[Board] President elect and limiting terms

[Cameron Shorter]

Arnulf,
I see we were remiss not to cover the "President elect" topic in our 
last board meeting. Lets get it finalised by our next meeting.

I'm in favour of creating a "President elect".
I'm open to introducing suggested guidelines for a a president term, but 
would suggest avoiding hard requirements as we are not sure about the 
make up of future boards.

Arnulf, once this conversation thread has died down, I suggest you draft 
a proposal for us to vote upon.

On 24/03/13 00:05, Arnulf Christl wrote:
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> Folks,
> I just cast my ballot for the president and president elect of the IGS
> and this reminded me of a task I did not conclude when still on the
> board of OSGeo.
>
> My suggestion was to have a double election and add a president elect
> / vice president to the game but we never got to actually talk this
> through to the end. Having this in place would bring more continuity
> to the organization and take some weight off the running president.
>
> So far this was not too much of an issue but before the end of my
> presidency I did have to commit to several activities which would take
> place after I had left. Fortunately Jeff could take on some of them
> (thanks for this) and others were happy to have me give talks even
> although I was then just a commoner.
>
> The second thing I had originally planned to bring to the board before
> me term ended was to limit the term of the presidency to a fixed time
> (after which there is no way of returning?). It appear that being
> president elect for one year and then president for another is a good
> idea. This would help the active presidents to end their term without
> having to explain why. For me it was exceptionally painful to not run
> for another presidency because there was this general sentiment that I
> "step down" instead of just end a regular term. Which somehow required
> me to give a reason which I sort of did but in an awkward and
> unhelpful way. It felt like disappointing so many people and caused
> more friction that necessary.
>
> Having a president elect role would also allow the individual to grow
> into their position and take on the responsibility gradually, likewise
> allow the president to take a holiday or drop off the grid for a while
> without the organization appearing to be headless.
>
> My proposal to the board is to have a dialog about this. The more I
> think about it the more of a no-brainer it seems to be and many
> organizations do it that way. Nothing is permanent, everything is in a
> flow and our organization should not be an exception. Having a
> president and president elect allows to have smooth transition.
>
>
> All the best,
> Arnulf
>
> - -- 
> Arnulf Christl
> http://metaspatial.net
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-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

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