[Board] IRC vs. matters of substance

[Jo Cook]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 7:27 PM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Michael P. Gerlek <mpg at flaxen.com>
> wrote:
> > At the close of today's IRC meeting, I was discouraged and wrote "I feel
> we have dealt with administrative matters, but resolved nothing of
> substance"; Frank asked for clarification.  To be specific, I feel we did
> not come to any closure a number of major items, including:
> >
> > - discussion of the North American chapter idea, and what it means as a
> precedent for OSGeo as a whole
>
> Michael,
>
> I will not that a north american chapter is not completely
> precident setting.  For instance I believe we have a
> Francophone group which is an umbrella over more than
> one french speaking chapter though I believe it ended up
> being less formal - more a mailing list liason rather than a
> chapter.  Perhaps I'm wrong.
>

I agree with Frank here- not meaning to be anti-american (ducks for cover)
but there is no reason in my mind why a North American chapter should be
treated any differently to any other chapter- particularly if there are
concerns about a NA/EU bias in the organisation. OK, so there's a wiki page
and mailing list, but the rest of us had to work a little harder before
getting formal recognition and I don't see why NA should be any different,
sorry!

>
> Certainly some chapters have their own corporate existance,
> bank accounts and so forth.  My objection to that is the
> practical hassles of accomplishing it more than a theoretical
> objection.
>

No objections here- the UK chapter ducked out of getting a bank account by
simply finding someone else to hold funds for us, but I believe a number of
chapters do it in whatever way works best for them.

>
> As a board I have no objection to their being an NA chapter
> as long as it can demonstrate some reasonably committed
> members and some degree of consensus on it's mandate,
> scope, etc which will mean some cooperation with existing
> chapters in it's region.
>
> I don't particularly feel most of this should be worked out at
> the board level, but rather by discussion on the NA chapter list
> and bringing in the local chapters in the region.
>

+1

>
> > Indeed, we didn't even discuss the last three at all.  These issues are
> what we were elected to do; after taking the bold step of removing the ED
> position we told the membership we were looking at how OSGeo operates and
> considering the future of the organization, but we're not doing that.   I
> feel this requires dedicated face-to-face commitment from all of us.
>
> I am, as often is the case, an incrementalist and to some extent
> the organization as it stands today already reflects many of my
> thoughts on how it ought to operate so I'm generally ambivalent
> about this "consider the future of the organization" and strategic
> planning sort of stuff.
>
> Nevertheless, any board member can bring forward thoughts and
> proposals.
>

I think there does need to be some consideration of future strategy, but
should deciding that be at the expense of sorting out the more immediate
concerns like FOSS4G 2012, the transfer of ED tasks etc? It seems like
those issues have, and should be, our current focus so that we can move
forward with a clean slate.

Jo
-- 
***Jo Cook*
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18
7RL, UK
t:+44 750 095 8167
iShare - Data integration and publishing platform<http://www.isharemaps.com/>
See the new Helpdesk and Customer
portal<http://support.astuntechnology.com/home>
*****************************************
Over 35% of the 4 star council websites use iShare - SOCITM Better
Connected 2010

See our customer commendations and
awards<http://astuntechnology.com/customers/awards-and-commendations/>

 Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales.
Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no.
864201149.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/board/attachments/20111111/7a83bd71/attachment.htm>