[FOSS4G-Oceania] Fwd: Governance

[Martin Tomko]

HI all,
I have been keeping away from chipping too much into this discussion, as governance is not my strong point ( and I do like a bit of anarchy, but…). SO here a brief chip in.
I strongly support Alex’s and John’s points. I think the guidelines, or bylaws or whatever, are here to guide us in the bad times, not in the good times. I would not worry about an overzealous steering committee – I think anyone who wants to be involved hands on would be on a LoC anyway.

I think the point of the steering committee is :

  *   Continuity and transfer of knowledge
  *   Financial oversight, as a means to assure the community their money is spent wisely, and any surplus ( not profit) is re-invested either in the next conference, or the community (immediately – as a means to achieve participation of disadvantaged/underrepresented groups – or in the data and software projects themselves, judiciously). I agree with the points of Alex here, although maybe we do not need a hard $ limit on the decisions, but one that will be set for any instance of the conference by the steering committee, in agreement with the LoC.

I think that if we peg in a rotating membership ( for at least apart of the Steering committee) of the poast, current and next Conference chairs, any miscommunications will be minimal and if they would happen, this would be a clear indication something is amiss.

Thanks,
Martin

From: FOSS4G-Oceania <foss4g-oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com>
Date: Tuesday, 11 December 2018 at 8:43 am
To: John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com>
Cc: foss4g-oceania <foss4g-oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [FOSS4G-Oceania] Fwd: Governance

Hey folks

Perhaps the one thing that needs to be concrete is the financial delegation, or approval guidelines.

So, for example, approval of the conference budget should be with the Board. Delivery of the budget is the CC. Spending that is less than, say, $1,000 that is within the agreed budget is the CC’s responsibility, anything greater needs the treasurer’s sign off or potentially approval by the Board.

There needs to be wording around agreed budgets, as a budget should aim for a reasonable surplus, and if its looking like exceeding that greed surplus, then there’s discretion around spending on extras, as we did. But if the budget isn’t likely to exceed the agreed target, there shouldn’t be optional extra spending....

This process ensures that the group that is responsibility for financial longevity is in the loop when it comes to big financial decisions, while the group running the event is empowered to make decisions still.

Other than that, I can only think of guiding statements really, and each individual conference committee gets to make their stamp on process and format.

Cheers,
On Tue, 11 Dec 2018 at 8:25 am, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com<mailto:johnwbryant at gmail.com>> wrote:
Yep, all makes sense. I agree that strong communications should resolve any tension there.

I think you're dead right re: the relationship between a strong conference proposal/concept and more independence, will be something we can evolve towards. If we can use a statement of guidance to the board in this first iteration, I hope it will serve the immediate purpose and leave us room to grow.

One key point is that we don't set any stalemate traps by leaving too much vagueness in the lines of reporting. To actually delegate authority to the committee, it seems like we would need to get quite detailed about how this would work ie. lots of what ifs.

My feeling is that formal authority would only need to be invoked if informal authority isn't cutting the mustard... if we focus on nurturing a strong & healthy & engaged community, perhaps we can keep the need for formal authority at bay.

I've added the guidance statement to the doc so we can consider whether it meets the need. Have at 'er!

Cheers
John
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Alex Leith
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