[OSGeo Oceania] new board starting soon and other personal considerations

[John Bryant]

Thanks Elisa & Alex, I appreciate your candour. I agree there are things OO
can do to make it easier. It's upsetting to learn three people agreed to be
nominated to work on behalf of our community, but weren't able to. I
understand everyone has acted in good faith with the best of intentions.

I think there is a significant problem that needs to be addressed with some
urgency, that is whether the board actually has the right to impose new
eligibility requirements for nominations. The constitution basically says
that members are eligible for appointment if they are a member of OO (s74),
and that any member may nominate an eligible person (s79.3).

The board is responsible for laying out and executing the process, but I
don't believe the board has the right to impose additional eligibility
requirements as part of this process. This makes sense, because an evil
board could impose arbitrary requirements to entrench themselves, by
excluding people they don't like (obviously not the intent here!).

This very issue came up in the 2020 OO election
<https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2020-September/002342.html>, it
was generally agreed that the board couldn't impose new eligibility
restrictions above what's in the constitution, and the suggested
restrictions were removed.

If it were a moot point, it could be something to work on for next year,
but the apparent outcome is that 1) three people have been unable to
exercise their right to be nominated (assuming they're otherwise eligible),
and 2) the membership is unable to exercise its right to vote on legitimate
nominees.

Perhaps one way to resolve this is to retrospectively strike the
eligibility requirement, accept the nominations, and reschedule an election.

John


On Tue, 3 Dec 2024 at 04:23, Alex Leith <alexgleith at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi John
>
> I agree with your interpretation, in that you only need to have applied
> for a director ID, not that you must hold one.
>
> We had three applicants from overseas, and none of the three were able to
> tell us that they had applied by the cutoff date in time, so the returning
> officer ruled them ineligible.
>
> For what it's worth, we discussed this at length, and thought about
> allowing them into the pool anyway, but it was voted on, and it was decided
> to take the recommendation of the returning officer, so we didn't need an
> election, since we had six candidates and six places.
>
> We discussed what to do differently next time, and there was a suggestion
> to have the election further after the conference, since we have a big push
> at the conference. And we talked about supporting potential candidates in
> their applications for a director ID, by offering to cover the costs of
> postage and possibly translation of documents.
>
> I think we need to do more to make it easier for a non-Australian to be on
> our Board, and I think our recommendations will go into the process
> documents for the next election.
>
> Cheers,
>
> On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 at 06:42, John Bryant via Oceania <
> oceania at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>> Thanks Elisa, as I mentioned on Slack, thanks so much for your incredible
>> year as chair, and I really enjoyed serving alongside you.
>>
>> Re Director ID, the government website says this: "If you plan to become
>> a director, you must apply for a director ID before you’re appointed."  It
>> seems you don't need to have a DID in hand to be put forward for
>> nomination.
>>
>> I think we've heard it's harder for non-Australians to *obtain* a DID,
>> but the obligation is apparently only to *apply* before being appointed.
>> Also it doesn't sound like the obligation is on OO, but on the individual.
>>
>> Maybe it would be more inclusive to leave it to people to apply only
>> *after* they have been elected (and before they are appointed), rather
>> than putting up a roadblock that may be unnecessary.
>>
>> Cheers
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 2 Dec 2024 at 06:32, eli via Oceania <oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Dear all,
>>>
>>> As you have read in our secretary Renee’s email on Friday, we didn’t
>>> need elections this year as we received 6 amazing nominations for 6
>>> available vacancies in the Board. I would like to share with you all some
>>> very personal considerations about this (be aware: if it’s going to be a
>>> long email!)
>>>
>>> It’s great for me to see we have a full board for next year. I’m very
>>> happy to see both familiar faces and new people stepping up and deciding to
>>> sacrifice a bit of their time and energy to help grow our community.
>>> I personally want to thank Ponsyano and Renee for taking excellent care
>>> of this year’s nominations and election process, especially considering it
>>> was their first ride with it!
>>>
>>> My bestest wishes to Ana, Dani, and Nick for their first term as board
>>> members—I’m really looking forward to working with you! Also, thanks again
>>> to Alex, Ewen and Jonah for deciding to stick around for another term. Your
>>> work in the community is incredibly important, and we’re all glad you’ll be
>>> with us next year too.
>>>
>>> It has been a pleasure—and a challenge! —being the chair this year.
>>> Thanks for the trust you have given me and for the many supportive and
>>> encouraging messages you’ve sent: it feels great to know that you all care
>>> about the work we’re trying to do! Please don’t ever stop sending any kind
>>> of feedback; we can only learn from our errors if we are aware of them.
>>>
>>> Speaking of things that still don’t work, I want to address one that
>>> still worries me: the ASIC Director ID requirement for new directors. For
>>> those who aren’t aware, Australian rules require everyone applying for a
>>> director position to obtain a specific Director ID. This process is very
>>> easy, quick and straightforward for Australian citizens but lengthy and
>>> expensive for everyone else.
>>>
>>> As the current chair, I feel I have failed to find a viable solution for
>>> this year’s elections, which meant only Australian candidates could be
>>> successfully nominated. While I’m excited to work with the new board
>>> members, who are amazing and dedicated to the community, I feel that not
>>> making the process easier for people outside Australia has failed our
>>> founding principles of equality and diversification and it really upsets
>>> me. Oceania is full of incredibly rich culture, and an almost only
>>> Australian board is by far not a full representation of it, in my opinion.
>>>
>>> For this reason, I promise we will work harder to find a better solution
>>> or at least a workaround for next year. The resigning board has already
>>> started brainstorming interesting ideas, including opening nominations
>>> months before the elections and helping non-Australian candidates with the
>>> process, both through mentoring and covering any related expenses. You can
>>> get a better idea of what we’ve discussed in the last meeting’s minutes,
>>> which will be uploaded to the wiki this week.
>>>
>>> We still need to work on improving the process as much as possible, but
>>> rest assured we’re taking it very seriously. Of course, I am very
>>> interested in hearing any feedback or ideas you might have on this matter.
>>> I personally hope that those who couldn’t complete their nomination
>>> applications due to the strict timeline we imposed (and I deeply apologize
>>> for this) and the complexity of the ID process will still be interested in
>>> supporting us and trying again next year, as well as all the other
>>> non-Australian members who were put off by the process. We need all of
>>> Oceania to make OSGeo Oceania work!
>>>
>>> Have a lovely end of the year, enjoy the well-deserved holiday break,
>>> and to the new members, welcome aboard! I’m looking forward to our first
>>> board meeting together on Friday, December 13th!
>>>
>>> Ciao, Elisa
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 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
>>
>
>
> --
> *Alex Leith*
> m: +61 419 189 050
> https://auspatious.com
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/attachments/20241203/31e29469/attachment.htm>