[Board] Choosing the next President of OSGeo

[Peter Batty]

Thanks Frank.

One other person I would mention for consideration (whether now or in
future) who hasn't come up yet is Michael Gerlek, if he is interested. I
have been impressed by Michael's work on the board this year as Secretary.
I think he has proved good at getting us to focus on issues and reach
decisions, which is a good attribute for the President / Chair to have. And
he is a good advocate for OSGeo.

One broader consideration to think about is how we want the role of
President to work in future. Do we have a preference for a "long term
President" as Arnulf has been? While Arnulf has done a great job, as
several folks have commented in different contexts, he has taken on a
larger load than most people could. We might consider whether we
consciously want the President role to cycle every year or two years or
whatever, to get new perspectives and balance the load  among different
people.

I was on the board at GITA for several years, and there the President would
serve for one year. They also had the notion of a President Elect, which
has some advantages - the President Elect was chosen a year before they
became President, so they had time to plan for being in the role, and the
President and President Elect could work together as appropriate to
transition the role toward the end of the President's term. I'm not saying
we necessarily should do that, but just mentioning it as one option we
might think about. Of course if we did something like that it would
naturally lead into choosing a President Elect from newly elected board
members, who still have two years to serve. Which might constrain things a
bit too much with our current model (it might be that none of the four
incoming members were interested in being President for one reason or
another).

That's probably a bigger discussion than we can reasonably have today, but
if Frank did serve a one year term as President this coming year, this
general topic would be something we could discuss further over the coming
months, to plan for how we move ahead  in 2013.

Cheers,
    Peter.

On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 10:54 AM, Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at pobox.com>wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 20, 2012 at 8:27 AM, Peter Batty <peter.batty at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Which would leave Frank, and I think it goes without saying that he
> > would be a great candidate, assuming he is willing.
>
> Peter,
>
> I would be willing, but I've been president before and I am unlikely
> to bring something new to the role.  If I'm selected, I'd prefer to think
> of it as a single year while others get more comfortable with board
> function and we bring someone with new ideas and energy to the role
> next year.  Better yet to have someone new in the role this year!
>
> 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    | Geospatial Software Developer
>
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