[Board] Regarding MOT5: Accept nominations for President and Vice-President from members with experience on the board

[Venkatesh Raghavan]

Dear Board,

I prefer that discussion on such matters take place on the  board
mailing list to which more than a hundred of our members
(with or without board experience) are subscribed rather that
on loomio where only 10 of our members have currently joined.

My view on "MOT5: Accept nominations for President and Vice-President
from members with experience on the board"

a) To the best of my knowledge, the board has not set any precedence
wherein the President was not an member elected by our charter members.

b) OSGeo regional Vice-President was new position that was created
in January 2016 with the aim of sharing the workload with
the President and board. There is no precedence of Vice-Presidents being
appointed from outside of our elected* board membership.

(*In some instances we have the precedence of board member
vacancies being filled in by members who had secured highest number
of  votes among the candidates who contested for the election
but had not been been elected)

c) We also do not have a precedence of calling for nominations
from outside the Board to fill in the positions of President and
newly created positions of regional Vice-Presidents.

d) I feel that for the smooth conduct of the day-to-day affairs
of OSGeo, the President and regional Vice-Presidents  should
be members *elected* to the board who can cast their valid vote
on motions brought before the board.

e) Our bylaws do permit us to appoint officers to our committees
from our charter members (as in the case of Treasurer, Secretary,
Project Officers, Committees) or even outside of the charter
membership.

f) I am all for making full use of the rich experience and tremendous
capabilities of charter members (with or without board experience).
However, I would like to reiterate my view of the President and regional
Vice-President being appointed by the board from among the elected
board members.

In light of the above, I strongly disagree with "MOT5:
Accept nominations for President and Vice-President from
members with experience on the board" and suggest that we
continue with our existing practice of appointing the OSGeo President
and regional Vice-Presidents from among the elected board
members.

I have pasted a link of this mail to the MOT5 thread currently
being voted on loomio and have also voted on MOT5 expressing
my (strong) disagreement to MOT5 on loomio.

Lastly, I feel that loomio can be used for voting and keeping
a public record of our motions, but the discussions on motions
can be on the open (in rare cases private) board mailing list.

Best

Venka