[OSGeo-Conf] Conference committee members

[Dave Patton]

On 2016/03/05 19:26, Cameron Shorter wrote:
> While I respect Steven's reasons for being selective about conference
>  committee membership, I think Maxi raises good points.
>
> One of the key responsibilities of the conference committee is
> selection of foss4g conference locations, and there is a lot at stake
> based upon the decision. So we do need to be careful that the people
> on the committee have the experience to make a good judgement call
> and we should be careful not to create a situation where the
> conference committee could be "stacked" to ensure a specific region
> gains advantage over another.
>
> However, we have an issue in that there is more work to be done
> within the conference committee than there are volunteer hours.
>
> As such, I think that we should consider options to address some of
> Maxi's suggestions.
>
> Maybe widen membership criteria to being a chair of a large regional
>  event, or an active committee member? Maybe allow someone to be an
> active participant, but reserve FOSS4G selection voting to past
> FOSS4G chairs?

On November 25, 2008 Jeff McKenna (at the time his title was
"OSGeo Chair of Conferences") sent an email to this list titled
"Committee Membership".
In that email Jeff proposed removing some inactive members,
and part of the explanation was "... I just want to make sure
that we have people on the committee that have interest and
are actively contributing to discussions".

He also proposed adding two new members to the committee - myself
(due to my involvement in FOSS4G2007) and Gavin Flemming (due to
his involvement in FOSS4G2008).

I declined to be added to the committee due to the commitments
of a new job, but it does show an example of a non-chair being
considered for committee membership. And to that end I would
echo both Jeff's and Cameron's comments about people who are
willing to be active participants.

-- 
Dave Patton
Victoria, B.C.

Degree Confluence Project:
Canadian Coordinator
Technical Coordinator
http://www.confluence.org/

Personal website:
http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/