[OSGeo Oceania] Call for Feedback Due 23rd Sept - Board Election Process & Timeline

[John Bryant]

Hi all,

Great work, and thanks for the opportunity to discuss the election process.
I've added a couple of comments to the Google doc, but I have a specific
concern that may need a little more room for discussion.

In the proposed process, there is a section called "*Minimum term of
membership*", which says:

> *To be nominated as a Director, you must have been a Member for a minimum
> of 12 months (calculated from closing date of elections). This ensures that
> potential Directors have had the opportunity to participate in OSGeo
> Oceania business, and gives the Board an opportunity to mentor those who
> would like to take up leadership positions in the future.*
>

I think there are a couple of issues with this:

*1) It's not an effective way to assess someone's capability to act as a
director. *

For example, I want to nominate Edwin Liava'a to stand in the next
election. Edwin was a keynote speaker at last year's conference in
Wellington, and has been a highly engaged leader in the Pacific open
geospatial community for many years. He's volunteered on a number of
committees that would count as OSGeo Oceania business. He's done plenty to
prove his dedication to this community, would be an asset to the
organisation, and would be an effective voice from the Pacific, which to
date has been missing from the board.

But (as far as I can tell) Edwin's not currently a formal member, so by
this clause he wouldn't be qualified to serve as a director, even if he
became a member now.

My point is, there are likely many people in our community who would be
excellent additions to the board, and the length of their membership
doesn't seem to be a relevant measure of their potential for contribution.
If someone has a valuable contribution to make, why would we want to put
this up as an obstacle?

*2) It may not be within the board's scope to decide who is qualified to
serve as a future director.*

Required qualifications to serve as a director are already defined in the
constitution
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kZD8pcW2efjLEY7ih3rzcWpe7X0hEG2A>
(section 74: simply, "*Each Director must be a Member*").

Members' rights to nominate are also defined there, subject to this
qualification (section 79.3: "*Any Member may nominate a person who is
eligible for appointment under clause 74 to serve as a Director.*").

I'm not sure that it's appropriate to use the election process to create
additional eligibility hurdles, it seems this might be impacting on
members' rights.

If a nomination were declared ineligible based on this section in the
election process, could a constitutional challenge be made? If the election
process were found to be in conflict with the constitution, could this
potentially render the election invalid? Obviously it's a hypothetical,
unlikely scenario, but maybe not impossible.

My feeling is the election process would be better without this section. If
there are new director eligibility requirements to add, it seems a lot
safer to stick to using constitution amendments, which would require formal
assent by the membership through a statutory process.

Cheers
John


On Wed, 9 Sep 2020 at 17:58, Hamish Campbell <hn.campbell at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear OSGeo Oceania Members,
>
> Our proposed November 2020 election process and timeline for appointing
> directors to the board requires your review and feedback.
>
> You can review and comment directly on the Google Doc
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1td2oDBssX_33yIFN1h0UgSvkoUa8MckZiix7nsIdmcs/edit?usp=sharing>.
> We also welcome feedback on the OSGeo Oceania mailing list by replying to
> this email. Feedback to the board must be received by midnight on
> Wednesday, September 23rd.
>
> The board will review the feedback and finalize the election process and
> timeline in early October.
>
> Thank you for your contribution!
>
> On behalf of the OSGeo Oceania Election Group
> _______________________________________________
> Oceania mailing list
> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>
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