, so he had taken on chairing duties as the best available person at BiCon, despite his being on the team creating a small potential conflict of interest if any issues were raised about the current BiCon. He asked for objections and there were none.
The chair also outlined the voting mechanism, which was by counting raised hands both in the room and on Zoom. Zoom automatically tallies the raised hands (those done by explicitly choosing the 'raise hand' option), which makes the count easier.
Counted votes will be recorded as 'Y: xx, N: yy, A: zz' being 'yes' (xx), 'no' (yy) and 'abstentions' (zz) respectively. Where a vote was overwhelmingly in one direction and was not formally counted, this will be recorded as (for example) 'passed overwhelmingly with 2 votes against'.
Last year's minutes
These are online here.
They were accepted as accurate: Y: 43, N: 0, A: 14
Continuation of anti-racism training
Background: BiCon's policy this year was that everyone attending must attend anti-racism training. Online, in person, and on-the-day all had training. This is the first year we have mandated this at an in-person BiCon. People with lived experience of racism were not required to take part. The BiCon team has turned away or de-registered people who were eligible for training but refused to take part.
Fewer than five people were excluded or de-registered on this basis. The number was noted, but the mood of the meeting was that even if the number had been larger, that should not influence BiCon's decision about continuing the training, as if people refused to take part in the training they should not be considered welcome at BiCon.
The quality of the training provided was commended.
There was a suggestion made to time-limit the training to five years, to spare any given BiCon from making the decision to stop the training. This suggestion was not taken up, as five years was considered an arbitrary limit, and it wouldn't make things significantly easier for the BiCon team in five years that chose not to renew the training.
There was a question raised about who should be exempt. The comment included examples of discrimination by racialised people about racialised people, and in other countries, noting strong prejudices against Black people in particular. The response was that the policy at BiCon is for UK context and in response to advice given by trainers and advisers of colour that people of colour should be exempt if they wish to be, and this had been discussed in previous years.
It was noted that it was important for accessibility reasons that people were able to do training in their own time. There was a request for the in-person training at BiCon to be available later in the day. This would make the training more accessible for people who are not able to arrive early or are chronically ill and cannot do mornings – perhaps to watch alone in a room. The response was that this may not be possible for a team to deliver, with the recognition that this is a conflict of access needs and so should be considered if possible.
Vote on indefinite continuation of training/anti-racism work: passed overwhelmingly
Second vote, on continuing training at future BiCons: passed overwhelmingly with 2 abstentions
BiCon Continuity Report
Key points:
- BiCon 2022 happened! Continuity's role was helping to get together a team of interested people, and having a venue already booked with the deposit paid.
- Internal processes: Continuity created description of roles and skills (on website) as well as updated and improved treasury processes.
- Change in Trustees: Elizabeth and Ian stepped down last year; Rowan to step down this year; Anna joined about 1 month ago; Elizabeth now volunteering to do accounts.
- Finance: around £27,000 in the bank, enough for two deposits on venues like Leeds Beckett (which was about £12,000). This is a reasonable position; expecting around £5000-£7000 back from 2022 BiCon, so £32,000 total community funds at a minimum.
- Donations from 4 sources this year; two around £1,000.
Specific question: what is the expected loss per head this year? BiCon Continuity were unable to say at this point, as this will only be known once the final venue bill is in. The team noted that the original venue plan was for a much larger BiCon (the originally-planned 2020 one) and while some costs had been scaled back, some of the fixed costs remained.
Specific question: did Continuity seek donations, especially corporate/group donations? No, the larger corporate donation was from a staff LGBT network (specifically UNISON) making sure they could say they had done something specifically bi-related.
Vote to we accept this report: passed overwhelmingly with 2 abstentions
Proposal on changing the organising/volunteering structure
There was a proposal to form a working group to look at changing the organising and volunteering structure of BiCon.
Because this had largely been put together in the time between the pre-Decision-Making-Meeting and the Decision-Making Meeting itself, it was circulated separately from the agenda, and was still being finalised on the morning of the meeting. What was available at the time of the DMP was a snapshot of a live document which at the time was still being updated. The document as it existed at the time of the DMP is reproduced in Appendix A to these minutes, for reference of what was circulated on Discord, on the BiCon noticeboard, and available to discuss at the time.
The proposer summarised the points in the document in Appendix A as follows:
- Change is needed in everything BiCon related: BiCon Continuity, the team, the community, how we're structured
- A group should look into it: group of volunteers led by one or two people for accountability. Those two people are the leaders and organisers, but everyone's views are equal and it is not a hierarchy
- BiCon Continuity should take the need for change and the group looking into it seriously. Sometimes things passed to Continuity previously by a DMP have got lost
- If Continuity doesn't agree to change, it should disband
- If Continuity agrees to change and then fails, it should disband
- If we can't discuss this today, there should be a special AGM called to discuss it.
Although the proposers had some support for discussing it, others felt that they had not had time to look at the document in enough detail to consider its merits. We therefore took an indicative vote about both:
- whether to discuss both the full document
- whether to discuss the first point only: 'I agree that BiCon needs to structurally change, including Bi Continuity'.
Points made during this discussion:
- The proposers felt that there had been very little time to prepare this, and that BiCon should provide more support before BiCon for people bringing motions of this sort to BiCon
- Nonetheless, a lot of work had been put into the document in a relatively short time by multiple people
- If it was not discussed now, then when?
- Possibilities for when to discuss it were the Continuity AGM, the BiCon Futures session that was taking place the next day, and possibly a working group which could work on a proposal and bring something back next year
- That it was just the six key principles up for discussion, not a detailed discussion of the proposals, which could be looked at by the working group
Vote to discuss the full document: Y: 15, N: 26, A: 0
Vote to discuss the first point: Y: 17, N: 23, A: 0
The meeting agreed to minute that this vote did not mean that there was no interest in changing BiCon and the structures around it.
The meeting gave a vote of thanks to Emily and Kate for their hard work on the document.
Name of this meeting
We discussed what the name of the meeting itself should be.
Comments:
- 'AGM' is recognisable but sounds corporate. Even spelled out a 'Annual General Meeting', it's not very inclusive
- It should not be generally referred to by an acronym like 'DMP' as new people have no idea what that means
- Teams are in practice allowed to call it anything they want; the name is just a convention
- The low turnout at the meeting is always disappointing. Calling it something that emphasises the importance might help
- Both 'Have Your Say' and 'BiCon Decides' were suggested, and added as options to the original three on the agenda
We then took an indicative vote on the suggestions.
Decision-Making Plenary: 0
Decision-Making Meeting: 1
BiCon AGM: 3
Have Your Say: 20
BiCon Decides: 25
BiCon Decides therefore won the vote. The meeting was asked to minute that Have Your Say, as a creditable runner-up, would be a sensible name for the pre-DMP agenda-setting session, should we need one.
Thanks
Thanks were recorded to David for chairing; to all attending (in person) for being audible and accessible online; to all attending for the quality of discussion and commitment.
