Board meeting reminder

Hello,

The next exciting installment of the December board meeting is due
to take place in six hours. Will we get pre-prepared reports from the
officers? Will the inactive board members step down or be pushed? Will
we manage to meet quorum? These and other scintillating questions will
be answered before your eyes, so tune in, same SPI time, same SPI channel.

The channel should be #spi on irc.oftc.net.

The time will probably be 20:00 UTC to 21:00 UTC.

The agenda might be:

(1) Report by officers on status of SPI
(2) Removal (for cause) of non-participating board members
and officers; resignations by officers and board members
(3) Appointment of officers to vacated positions
(4) Acceptance of nominations to the board, and preparation for a vote
by the membership on whether to accept the nominations
(5) Formation of a committee to consider changes to the by laws to
further the corporation's goals
(6) Other issues still before the board
(7) Other business

Cheers,
aj

--
Anthony Towns <aj(at)humbug(dot)org(dot)au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
I don't speak for anyone save myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

``Australian Linux Lovefest Heads West''
-- linux.conf.au, Perth W.A., 22nd-25th January 2003

Anthony Towns writes ("Board meeting reminder"):
> The next exciting installment of the December board meeting is due
> to take place in six hours. Will we get pre-prepared reports from the
> officers? Will the inactive board members step down or be pushed? Will
> we manage to meet quorum? These and other scintillating questions will
> be answered before your eyes, so tune in, same SPI time, same SPI channel.

Oh ! This is quite inconvenient for me - this is the first I've heard
about it (see my earlier message about falling off spi-board) and I
already had something booked for tonight. I'll try to attend for at
least part of the meeting.

I don't have time go to and check the bylaws now, but it seems to me
that the membership ought to control SPI, not the board, so if the
membership want to recall board members a simple majority should
suffice. Furthermore, board candidates should be directly elected and
not subject to board acceptance of their nominations. I don't know
whether that's what the bylaws currently say. But, if a meeting of
the members passes (with a simple majority) a resolution asking a
board member to resign I'm sure they would do so.

The problem with quoracy at board meetings seems to me to be mainly an
organisation problem with lack of timely and accurate reminders of the
meetings. I think if we could get the cron job sorted so it would
send a couple of accurate reminders things would be a lot better.

Also, the meetings are far too long. We need much better
organisation. Complex resolutions should be drafted in advance by
email, not in the meeting itself, and the chair needs to be more
aggressive about moving on. Also, with IRC, due to the inherent lag,
it is necessary to allow at least a couple of agenda items to
overlap.

Ian.

Previously Ian Jackson wrote:
> Oh ! This is quite inconvenient for me - this is the first I've heard
> about it (see my earlier message about falling off spi-board) and I
> already had something booked for tonight.

You haven't valled of spi-board, your subscription is just set to nomail
currently. You can fix that yourself.

> Also, the meetings are far too long. We need much better
> organisation. Complex resolutions should be drafted in advance by
> email, not in the meeting itself, and the chair needs to be more
> aggressive about moving on.

Absolutely.

> Also, with IRC, due to the inherent lag, it is necessary to allow at
> least a couple of agenda items to overlap.

Very much disagreed, that would only lead to lots of confusion.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> http://www.wiggy.net/
A random hacker

Wichert Akkerman writes ("Re: Board meeting reminder"):
> You haven't valled of spi-board, your subscription is just set to nomail
> currently. You can fix that yourself.

I've done that now. Can it be made not to happen again ?

Ian.

Previously Ian Jackson wrote:
> I've done that now. Can it be made not to happen again ?

Not without changing mailinglist software.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> http://www.wiggy.net/
A random hacker

On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Ian Jackson <ijackson(at)chiark(dot)greenend(dot)org(dot)uk> wrote...

: Wichert Akkerman writes ("Re: Board meeting reminder"):
: > You haven't valled of spi-board, your subscription is just set to nomail
: > currently. You can fix that yourself.
:
: I've done that now. Can it be made not to happen again ?

This usually happens if your email bounces. Maybe you should check
your local mail server for issues.

Matt.

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Matt Hope <dopey(at)debian(dot)org> wrote...

: This usually happens if your email bounces. Maybe you should check
: your local mail server for issues.

My apologies, I should have looked for the background information
first. (Thanks for the pointer, wiggy)

However, I'd just like to point out that my email to Ian (the previous
email) bounced from his host, complaining about the DNS setup.

Maybe mx-relay.chiark.greenend.org.uk[193.201.200.170] is set a little
too extreme?

Matt.

Previously Matt Hope wrote:
> Maybe mx-relay.chiark.greenend.org.uk[193.201.200.170] is set a little
> too extreme?

Long and off-topic discussion. Ian uses SAUCE, which enforces RFC
compliance strictly. I'm sure you can find long discussions on it
in debian mailinglist archives.

Wichert.

--
Wichert Akkerman <wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net> http://www.wiggy.net/
A random hacker

wichert(at)wiggy(dot)net (Wichert Akkerman) wrote on 17.12.02 in <20021217154129(dot)GA5465(at)wiggy(dot)net>:

> Previously Matt Hope wrote:
> > Maybe mx-relay.chiark.greenend.org.uk[193.201.200.170] is set a little
> > too extreme?
>
> Long and off-topic discussion. Ian uses SAUCE, which enforces RFC
> compliance strictly. I'm sure you can find long discussions on it
> in debian mailinglist archives.

Don't want to get into that right now, but there's certainly doubt if what
it checks actually is about RFC compliance.

MfG Kai