[Board] President and President-elect

[Maria Brovelli]

It is a very wise proposal. I agree completely. Thanks Arnulf for this.
Maria

La Prorettrice Delegata
del Polo Territoriale di Como
Prof.ssa Maria Antonia Brovelli

Politecnico di Milano
Via Natta, 12/14 - 22100 Como (ITALIA)
Tel. +39-031-3327336
Fax. +39-031-3327321
e-mail: prorettrice at como.polimi.it

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On Aug 31, 2013, at 11:16 AM, "Seven (aka Arnulf)" <seven at arnulf.us> wrote:

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> Board,
> picking up an idea we tossed around for two consecutive years but
> never got around to actually implementing. In my opinion the OSGeo
> president  is not a power position (like the US president) but a more
> formal role. The most contentious thing the president of OSGeo will
> ever do is adjudicate in cases of ties. And represent OSGeo. This
> means that we will probably never see retail politics with election
> campaigns and people overly attaching to the role. Hopefully.
> 
> Another aspect is that it is hard stop being president when it is an
> indefinitely termed position. It will always make the impression of
> "stepping down" for some unknown reason. I actually know from own
> experience. It will always leave some room for speculation and gossip
> which is never good for an organization that lives off its kudos,
> transparency and authenticity.
> 
> Therefore I suggest that we limit the term for presidents to two
> years, the first of which is as president-elect. It is a common model
> to elect the upcoming president a year before their term so that there
> is no void at the end of the current president's term. It would also
> fit in with our staggered board elections - given that someone from
> the "new" half of the board volunteers for the role of
> president-elect. It should probably be possible to run again for
> presidency after a full term has ended but then first starting in the
> president-elect role again. I don't think that 4 years in a row as I
> did are that good an idea. Plus it burnt me out quite a bit.
> 
> Things obviously go wrong all the time: a director leaves the board
> early, president has to / wants to step down in mid-term, we have an
> interim director with only one year, none of the new directors wants
> to become president-elect right away, etc. So the president-elect role
> is no silver bullet and will not fix everything but it might help to
> stabilize things a bit and take away some pressure and expectations
> from that role.
> 
> Best regards,
> Arnulf
> 
> PS:
> There are more issues around elections and governance in general which
> I hope to address with a small sub committee or some such in October.
> Some of these changes (bylaws) will require a charter member vote
> which is a big thing we never before had to do.
> 
> I brought this one up now because we might want to have it sorted out
> for the next presidential term which starts after board elections are
> done. And I think the board should be OK to decide this on its own
> because it does not remove a key position but just changes some
> modalities around it.
> 
> - -- 
> Exploring Space, Time and Mind
> http://arnulf.us
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