Board Meeting 2018-01-17

This board face-to-video meeting is scheduled for 17 January 2018 at [1] through video call and follow up voting on Loomio.

Agenda

Current items

• roll call
• appoint meeting chair, meeting scribe/secretary
• Role of Board, by-law review, orientation (1 hour)
• Executive Positions (President, Vice-Presidents, Secretary, Treasurer) (45 mins)

Minutes

• Attending: Mike, Angelos, Astrid, Jeff, Vasile, Maria A, Helena, Jody, Maria B
• Chair: Maria A
• Secretary: Jody, with assistance (shared document)

Mins initially recorded informally into a a shared google document for group editing, and cleaned up for this wiki.

Agenda trimmed as this is a focused "breakout" meeting, move additional agenda to next IRC meetings.

sidebar:

Discussion on "skipped" regularly scheduled IRC meeting (where most of these agenda topics came from). IRC meetings are scheduled the first Thursday of each month, these two Face-to-Video calls were "over and above" our regular schedule as an alternative to setting up a face-to-face meeting.

Discussion covered how much is expected of board members, not to be critical (important point), and that we should clarify meeting requirements. Indeed this was a topic for the agenda, which is pushed back to the next IRC meeting.

actions:

• Jody to update the next IRC agenda so we do not lose anything.

Role of Board and Executive Discussion

sidebar:

Discussion on reducing this from 1 hour to 30 mins (it ended up taking slightly over an hour ...). Do we need to review by-laws, or has this been covered during orientation of new board members? Maria and Astrid indicated they were comfortable and have read the bylaws - so this should be quick!

Chair of the Board

• Section 5.5 Chair of the Board. The Chair of the Board shall preside at all meetings of the Board of Directors and members and shall have such other duties and authority as may be conferred by the Board of Directors.

Discussion:

For each meeting - currently we mix the chair up each meeting, … this is an enjoyable division of labor and allows the team to adjust based on who is present, or who has agenda topics to talk through.

sidebar:

Previously Jeff did a great job of keeping board on track and focused. We introduced the habit of switching up meeting chair during 2016 as Venka was not always able to attend meetings, and we enjoyed the ability to be flexible. This responsibility has previously fallen on the president, while we have split up the responsibility of chairing individual meetings across board members we are currently missing out on the follow up tasks.

But is the chair of the board useful? The role of 'chair of the board' is still useful, to track items so they are not missed between meetings, scheduling meetings, etc...

The chair-of-the-board would be responsible for keeping the board on track, following up on action items, similar how we use vice-president role to split up tasks across the president role.

Doing a better job following through on decisions was was identified during the election process, and candidate debate, as a common recommendation. Jody and Helena provided some examples (CLA and MOU followup).

sidebar:

Jody interested in pursing this position as a volunteer.

sidebar:

Jeff lead discussion on asking community for more, rather than expecting more of our board meetings. Concerned we are asking more and more of the board, rather than committees, and proposes .. Jeff proposes hiring a part time person to work on that.

sidebar:

Discussion on expectations for officers workload vs committee

President

• Section 5.6 President. Unless provided otherwise by a resolution adopted by the Board of Directors,
  • the President shall be the Chief Executive Officer of the corporation and shall have general and active management of the business and affairs of the corporation, subject to the direction of the Board of Directors.
  • In the absence of the Chair of the Board, the President shall preside at all meetings of the Board of Directors and members.
  • The President shall see that all orders and resolutions of the Board of Directors are carried into effect,
    • shall sign and deliver in the name of the corporation any deeds, mortgages, bonds, contracts, or other instruments pertaining to the business of the corporation, except in cases in which the authority to sign and deliver is required by law to be exercised by another person or is expressly delegated by the Certificate of Incorporation, these Bylaws, or the Board of Directors to some other officer or agent of the corporation, may maintain records of and certify proceedings of the Board of Directors,
    • and shall perform such other duties as may from time to time be prescribed by the Board of Directors.

Discussion on community expectations of President role:

Key aspect of president is as the community visible face of the organization, notably for public speaking, but also for building relationships between organization.

Discussion on president providing "consistency" of OSGeo.

Role provides a title that is useful for talking with partners, some organizations will only talk to president based on status/respect.

Jeff is asked for guidance/experience on this role:

• Reiterating the importance of the role within our community, and ability to
• Based on conversation with partners, two years is too short for presidency, needs longer term to effectively build relationships.

Michael notes that other organizations (IAG)have fundended president positions to build these relationships.

Maria A asks if we should be less a “presidential organization”? Resulting discussion indicates that this is a useful tool expected for different business cultures wordwide

Discussion on responsibility sharing and the use of vice-presidents to split roll, or allow longer service.

Jeff is interested in pursuing an executive board

TLDR

Executive:

• President: María Arias de Reyna
  • Vice-president: Angelos Tzotsos
  • Vice-president: Helena Mitasova
  • Vice-president: Jeff McKenna
• Secretary: Astrid Emde
• Treasurer: Michael Smith

Board:

• Chair of the Board: Jody Garnett

Actions

• Jody: To move outstanding agenda topics to next IRC [Board_Meeting_2018-02-01] (done)
• Astrid: blogpost / news_item announcing new executive officers
• All book travel/accommodation for f2f meeting and send details to treasurer for reimbursement.
• Jody: Change time for the regular IRC meetings from 14 UTC to 15 UTC