[Board] Welcome to the new Board members

[Seven (aka Arnulf)]

Hello Board,
and a warm welcome to the new members. It is really good to see you all
here and I wish you a successful period on the board and hopefully even
some fun at getting things done.


Just to make sure that we are clear on how this board functions.
(...because there has been talk about OSGeo being dysfunctional). The
bylaws explicitly describe the voting process and there is no such thing
as a -1 veto by one board member that stops everything. We commonly use
this veto system throughout OSGeo to make sure that everybody gets
heard. But if a hard decision has to be taken then a simple a majority
of the directors decides what is going to happen. Find the details here:
http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/incorporation/bylaws.html

Section 4.5. Quorum and Voting. A majority of the number of directors
(not counting any vacancies on the Board of Directors) shall constitute
a quorum for the transaction of business, provided that in the event
that the number of directors is an even number, one-half (1/2) of the
directors shall constitute a quorum. At any meeting of the Board of
Directors, each director present at the meeting shall be entitled to
cast one (1) vote on any question coming before the meeting. Except as
otherwise provided in these Bylaws, a vote of the majority of the
directors present at a meeting in which a quorum is present shall be the
act of the Board of Directors.

The next section describes how we proceed in general by unanimous consent:

Section 4.6. Action Without a Meeting. Any action required or permitted
to be taken at a meeting of the Board of Directors or of any committee
thereof may be taken without a meeting if all the members of the board
or committee, as the case may be, consent thereto in writing or by
electronic transmission, and such writing or electronic transmission is
filed with the minutes of the proceedings of the board or committee.
Such consent shall have the same effect as a unanimous vote.


As Jeff already mentioned one of the first things on your plate will be
an agreement on the way that OSGeo financially backstops the FOSS4G
event in Bonn next year (and hopefully also in coming years). If you are
still unclear on what this is all about I suggest you go to the Board
and OSGeo Conference Committee archives to get up to speed. Please also
feel free to ping both lists with questions. There is no such thing as a
stupid question.


Thanks & have fun,
Arnulf


On 01.10.2015 00:16, Jeff McKenna wrote:
> Hello everyone!
> 
> An excited welcome to the 5 new Board members: Anita, Helena, Jody,
> Sanghee, and Venka (welcome back to Venka, as a founding Board member!).
>  All of you are listed now on the "Foundation Officers and Board of
> Directors" page[1].
> 
> Here are some points:
> 
> - all of you have been added to a private email alias, that the Board
> members can use to speak of any issues that cannot be discussed
> publicly: board-priv at osgeo.org  We try to always use this public Board
> mailing list, but some issues must remain private sometimes.  Please
> feel free to use it.  I will send a message shortly to test that you
> receive it.
> 
> - a good page to bookmark is the main wiki page for the Board, that
> lists the next meeting time etc.[2]
> 
> - this brings us to the next meeting.  Does anyone have a problem with
> the date of 15 October, for the first meeting, held on IRC in the #osgeo
> channel? (please contact me directly if you need help connecting to IRC)
> 
> - that brings us to the task of picking a meeting time slot.  This could
> be tricky as we are very spread out now (this is a great problem
> though!).  Sanghee you will notice on the Board wiki[2] that you are
> listed in the UK timezone ha, or should we list you in the Korean one?
> Here is a chart of all of the possible time options for that day the
> 15th [3]  You can see that actually the best option might be at 14:00
> UTC, but that is a late 11:00pm in Osaka for Venka and an early 7:00am
> in the Victoria area for Jody.  Can someone see a better option from
> that chart (easy on the red and yellow)? If yes please speak up.
> 
> - there is already an agenda building for that first meeting[4].  Note
> that since this is a new Board, the first item on the agenda will be for
> the OSGeo Board to name a president for 2015/2016 (each year the board
> must name the president for the upcoming year).  I will of course stand
> for this again, excitingly, and I am very happy to continue in that role
> for 2015/2016; actually that would work well with my term on the board,
> which ends (or is up for renewal) in September of 2016.  Because of
> this, this first meeting will not be chaired by me (this is from
> feedback I've received from board members in the past), and that we'll
> name that meeting chair at the beginning of that meeting, by naming the
> oldest person in the that meeting as the meeting chair (if I have this
> rule wrong, please speak up).  But that is the initial plan.
> 
> - the hot issue on the burner is really for the Board to agree on a
> liability agreement with the FOSS4G-Bonn committee, and I'll be
> following up on this shortly here (we already have a document draft, but
> some details need to be clarified).  We really have no choice but to
> move fast on that as the Bonn team is in full preparations now.
> 
> - before that first meeting, you might check the Board voting
> procedure[5], which is the usual "+1" "+0" "-1" that you are likely
> already used to, but it is good to review the exact rules.  Also, after
> an IRC meeting, we will then vote by email on the mailing list on each
> motion.  Sometimes, for time-sensitive issues, we may also not wait for
> the next meeting to make a motion (and any Board member can make a motion).
> 
> - I've also added an agenda item to pick 2 days for a Board face-to-face
> meeting soon.  (do you have an agenda item to discuss?  please add it to
> the meeting page)
> 
> This is a long message I apologize.  I encourage lots of talk, if you
> have questions let us/me know.  And we have lots of experienced former
> Board members on this mailing list as well, so everyone can help you get
> comfortable.
> 
> And thank you for your time and passion, the whole OSGeo community
> appreciates it.  Talk soon,
> 
> 
> [1] http://www.osgeo.org/content/foundation/board_and_officers.html
> [2] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_of_Directors
> [3]
> http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=20151015&p1=43&p2=49&p3=1234&p4=286&p5=157&p6=671&p7=207&p8=1091&p9=259
> 
> [4] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Meeting_2015-10-15
> [5] http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Board_Voting_Procedure
> 
> 
> -jeff
> 
>