[Oceania-Board] resolving resolutions

Sun Nov 15 14:10:25 PST 2020

I do believe that 3 days was insufficient, and that the wording was not thought through ( hence the comment in my vote).

I believe that the procedures with members have, thus far, managed to work with the old rules, if I understand the recent email correctly. As no harm would then be done, I would support a revised wording and vote, with the 7 days period as usual. 3 days is unfair, and certainly if triggered before weekend.

That said, we need to trigger a discussion that many board members did not comment/vote. What does that mean for us?
Martin

From: Oceania-Board <oceania-board-bounces at lists.osgeo.org>
Date: Monday, 16 November 2020 at 8:30 am
To: Adam Steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com>
Cc: oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org <oceania-board at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [Oceania-Board] resolving resolutions
It's not limiting the number of people able to vote. It's about whether we recognise the vote as valid. I think, and I believe John agrees, that those who participate in the vote need to constitute a quorum, otherwise it's invalid.

I'm not sure that leaving a vote open for longer will mean more people participate.

Anyhow, I've had enough navel gazing.

On John's first point, which I think you're getting at Adam, "the motion was closed before everyone had a chance to participate". The vote was open for three days, and perhaps we should not have them so short. I don't think it invalidates this, though.

So we have two options, on thinking about it:

  1.  Accept that a quorum participated and that the vote was affirmative and communicate this to the MWG
  2.  Invalidate the vote, and launch a new Loomio with a different phrasing, something along the lines of Adam's suggestion that "the MWG sets the rules around who joins in their terms of reference". (The ToR is approved by the Board, so the Board has oversight/control.)
Thoughts?

On Sun, 15 Nov 2020 at 19:26, Adam Steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com<mailto:adam.d.steer at gmail.com>> wrote:
I think using the constitution to limit the number of people able to
vote is a bit weird. OSGeo Oceania should follow the convention set by
OSGeo, where online votes seek more than 50% of people who can vote
and provide enough time for that to happen.

We should always be aiming to make the pool of people able to
participate in decisions larger.

On Sun, 15 Nov 2020 at 08:54, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com<mailto:alexgleith at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hey John
>
> I think we have some ambiguity about whether or not voting on these kinds of motions is based on those who vote, or of all board members?
>
> In the constitution, s 95 says 'a quorum for _board meetings_'... is half or half rounded up in the case of odd numbers.
>
> I think that the Board can govern appropriately in this case, and if we call these decisions essentially a mini-board meeting, which is suggested by s 91 as you say, then we could say that a quorum is those participating. In the case above 5 of 8 participated, so there was a quorum, in that sense. And out of the quorum, the motion was carried with 4 in agreement and 1 against.
>
> I agree that we shouldn't just kick this down the road. I'm really not very interested in debating constantly, and I'd prefer to just move forward.
>
> So my view is that the motion to change the membership policy IS changed.
>
> Do we have any dissenters or disagreement on my interpretation above?
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Alex
>
>
>
> On Sun, 15 Nov 2020 at 18:30, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com<mailto:johnwbryant at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Chiming in as a concerned member of the community. I see some unresolved problems:
>>
>> This motion was closed before some directors had a chance to participate, without following due process. Now what? It's left unclear whether this motion has actually passed.
>> Supposing the motion is considered to have been carried, it's now suggested that it's not binding, and is handed off to the incoming board for discussion and action, "if actual changes are need to the ToR". Surely, if the explicit purpose of the motion is to change the Membership Policy, and it passes, then the next action is to actually change the Membership Policy?
>>
>> Very confusing. What is the outcome? Is the Membership Policy changed or not?
>>
>> (Incidentally - in February, the board agreed to use Loomio for decisions outside of board meetings [1], to bring much needed clarity & transparency to decision making. This seems well supported by the constitution (s 91) and these decisions should be considered binding.)
>>
>> [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TYAw_zmNEqajzxO1PQwPnpt539CXodby/view<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TYAw_zmNEqajzxO1PQwPnpt539CXodby/view>
>>
>> On Thu, 12 Nov 2020 at 16:17, Adam Steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com<mailto:adam.d.steer at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> I really want to press upon everybody that we are volunteers, we should not have to be an instantly reactive board (responsive yes, but that is a different approach), and we should avoid prioritising immediate convenience (for some) over good practice.
>>>
>>> In the end the ToR change was not needed, and the vote is questionable. I think it is reasonable to expect that for online votes we need majority of all board members, and also to expect a poll summary to go out via this list. I think using loomio to poll for everything (eg board meetings) is unwieldy.
>>>
>>> I'm super happy that the MwG could get through all the new memberships!
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Adam
>>>
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>
>
> --
> Alex Leith
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