[Oceania-Board] resignation

[Alex Leith]

Hey Adam

Thank you for the time that you've dedicated to this Board.

I'd like to recognise the work you put into our first conference and
gathering the overwhelming support in leading the sponsorship efforts that
year, and for your leadership and knowledge sharing. The website for this
year's conference was put together by you, on open tools, like you say and
it served us well. And thanks for setting up the Outreach and
Communications Working Group with new chairs and  ensuring that it has the
continuity that it needs.

I'd like you to think about your comments, both in the annual report and in
these public foraa though. Saying that our organisation is "in a bit of a
miasma" is really not ok. You're a champion of diversity and inclusion, and
you've long supported our travel grant program. And to say that the group
of five of us who met today, as friends, as people taking time out of our
jobs and lives to continue this thing we all started together have some
kind of stench about us is something that I choose to take offence to. How
can we build a good, inclusive, supportive community of nice people if we
go about saying that folks we disagree with or who do things differently
than we would are unpleasant or unhealthy?

I can reflect on my year, and there's been conflict and uncertainty, some
shocking leaders around the world blatantly lying while people die or are
isolated from their family. And I'm grateful for what I have and I look
forward to building positive relationships and a strong community and to
keep putting my time into running a strong organisation that can help us to
achieve our goals. In the Board meeting today I said that we have this
organisation to support our open community, and I write this letter to you
in the open. But our organisation, at the very core, is an enabler of the
things we want to do, and to do that, it needs to survive. And it will.
Without me, and without you, it'll survive, because people like you and me
put our time into it, and in our own small ways, keep things going. By
throwing stones and seeding conflict, as you're doing, it's going to hurt
people like me. It causes stress, and it'll discourage people from being
involved. But that's ok, because there are enough of us in this being
positive and keeping on going, which, in this most ridiculous of years, is
enough. Sometimes enough is enough.

So, thank you for your time, and I hope that we can have a beer together in
a strange place some day in the future.

Alex


On Fri, 27 Nov 2020 at 20:04, Adam Steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi board
>
> It makes no sense to hang around until the election, so here is my
> resignation - which should have come back in August.
>
> I really do wish OSGeo Oceania all the best. To be blunt I have had a
> pretty terrible time sitting in a directors' seat, and my comments in
> the annual report stand.
>
> At the moment I see the organisation in a bit of a miasma. I think the
> core of the issue is reflected in comments from some of our community
> members, about the organisation losing its way a little - thinking too
> much about being 'organisation-ey' and not enough about 'well as long
> as ASIC is happy we can shape an organisation to be whatever the
> broader community wants, and in the end we just made this up and kind
> of elbowed our way into being representatives of this community
> anyway'. Yes it is more work to engage more people in decision making,
> yes it is more work to do things like run all our infrastructure on
> open platforms.
>
> My response to that, as always, is that we have an energetic and
> wonderfully positive community to draw upon, and all the organisation
> has to do is step back and let that energy happen!
>
> All the best in future endeavours, and as already mentioned, I'm happy
> to be around to support new directors.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Adam
>
> --
> Dr. Adam Steer
> https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Adam_Steer
> _______________________________________________
> Oceania-Board mailing list
> Oceania-Board at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania-board
>


-- 
Alex Leith
m: 0419189050
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