Re: #04: Electronic Meetings

I believe e-mail meetings are not only allowed, they're necessary.

I'd like to point out that the By-Law Committee -- us -- has not met yet
on IRC or in any means other than through e-mail, yet we have created,
discussed, and voted on a number of issues and are continuing to do so.

I think the means with which the board meets should be at the discretion
of the board. Decisions should be able to me made through email - which
the quorum requirements of the recently discussed amendment easily allow,
or on IRC, if that's what the board prefers to do, but we should not ban
an otherwise effective way of meeting. That doesn't help anybody.

The board should be required to meet "no less than once per three months",
and should be left the discretion of how it should meet - whether it be in
real life, video conference, irc, telephone conference call, email, or
voodoo magic, provided a record of the meeting is kept (minutes).

David Graham

On Sat, 31 May 2003, John Goerzen wrote:

> On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 08:59:29AM -0500, John Goerzen wrote:
> > Our next item of old business is #04, electronic meetings.
>
> I'm not sure what I think about this one yet. Here are some of my thoughts:
>
> 1. I think that actually holding e-mail meetings is, at best, a stretch of
> the bylaws. I know there is disagreement on that point, but I think we can
> all agree that if we want to permit that, we should make it clear.
>
> 2. I continue to believe that a lot of the quorum and e-mail problems are a
> result of the board failing to delegate to committees as anticipated in the
> original bylaws. Yet, in a very real sense, we are still in an initial
> "ramp up" phase (yes, even after these years) with getting accounting
> procedures in place, etc. I could see a "sunset clause" (e-mail meetings
> are authorized for one year, for instance) being of use.
>
> 3. If for some reason we can't address #2, I'd be in favor of a workable
> conservative e-mail voting mechanism. However, my preference is to treat
> the problem rather than its symptoms.
>
> Thoughts?
>
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