[OSGeo-Discuss] OSGeo Board Elections 2010

[Frank Warmerdam]

Adrian Custer wrote:
> The call was for nominations for board elections, nominations which must 
> come from the list of charter members.
> 
> Since the list given by Paul contained the name of one person I know to 
> have moved on to other activities, I wondered what provisions existed to 
> ease inactive members out of the charter member inner circle. As you 
> state, I discovered a clear provision to that effect:
> 
> Section 7.7 Automatic Termination. Members shall have their membership 
> status automatically terminated and their names removed by the Secretary 
> of the corporation from all membership records of the corporation if 
> they fail to participate, either in person or by proxy, in three (3) 
> consecutive meetings of the members of the corporation, held 
> electronically or otherwise.
> 
> which says nothing about voting but only about participation --- "fail 
> to participate".
> 
> So it seems that
>   (1) participation of charter members in membership meetings should be 
> recorded and
>   (2) the secretary might consider a purge of the list of charter members.
> That is unless these by-laws are merely considered pro-forma and the 
> organization really run as it seems best to the board.

Adrian,

Interesting.  I hadn't read over the bylaws in some time.  They were stock
ones prepared by a lawyer at the very launch of the foundation.  The board
has, by motion, chosen to interpret "fail to participate ...in three
consecutive meetings" as failure to participate in the charter/board
election process for three years running.

The Secretary (Tyler) is responsible for keeping track of participation in
cooperation with the election CRO.

Note that charter membership is not withdrawn because someone moves on to
other endeavors.  Only if they fail to participate over an extended period
of time, or if they choose to terminate their membership.

It is my hope that at some point we will revise the Bylaws to more
accurately reflect the mechanism of operation of the foundation; however,
I have not followed up on this.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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