Board Election Procedure

The nomination process will open Thursday, March 2nd. The votes of members are due on Monday, so the announcement should go out Tuesday. We'll leave wednesday in case something goes wrong, and to give the new members a chance to be notified and the like.

Nominations should be sent directly to the discuss@osgeo.org list. This is to make the process more open, and so that everyone knows who else has been nominated. This also can open the door for a bit of discussion about people's merits and qualifications by members of the list.

Nominators must get approval from their nominee before sending their name to the discuss list. The board (Chris Holmes) will check with them to confirm that they do accept the nomination, to avoid having to turn it down in a public forum. I will also confirm that they are willing to take on a workload of 8 hrs/week (which will also be made clear in the initial email, I'll work on drafting it soon).

Non-voting members (nvms) should be encouraged to contribute to the discuss list, make their voice heard on the list. Being a voting member just means you get to actually vote, but the process of nomination and discussion should be open to all, nvms can get a say in the process by publicly saying who they would support.

The nomination period will last until Tuesday, March 7th. I will compile a html document of all candidates, and include relevant discussion on merits from the discuss list. This list will be posted by Wednesday, March 8th

Votes will be due Monday, March 13th. Each member will have four votes that they can distribute, from all to one candidate to one per each candidates. Votes will be sent to a vote@board.osgeo.org, where Rich Steele (as secretary) and Chris Holmes will tally. This will be an private list, readable only by the secretary and the designated board member(s). Only foundation voting members will be allowed to post to it.

The first full board meeting will hopefully occur Monday, March 20th. This should give the new board members to read through the archive, and for all of us to sync up the best time to meet.

Want to be a Board Member

From http://flossfoundations.org/ Some reflections on making decisions about whether to get involved in foundational efforts:

• Turn it down if you think you wouldn't make a good leader
• Turn it down if you don't have time to do a good job.
• Turn it down if you don't think they should be starting a foundation in the first place.
• Turn it down if you don't care about the goals they're trying to accomplish.