[OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members

[Steven Feldman]

If I have understood this procedure correctly:

The board is voted for by the Charter Members, new Charter Members are proposed and voted for by the existing Charter Members, there may be a limit placed on the number of new Charter Members set by the board.

Membership of OSGeo does not seem to confer any rights on the member.

Do we need to review our foundation docs to find a more inclusive procedure? 
____________
Steven Feldman


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On 25 Jun 2014, at 20:00, discuss-request at lists.osgeo.org wrote:

> From: Cameron Shorter <cameron.shorter at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Proposed process for selecting OSGeo charter members
> Date: 25 June 2014 12:31:03 BST
> To: discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> 
> 
> Following the community discussion, I further researched OSGeo's foundation documents, (in retrospect I should have done this earlier).
> 
> Of particular relevance to current discussion is our ByLaws:
> 
> http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html
> Section 7.1. Admission of [Charter] Members. An initial group of up to forty-five (45) persons shall be admitted as the initial [charter] members of the corporation upon the affirmative vote of the Board of Directors of the corporation. Thereafter, to be eligible for [charter] membership, a person must be nominated by an existing [charter] member of the corporation pursuant to a written document in such form as shall be adopted by the Board of Directors from time to time. The nomination must be included in a notice to the [charter] members at least ten (10) days in advance of the meeting at which the [charter] members will vote on the applicant’s admission. Proposed [charter] members shall be admitted upon the affirmative vote of the members of the corporation.
> 
> This section implies that the proposal below of automatically accepting "Recognised OSGeo Community Leaders" is unconstitutional, as charter members need to be voted into the role by existing charter members.
> 
> It also implies that while a separate paid membership category could be created, paid members would still need to be voted into a charter member role by existing charter members.
> 
> The ByLaws don't mention limiting the number of new charter members. This criteria seems to have been introduced as a Membership Process by the 26th Board meeting:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process
> The number of new members will be between 10% and one third of the existing charter membership count as decided by the board.
> 
> Such a statement created by the board, could be updated by the board, and as such the board could agree to accept an unlimited number of new charter members.
> 
> So I'm now thinking that our election process can be simplified to:
> 
> 1. Charter member to nominate potential new charter member(s)
> 2. Charter members then vote (in/out) against all nominated charter members
> A suitable criteria for determining whether a nominee qualifies is listed here: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Membership_Process#Positive_Attributes
> 4. Nominees with a majority of votes are included as new Charter Members

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