Minutes of Meeting on 22/11/23 at 5:00pm

Present (12): Fergus (President), Ali (VP), Vojtech (Project Share President), Sophie (Treasurer), Aurora (School Rep), Krzystof (GameDevSig President & Fourth Year Rep), Adam (Tech Sec), Chives (Old Person Rep), Vincent (First Year Rep), Tomas (Third Year Rep), Yuto (Graphic Designer)

Absent (9): Secretary, Social Secretary, Second Year Rep, EDI Rep, SIGINT President, QuantSIG President, CloudSIG President, TypeSig President, Tardis Project President

Agenda

Situation with Treasurer and Bank Accounts
Fergus has updates about a potentially important strategic partner
College Representation
Events (upcoming socials, November STMU, January STMU, March HTB and April InfBall)
Discord server ownership and moderation debate
- Debate Topic: Removal of a separate moderation team, consolidating staff powers in core committee

Meeting Minutes

Financing
- Sophie (Treasurer) stepping down due to fourth year studies taking priority
  - In role until January STMU (which will be an EGM), happy to continue InfBall organisation
- Santander Bank Account: frozen due to suspicious activity
  - Can’t invoice with the account until 12 January until situation is resolved
  - Fergus has confirmed via Neil that the School is happy to be invoiced until this point as an emergency measure
    - Pizza specifically can be ordered ordered through the university’s ties with Papa Johns. May need to notify orders much earlier than a day before like we traditionally do.
  - Approx 700 GBP is in the EUSA account for emergency use too, although likely not necessary this time
- Sponsor Companies
  - Currently approx 14.000 in locked Santander account (could be higher if Bloomberg money arrived before locking)
  - Meta requires student societies to be a legal body with a VAT number (cannot use EUSA’s charity number), and complex situation
    - Sophie + Fergus are in the loop and working on this
    - TODO: Fergus to see if he can get Meta to deposit to School instead and transfer to CompSoc
  - Terra: pending replies on their side
  - Google: pending replies on their side
    - TODO: Fergus to ping update for this
  - Participation Grant of 5k:
    - Estimated results and arrival would be around February
Important Person
- Fergus having 1:1 with an important person announced tomorrow to talk about CompSoc
College Representation
- Aurora (School Rep) hasn’t received replies on request for posting CompSoc on CSE newsletter or mailing list
  - TODO: Aurora to chase up on this
Events
- Socials and Bar events
  - TODO: Yuto to finish graphics this weekend
- November STMU: Speakers ready, graphic pending, poster pending.
  - Budget: around 300-350 GBP
  - TODO: Yuto to finish them and get them up in AT before weekend
- January STMU: Speakers pending, graphic pending.
  - Budget: around 350-400 GBP due to start-of-semester influx
- HackTheBurgh:
  - Discussed in SIG Meeting at 15:00: potentially have SIGs set sub-challenges within a CompSoc challenge, offering top 1/2/3 prizes within the whole of CompSoc challenge
- Infball
  - Ticket prices to be decided near time of sale, but estimate budget using 50 GBP (2022: 35 GBP, 2023: 55 GBP)
    - Reduce after-party tickets as it was packed last year - lower income. set higher prices?
  - Status: Currently scouting for venues (The Caves and Dynamic Earth are candidates due to Balmoral declining society bookings).
  - CompSoc has capacity to fund 5,000 GBP now if needed
    - By January/February, can offer a minimum of 2k extra or more as needed.
    - For now, estimate with roughly the same plan as last year (7k from CompSoc, 1k from School).
Dicsord Server Moderation Debate
- Yuto raises that moderation of CompSoc Discord feels detached from society
  - Fergus cites multiple past incidents where current committee has clashed on decisions with moderation team
  - Students assume moderation decisions come with committee input and we are targeted as a result
  - There is a possible chance that CompSoc IRL event attendance is affected by a perceived closed-friend-group chat feel
- Input from experienced people still important for consideration
  - Possibly keep separate communication channel for advice
- Decision on ‘Committee Members will be the sole moderators of CompSoc Discord’
  1. Committee members can choose to add specific people to help either moderation or event organisation (Hackathons, InfBall, etc). These people will be removed a the end of each society year and re-added if continuing, to ensure all mods are active
  2. There should be a creation of a channel for asking for and receiving advice from past committee
  3. Because this would make the Discord Staff role obsolete, delete this role
    - 12 Committee members present and in agreement for
    - 1 Committee member absent and against
    - 8 Committee members absent and not voted