Welcome for New Board Members

[Frank Warmerdam]

Dave, Jo, Venkatesh and Mark,

Welcome to the OSGeo board!

I have manually subscribed you all to the main board list
(board at board.osgeo.org) which is public as well as the board private
list (board-priv at board-priv.osgeo.org) which is restricted to us for
reading and posting.

Our next board meeting is scheduled for this Friday at 8:00am PST.
Details are at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/index.php/Fifth_Board_Meeting

Please feel free to add agenda items, and drop the board an email if you
won't be able to attend the meeting.

The board meetings are by phone per the details on the wiki page.  We
also use IRC as a secondary channel, but by Delaware law we are required
to make binding motions by voice.

As you likely know we have named officers which include:
  President - Frank Warmerdam
  Treasurer - Gary Lang
  Secretary - Rich Steele

Also, all the official committee chairs are officers (vice presidents).

I am a non-executive president, which means essentially the position is
primarily a figure head for the board.  We have been rotating the chairing
of the meetings but anyone can add items to the agenda in advance of the
meeting.  We try to achieve unanimous agreement on all decisions though that
isn't strictly necessary.

Daniel Brookshier is our Community Manager from CollabNet which means
that he is paid to spend some portion of his day working on behalf of
OSGeo on a variety of tasks.  Amoung other things he is our primary
authority on use of the CollabNet platform, head of the Web Committee,
and so forth.

The board public list should be used for most board discussions, but
the board-priv list is available if there is a concern about
confidentiality.  While we don't have particularly fixed rules on what
should be on board vs. board-priv, I would ask everyone to avoid quoting
anything from a board-priv list on the public list.

If you dig around there are currently OSGeo Corporate Bylaws in place
that essentially allow a board majority to do anything.  It is anticipated
that by September we will try and put in place more detailed Bylaws
which may place some additional limitations on the board.  For instance,
things like requiring a super-majority to change the bylaws, or perhaps
to disband a PSC (project committee).

I would encourage the new board members to review the old minutes to see
some of the official acts we have already taken.

I am very pleased to work with all of you, and I'm sure we will accomplish
a lot in the months to come.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org