[Board] [EXTERNAL] President and President-elect

[Smith, Michael ERDC-RDE-CRREL-NH]

While I like the idea, I think the one year as president is a bit short.
Perhaps 1 year as president-elect and then 2 years as president (assuming
reelection). 

Mike

-- 
Michael Smith

US Army Corps
Remote Sensing GIS/Center



On 8/31/13 5:16 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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