[FOSS4G-Oceania] [OSGeo Oceania] Suggest OSGeo Oceania board discussions come back on list

[John Bryant]

Hi Bruce,

Thanks a lot for raising this. I see it as a critical issue and I
appreciate your candid comments. I believe we're 100% in agreement about
the importance of appropriate community engagement.

By way of a brief outline, here's how we've arrived at this point:

Immediately after the 2018 conference, the topic of governance was raised
and discussed at length in a Nov 2018 thread on the FOSS4G-Oceania list
[1], culminating in a Terms of Reference [2] for an organisation called
OSGeo Oceania, and an interim Board of Directors (ratified by motion on the
list in Dec 2018 [3]). Your suggestion from August 2018 [4] to '*have
separate bodies for the Local Chapter and the Conference Committees*' was
taken on board and incorporated at this stage.

The Terms of Reference broadly outlined an agenda for this organisation for
2019:

>
>
>
>
>
> *- determine a process for recruiting and managing an appropriate general
> membership- determine a process for renewal of board membership, including
> accountability to the general membership, and clarify such items as term
> limits and staggering of terms- determine a process for inviting
> expressions of interest and selecting groups wishing to host the annual
> FOSS4G SotM Oceania event- determine and formalise an appropriate
> non-profit structure- submit an official expression of interest to the
> OSGeo board to form an OSGeo local chapter- apply to the OpenStreetMap
> Foundation board to form an OpenStreetMap local chapter*
>

Forming a non-profit was the first priority, as it was seen as a
foundational piece for the other items. Following the TOR, a rather
extensive piece of research led to a draft recommendation in March 2019,
which was posted on the lists for community feedback [5 & 6]. At that time
you pointed to some earlier advice/comments you'd offered (*determine an
open process, understand liability, understand who has the right to
establish this entity, understand how we will replace this
person/people/organisation when appropriate*), which we considered in
drafting the recommendations. I hope the TOR and entity recommendation
documents sufficiently address these concerns, and I'll also point out that
we're still in the process of determining how this will work - on the
agenda for the coming months ahead of the conference.

The entity was formed, based on the recommendation and professional advice,
on 1 May 2019.

I'm now realising the distinct possibility that many people in the
community aren't subscribed to the foss4g-oceania list, and thus the
lengthy discussion that happened there may not have been visible to some of
the people who needed to see it. This is unfortunate, and I only really see
this now in hindsight. I'm cc'ing the foss4g-oceania list so that anyone
who's on that list and not the Oceania list can also see this discussion.

ALSO... I acknowledge that we can and will do better at transparency. But I
also ask for your patience. This isn't easy work, we're all volunteers, and
everyone is trying the best they can. We've worked *very* hard to keep the
community apprised of what we're doing, seek input and feedback, and try to
address whatever comes our way.

If anyone feels they've been kept out of the loop, I apologise for that,
and I hope that in the coming months we can find ways to make sure nobody
is left behind.

John


[1]
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2018-November/001049.html
[2] https://drive.google.com/file/d/13aZ6L08ke1-l32I7c00MahyEKgxeZkq8/view
[3]
https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2018-December/001163.html
[4] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2018-August/001929.html
[5] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/2019-March/001313.html
[6] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2019-March/001989.html



On Fri, 2 Aug 2019 at 13:29, Bruce Bannerman <
bruce.bannerman.osgeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hello John, Cameron and fellow OSGeo Oceania community members,
>
> I’m in two minds as to how to address this email:
>
> - Firstly, I’m happy to see some momentum around OSGeo-Oceania.
>
> - Secondly, I’m very disappointed to see that we have what appears to be a
> fait accompli [1] presented to us.
>
> I have not seen any suitable discussion on how we want to establish a
> local community, the rules that we want to work to, how we are going to
> select and reselect our community leaders etc, etc.
>
> The last that I recall was when I dug out an older email where I listed a
> number of concerns related to creating a legal entity about five months ago
> [2]. I have not seen these addressed, or had the opportunity to participate
> in the follow up discussion.
>
> Perhaps I have missed all of this discussion?
>
> I have looked through the Oceania email archives, but cannot see the
> relevant discussion. So I wasn’t imagining not seeing it.
>
> Can someone please outline how we have arrived at this point without
> suitable community engagement and discussion?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Bruce
>
> [1] https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fait-accompli
>
> [2] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2019-March/001993.html
>
>
>
> On 2 Aug 2019, at 19:31, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I agree with this approach.
>
> My feeling is that board discussions should default to using this mailing
> list except where they're sensitive, ie. about specific people and/or
> incidents, or relate to other confidential matters eg. financial
> arrangements with partners. It's valuable to the community to see how we
> operate, not only for accountability, but also because it allows people to
> watch over time, and potentially become contributors.
>
> Meeting notes/minutes are already published here:
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Oceania
>
> Re:opening board meetings to the public, I'm generally in favour. There
> will be times when confidential discussions need to happen, but these are
> the exception rather than the rule. If the board is OK with this, maybe we
> can do this for next meeting and see how we go?
>
> Cheers
> John
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oceania mailing list
> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>
>
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