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

[John Bryant]

Yes! We want the board to be made up of engaged and motivated people with
the community's best interests at heart. Our community is full of people
like this! I reckon our best bet is to articulate that vision, create the
conditions for those people to step forward and participate, and make sure
the members who elect the board have enough visibility into it all to make
informed decisions.

Cheers
John

On Sun, 13 Sep 2020, 3:48 pm Adam Steer, <adam.d.steer at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hey John, all
>
> That clause was aimed at preventing people whos only interest is to get on
> boards getting on the board, and has been a topic of debate. Based on your
> input about the constitution its probably a good idea to just replace it
> with ’nominees shall be nominated in accordance with clause 74 and 19.3 of
> the constitution [link])
>
> It is worth remembering we all just kinda nominated ourselves at the start.
>
> Cheers
>
> Adam
>
>
>
> On Sun, 13 Sep 2020 at 05:43, John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> 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
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Oceania mailing list
>> Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania
>>
>
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