Board of Directors

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OSGeo Foundation Board of Directors

The board is elected by the Charter members as outlined in the Board Election Procedure.

Period: September 2014 - August 2016

Period: October 2015 - September 2017

More detailed information is available in the Board Member Profiles.

Board Activities and Meetings

IRC Meeting timeslot
Next IRC meeting
Face to Face Meeting
board will get together in person and work through discussions and tasks that are not easily handled in a 1 hour IRC meeting or via e-mail. For fact to face meetings travel costs will be covered by the foundation.
Next fact to face meeting
  • not scheduled
Hangout
informal "work party" of board members (and officers?) to work on tasks not easily handled in IRC meeting / email.
Next hangout
  • not scheduled

Previous meetings

Previous meetings

2013 - 2012 - 2011 - 2010 - 2009 - 2008 - 2007 - 2006 - Earlier.

Working Groups

While the board is focused on decision making occasionally there is a call for action. The following working groups are focused on accomplishing a specific 2-3 week objective and will report back to the board list when completed.

This is in contrast to long term activities handled by committees.

Previous Working Groups

  • GeoForAll OSGeo Relationship: Revised Education Committee mandate pending clarification of relationship with Geo4All advisory board (our GeoForAll representatives are Venkatesh Raghavan and Jeff McKenna)

Planning

From Anne: See the parallel Skate-Boarding of Fedora at http://fedoramagazine.org/lets-talk-about-fedora-project-objectives/ - I really like the idea of having 18 months goals, that are measurable, backed up by community agreement. Let's discuss this at the first Sprint. There are also some thoughts on Ubuntu governance that can inspire us, but I haven't gone through the whole discussion yet, and there are many differences between OSGeo and Ubuntu; so I'm not sure on how much we can learn from it.

Strategic Plan 2016

This section outlines OSGeo strategic plan for 2016 - this is a result of the vision, mission and goals established at the 2016 face to face meeting.

Strategic objectives for 2016:

  • S01: showcasing excellence in our communities
  • S02: proactively engage with external partners
  • S03: Fostering our mission, vision and goals
  • S04: Empowering our communities and extending our reach

These objectives are being boiled down to concrete / measurable actions we wish to address as a community. It is our hope that the resulting organization will carry itself a little bit different then perhaps you are used to!

Operational Budget for 2016

Thanks to our sponsors, and a series of successful events, OSGeo does have an operational budget for 2016.

The Board has divided the above budget up according to our priority as an organization. Please keep in mind that prior boards have taken this approach - and spent nothing due to lack of volunteers willing to lead the charge. The following is budget and does not represent a commitment to spend money on the actives listed - to do that we need your help as a volunteer!

Board meeting 11/2/2016 Amount Jan–August Sept–dec (Budget Increase) Notes
1. Admin 9.000,00 6000 3000 (4500) administration overhead
2. Insurance 3.200,00 2133 1067 (0)
3. SAC 12.800,00 9633 3167 (10800) infrastructure and online presence
4. Outreach 15.000 12500 2500 (13000) starter kits, LiveDVD/USB, Marketing, OSGeo Student Awards
5. Travel 15.000 7500 7500 (11000) director & president travel - facilitate interaction with external parties (UN, OGC,...)
6. Events 20.000 10000 10000 (11000) OSGeo internal (townhall, codesprint, ) and external (e.g.. ISPRS, EGU, GWF...) events
Total 75.000 47.766 27.234 (50.300) This represents a 50k increase on last years budget

Notes and clarifications:

  • This is the 2016 operating budget for OSGeo, prior to this baseline being set the board established a $150k floor (allowing for a year of minimal operating expenses ($50k) and two failed foss4g conferences ($50k x 2).
  • This is the 2016 operating budget for OSGeo, it does not cover:
    • Recurring events budgets that have kept sponsorship from year to year (some of these funds are held by regional foss4g groups)
    • Multi-year costs associated with our annual FOSS4G conference.
    • Project budgets (OpenLayers, MapServer, ...) are under their direction of their associated PSC.
  • OSGeo stepped down from playing an active role during our application for US 501(c)(4) status - we are now ready to take on this responsibility for committees and projects.
  • If your project or committee is interested in fundraising for an activity please ask the nearest board member for details on how we can help.

2016 Strategic Plan Member Participation

The strategic plan is a tool to gather ideas, excitement and participation from our community.

Keep in mind that OSGeo is a volunteer lead organization - so even if your idea is *amazing* it will need to attract volunteers to be successful.

Planning Archive

Reference

Suggested involvement from board members (DRAFT)

What is expected from OSGeo's Board of Directors? Legal details are listed in section 3 of our bylaws. This section provides addition practical guidelines to help set expectations between the community and the board about the level of effort involved in the volunteer director role. It aims to advise on likely time commitments, as well as clarify the limits of what should be expected. Note that these are suggestions rather than rules:

Focus
The board's primary responsibility is to efficiently and effectively make strategic decisions related to the running of OSGeo. In many (most?) cases, this will involve validating decisions already made by OSGeo's subcommittees. (bylaws section 3.1).
Payment (lack of)
Directors are not paid for their service (bylaws section 3.4), but director should not be out of pocket when working for the board. For instance, a board member should be refunded travel expenses, and possibly lost wages, if requested to travel on behalf of the board. [TBD: "compensation for lost wages" is yet to be agreed upon by the board.]
Time Commitment
Directors should expect to spend 4 to 12 hours per month of their spare time on board activities. Directors will need to fit board responsibilities around external commitments, such as a full time job and family. Directors should sometimes contribute a little more, maybe negotiating with the community or external organisation, collating or developing ideas and writing them up, doing some extra research to back a decision, or helping with administrative work like taking minutes.
Monthly meetings
Directors should attempt to attend all board meetings, which happen once per month, for ~ 1 to 1.5 hours. Selection of meeting timeslots are to be negotiated to try and suit all members. Directors should read and contribute to the agenda beforehand. If unable to attend, the board member should attempt to provide opinions on issues before hand, and vote on motions afterwards.
Face to face meetings
OSGeo Directors often attend conferences such as FOSS4G as part of their professional or personal interest, and these offer an opportunity for board members to meet face-to-face. Attendance at one or two of these events per year is encouraged, but not required. (Directors who cannot travel to events can still make very valuable contributions to the board.)
Email list
Directors should monitor and contribute toward discussions on the board email list, and aim to vote on motions within 2 working days. There are typically a dozen email topics, absorbing ~ 2 hours reading/writing per month.
Advocacy
Directors should be prepared to represent OSGeo locally, possibly internationally, typically by presenting or working an OSGeo booth at conferences, in line with our OSGeo Advocate program. Note the Advocate policy on Expenses.
See Also

Documents

Mailing list

The http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/board mailing list is used for most public board discussions. There is also a private board mailing list used only for matters that are considered needful to be kept private.

Previous OSGeo Foundation Boards of Directors

An interim Board of Directors with 5 members was elected on February 4th, 2006, by the initial members of the Open Source Geospatial Foundation. On March 18th, 2006, the board has been completed to now total nine members:

Potential FAQ

Q: What do board members do?
A: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Director_Responsibilities

Q: That doc doesn't say anything about meetings. How often to board members meet?
A: The foundation bylaws say the board meets after the after the annual members meeting and then at regular meetings on a schedule fixed by directors. In practice, the board schedules monthly meetings in addition to the annual face-to-face meeting after the AGM at the FOSS4G conference.

Q: How are board decisions made?
A: The bylaws (section 4.5) describe that a majority of members must be present for an event to be considered a meeting. At a meeting, each member present is given one vote. Strictly speaking (according to the bylaws) an affirmative vote by the majority of members present at a meeting constitutes a decision by the board. In practice, we don't consider a motion passed if there are any negative votes (see the page Board Voting Procedure that explains voting notations +1, +0, -0, -1).

Q: Is an IRC gathering a meeting?
A: The bylaws (section 4.4) say that an electronic medium may be used and an event will constitute a meeting if members can hear one another at the same time. In practice, we often have IRC meetings and then have a vote by voice if there are items that need voting on (TODO: document the convention on email voting if this is an alternative to voice voting).

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