[Oceania-Board] resolving resolutions

[Greg Lauer]

All,

The question around changing  the MWG ToR was bought up by Ed (as MWG Lead). He was struggling to get the MWG team together to approved outstanding applications, and had sent out an email to Board asking for a minor change to the MWG ToR. I was speaking to Ed to ascertain when the memberships would be active, as one 'potential' member wanted to nominate for the Board elections, so there was a time issue here.

I felt the most appropriate action was to put Ed's suggestion to the Board as a Loomio discussion and vote. Five Board members voted with 4 yes and 1 no. I discussed the result with the Chair and we agreed that Ed's suggestion made sense in the current situation (a backlog of Board members with an election nomination period about to end), we had a quorum, and 80% of votes were in favour. I communicated to this Ed. I believe in the interim Ed managed to work with the other MWG members and process the applications with out having to only have two members approve. I would think that this discussion will pass on to the incoming Board in December if actual changes are need to the ToR.

I am not sure what we can do about non-voting Board members . My personal opinion is that if a Board member does not vote then they have no comment to make on the discussion. Where this becomes a problem is when less than 5 directors vote.  A Board does need to be nimble and be able to act quickly in situations like this. This was a minor decision to resolve a time pressing issue.

As for comments on a 'Quorum', a quorum is the minimum number of directors that must be present at any of its meetings to make the proceedings of that meeting valid. To be honest I am not sure how this should be interpreted outside of a formal board meeting. In this particular Loomio discussion we did have a quorum (5 directors voting) with 4 voting yes, so in my mind the vote was carried (I am sure this open to interpretation). The Constitution is also not clear on how we manage votes outside a formal Board Meeting. In my mind Loomio was never meant to replace Board meetings but rather give the board the opportunity to discuss and vote on those issues that didn't need to go to a full board vote, or needed to be resolved before the next meeting. I don't think Loomio votes are binding per see but for minor or time sensitive issues are suitable.

Greg


On 11/12/2020 10:35:58 AM, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com> wrote:
Ok, I missed the vote, and I'm very sorry I did. I would have voted +1.

I think we should minute that, or do a re-vote, because with my votes it's 5 out of 8...



On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 at 10:38, Martin Tomko <tomkom at unimelb.edu.au [mailto:tomkom at unimelb.edu.au]> wrote:

Support Adam here. We need the rest of the board to vote!!!! IN particular as one of the votes (mine) is borderline, with caveats similar to Adam’s.
Martin
 
From: Oceania-Board <oceania-board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]>
Date: Thursday, 12 November 2020 at 9:24 am
To: oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org] <oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org]>
Subject: Re: [Oceania-Board] resolving resolutions
Hi Alex

Ok for the first, if it works then fine...

> The second Greg is handling. There’s a lot going on, so we’re moving forwards with on boarding new members after two supporting votes from the MWG. I'll make sure we reach out to Ed.

is it OK to proceed on 4/8 of board votes? The constitution requires a
majority. Yes new members need to be accepted and communicated with,
so I agree that getting in touch with Ed/the MWG should be the very
first priority.

Cheers,

Adam
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--

Alex Leith

m: 0419189050
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