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<div>Dear MWG & OSGeo Board,<br><br>Tl;dr: Election coming and MWG is inefficient. Read on to help make it better.<br><br>I want to provide an update on the Membership Working Group (MWG) and also discuss how we fulfil our obligations to the OSGeo Oceania community better. This is particularly important with the lead up to the election.<br><br>Once we have clarified a few things here, it seems appropriate that these conversations move to the public Oceania mailing list. I'd like to do this ASAP once people have had a chance to chime in.<br><br><strong>Membership</strong> <strong>Update<br></strong>Prospective members pending a decision: 26<br>Membership applications approved: 100<br>Membership applications rejected: 1<strong><br><br></strong>The only person rejected thus far was outside Oceania and had no engagement with the region to date. I think this will be the main reason people fail to meet the eligibility requirements and get rejected.<br><br><strong>The election<br></strong>I have heard mixed things about whether a new member will be able to vote in the 2020 election. Can I get clarity on this?<strong><br><br>The MWG<br></strong>The MWG currently comprises of myself, Emma Hain, David Garcia, and Daniel Silk. Adam Steer was on the MWG as well, but had to step down due to other commitments and his move to Norway. One of the criteria in the Membership Policy is that at least two board members take part in the MWG. Emma and Daniel currently fill this role. We will need to review participation following the board election to make sure we still meet this requirement.<br><br>I would like to invite members to take part in the MWG after the election to get new people involved with OSGeo Oceania.<br><br><strong>Review process for membership applications</strong><br>The current process requires each member of the MWG to make a decision on the application before we can finalise the application status. This can introduce significant delay as one vote can stop the approval from going ahead. As it stands, I think we are failing to live up to <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1juJafdp8zfIprkA6eDDSFEMwOANQRI93/edit">our Membership Policy</a> "it should be easy to join". I see two solutions to this:<br><br>1. I could try to chase people up more regularly to get a decision.<br>2. We could set the membership approval requirement to 2 people of the MWG as long as no objections have been raised over a 2 week period. This gives members of the MWG chance to review the application and raise objections, whilst also ensuring decisions come through in a timely manner.<br><br>I am in favour of 2, as I think 1 can be challenging in a volunteer organisation.<br><br><strong>Membership register<br></strong>Once a member has been approved, they should be added to <a href="https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Oceania_Membership">this register</a>. I will update this register with the new intake as soon as the current pending decisions determined. <br><br>We collect and store address information as required by The Corporations Act 2001 for a membership register. This is only accessible to the board and the MWG. The public register linked above only contains the name and country.<br><br>Let me know if you have any thinking on the register.<br><br>Kind regards,<br><br>Ed</div>
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