Loomio

Selecting President and Vice-Presidents

Maria Antonia Brovelli Fri 21 Oct 2016 11:21PMPublicSeen by 333

It looks like the term for the President and Vice Presidents has elapsed, and this meeting on Oct 20th was the intended time to choose new officers....

The most recent board meeting of October 20th had the following discussion:

14:26:06 venka: Agenda 6: Selecting OSGeo Vice-President
14:26:55 helena_: it would be good to have somebody with industry contacts for the second vice-president
14:26:56 vcraciunescu: this should also be postponed for a meeting when all board members will attend
14:27:06 kalxas: vcraciunescu, +1
14:27:09 maria: +1
14:27:11 helena_: yes, I think it would be good to have Jody
14:27:16 venka: I suggest we start a thread on loomio and select our new VP

Resulting in this thread being created by Maria:

I want to nominate as vice-president Angelos. In my opinion we need a person in Europe and Angelos has a wide experience in many OSGeo projects, from the Live-DVD to single packages.

Jody Garnett
Disagree
Thu 3 Nov 2016 3:26PM

I request that the board consider nominations from our charter membership.

Specifically I do not want to set a precedent where an officer role is restricted to board members. Allowing the board to nominate charter members is a good balance.

Michael Smith
Disagree
Thu 3 Nov 2016 3:42PM

I wanted to open to current or former board members. Sometimes it may be beneficial to keep someone in the role past membership or use expertise / local knowledge outside of current board status.

Angelos TzotsosThu 3 Nov 2016 4:54PM

@jodygarnett @michaelsmith7 can you please open the alternative motions you made so we can vote on them too?

Jody GarnettThu 3 Nov 2016 10:57PM

I am not sure if we can open more then one motion in a discussion at the same time..

Confirmed it is not possible:
- (4 years ago) https://www.loomio.org/d/aGith8TH/multiple-proposals-on-a-discussion
- (3 years ago) https://www.loomio.org/d/lZJ1nG9R/multi-proposal-at-the-same-time-

MOT5: Accept nominations for President and Vice-President from members with experience on the board

proposal by Jody Garnett Closed Mon 7 Nov 2016 4:01AM

Outcome
by Jody Garnett Tue 25 Apr 2017 5:52AM

This proposal is ... closed due to disagreement.

If disagreeing please provide a reason why so we can formulate a new proposal.

Results

Jody Garnett
Agree
Fri 4 Nov 2016 5:26AM

I feel this proposal is acceptable - however expect the board could entertain nominating volunteers from our wider pool of charter members (see MOT6).

Michael Smith
Agree
Fri 4 Nov 2016 9:23AM

We have already established the precedent that past board members can serve as OSGeo board officers.

Helena Mitasova
Abstain
Sun 6 Nov 2016 4:39AM

I have somewhat of a conflict as a past vice-president. I am inclined to support the suggestion by several members that the nominees should be from the current board.

Jody GarnettFri 4 Nov 2016 5:24AM

These motions are being raised in order, to review discussion today's IRC meeting can be found at:

http://irclogs.geoapt.com/osgeo/%23osgeo.2016-11-03.log

  • MOT3 that President and Vice-President be selecting from current board
  • MOT5: Accept nominations for President and Vice-President from members with experience on the board
  • MOT6: President and Vice-President nominations selected selected from charter members

VenkaSat 5 Nov 2016 2:16AM

My views on this thread are available at
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2016-November/014703.html

Angelos TzotsosSun 6 Nov 2016 2:31PM

I am going through the IRC minutes now and I see that in MOT3 we have different votes than the votes above: @jodygarnett and @michaelsmith7 voted "disagree" and not "block" which is different from -1 on IRC. I think "disagree" in loomio is more like -0 and "block" is -1 (or veto). Same happens now on MOT5 with @venka and @mariaantoniabrovel.

Based on that, MOT3 is not withdrawn, same for MOT5...

MOT6: President and Vice-President nominations selected from charter members

proposal by Jody Garnett Closed Thu 10 Nov 2016 7:01PM

Outcome
by Jody Garnett Tue 25 Apr 2017 5:52AM

This proposal is blocked

This is the final proposal put forth in the IRC meeting, justification being that the board has a clear responsibility to make decisions, while officers have clear responsibility to take actions on behalf of the Foundation.

The by-laws provide the president with the responsibility to sign formal agreements (contracts, employment contracts, commitments to other organizations in the form of MOU, etc...).

The "president" role has also by-default taken on many of the responsibilities of "Executive Director" (formally our only employee). The direct role had no decision making power, but a lot of work to do! The goal with president / vice-president breakdown is to break down these "Executive Director" jobs between several volunteers so we do not burn individuals out.

I see no reason to limit the "several volunteers" to board members (current board members, or previous board members). I only ask that they be willing, approved by the board, and able to work together.

The tasks we have asked of previous presidents include:
- travel
- public speaking
- marketing and publicity (both of the foundation, our projects and our initiatives)
- outreach (promoting open source as a viable approach in our spatial industry)
- inspiration - "winding up" our members to take on new initiatives, and maintain the ones we have already started
- also ponies

Results

Maria Antonia Brovelli
Disagree
Tue 8 Nov 2016 12:18PM

I believe that the Directors are more "qualified" to represent OSGeo as they were elected. They are not better than the other Charter Members, but they were chosen by the Charter Members. Unfortunately there is not enough room to add explanation here

Anita Graser
Abstain
Tue 8 Nov 2016 7:01PM

Not my favorite option. (I think it would be better to stick to people that were elected by the community.)

Helena Mitasova
Abstain
Wed 9 Nov 2016 6:36PM

I agree with Anita.

Jody GarnettTue 8 Nov 2016 6:50PM

We have now exhausted all positions put forth in the IRC meeting.

Anita GraserTue 8 Nov 2016 6:59PM

@mariaantoniabrovel I think the comment section does not have a length limit. Only the comment that can be added to a vote has a limit of 250 characters.

VenkaTue 8 Nov 2016 11:06PM

My view on this thread are at
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/2016-November/014711.html

I have also proposed new MOT8 and MOT9 in the above email and we could move these motions to loomio if there is no objections to doing that.

Maria Antonia BrovelliWed 9 Nov 2016 6:45AM

Thanks @anitagraser! You are so excellent in using loomio!
I already sent my comments by email, answering Jody.