[Board] New Board

[Frank Warmerdam]

Ari, Howard,

Welcome to the OSGeo board!

I have added you both to the board-priv mailing list (board-priv at osgeo.org).
This list is intended to be only used for discussions that need to be
private due to legal concerns, or other need for privacy.  Please try to
avoid using it instead of the board list except when privacy is really
necessary.  If you receive email on the board-priv list, please treat it
as confidential and don't reply publically.  This list is not centrally
archived - it is just an alias reflector on osgeo1.

The board home is the wiki page at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors

The next planned meeting is August 8th per:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2008_08_08

Contact me or Tyler if you don't already know the access code for the
conference calls.  I would encourage reading back through the last few
months minutes to get a sense of topics we have been discussing.

There is also a planned face to face board meeting on the Sunday preceding
FOSS4G in Capetown.  If you plan to be at FOSS4G (I know Howard won't be
able to make it) please plan your travel so that you can also be there for
the Sunday meetings.

One of the first items of business at our August meeting will be selecting
new officers: President, Treasurer and Secretary.

Tyler has been our Secretary, and I'm supportive of keeping him in that role.
However, DaveM was our Treasurer and will likely want to step down from that
role now that he has retired from the board.  As well, I've indicated my
desire to step down as President to let some new blood into that role.
So we should expect to select a new President.

I should note that Tyler has been preparing the financial reports, but the
Treasurer (along with the rest of the finance committee) is responsible for
setting financial policy and for vetting and approving financial reports.

The President is nominally the chief executive officer of the foundation
and can presumably, if needed, make some sorts of decisions on behalf of
the foundation.  When necessary, the president has responsibility for
supervision of the Executive Director.  However, the role has primarily
been to schedule, prepare agendas and chair board meetings.

We generally meet once per month (often the first Friday of the month) at
11:00am US eastern time (currently this is 1500 UTC).  The meetings are
by conference call (as required by Mass. corporate law).  As a board
we can only pass official motions in a duly called board meeting (by
a majority of those present, with a quorum of five) or by email votes.
For email votes *every single board member* needs to vote in support of
the motion to pass.

I should note that the board is bound by the Conflict of Interest Policy at:

   http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Conflict_Of_Interest_Policy

Lastly, I would note that the Fundraising Committee was disbanded last year,
and responsibility for fundraising was returned to the board.

Best regards,
-- 
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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 OSGeo, http://osgeo.org