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

[Martin Tomko]

Hi John, Adam, all
I agree with your second point, John, that this should be covered by the constitution. I awas myself uneasy with the decision that the board decides this.

I am not in agreement with the first point. I believe that we are now past the ”storming and forming” stage of the organisation, and our initial days.
I believe that to stand as a director, members need to demonstrate that a member has been active for a period of time, in good faith. The issues OSM had in the last year are a testament. The organisation is now managing substantial funds, and carries responsibility.

This could be addressed in a number of ways, in my eyes:


  *   A candidate could have the backing of a number of members that have been members for at least 12 months ( I suggest 3), if the candidate themself were not a member for that period;
  *   A backing of a SIG could be equivalent.
Anyway, I do not see a problem for people to wait for 12 month before being  nominated for a director.

Martin

From: Oceania <oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com>
Date: Sunday, 13 September 2020 at 10:38 pm
To: Adam Steer <adam.d.steer at gmail.com>, "oceania at lists.osgeo.org" <oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] Call for Feedback Due 23rd Sept - Board Election Process & Timeline

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<mailto: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<mailto: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<mailto: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
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