Changing re-election periods

All,

We have a calendar correction to make.

The current schedule of SPI elections for the Board is this:

2007: 6 seats

2008: 3 seats

2009: 0 seats

2010: 6 seats

etc...

I think you can see some problems with this skewed rotation, the product of
some missed/aborted elections in our past. I'm thinking of proposing two
things:

1) That three years is too long a term for a board seat in an OSS group;
instead, it should be two. For evidence, check out the history of
attendance listed last election; it's a steady decline by year of office.

2) That we alternate 4/5/4/5 on a two-year election cycle. This would mean
one of the people elected in 2006 would be up early; I'll volunteer.

However, since this is a change to the election procedures I don't think
that we can do it as a board vote, so I'm not sure how to ratify it even
when we reach a consensus.

Thoughts?

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Treasurer
Software in the Public Interest, Inc.
treasurer(at)spi-inc(dot)org

On Mon, 5 Mar 2007, Josh Berkus wrote:
> All,
>
> We have a calendar correction to make.
>
> The current schedule of SPI elections for the Board is this:
>
> 2007: 6 seats
>
> 2008: 3 seats
>
> 2009: 0 seats
>
> 2010: 6 seats
>
> etc...
>
> I think you can see some problems with this skewed rotation, the product of
> some missed/aborted elections in our past. I'm thinking of proposing two
> things:
>
> 1) That three years is too long a term for a board seat in an OSS group;
> instead, it should be two. For evidence, check out the history of
> attendance listed last election; it's a steady decline by year of office.
>
> 2) That we alternate 4/5/4/5 on a two-year election cycle. This would mean
> one of the people elected in 2006 would be up early; I'll volunteer.
>
> However, since this is a change to the election procedures I don't think
> that we can do it as a board vote, so I'm not sure how to ratify it even
> when we reach a consensus.
>
> Thoughts?

This anomaly has been discussed at length in the past. The 3 year board
term is mandated in the by-laws, as is the selection of board members at
the annual meeting. The current election resolution is merely an
implementation of these by-law requirements.

I intend to run again this year with a promise to resign after one year to
assist in a correction of this problem. If three board members do this, it
will be corrected in short order.

My preference would be for the entire board to be elected on an annual
basis, the theory being that any competent board member will be reelected
and any incompetent one will be removed relatively quickly, but any major
changes would require changes in our rather convoluted by-laws. To that
end we do have a By-laws committee on the books but it hasn't been active
for over a year.

- -
David "cdlu" Graham - cdlu(at)railfan(dot)ca
Guelph, Ontario - http://www.cdlu.net/

On Mon, Mar 05, 2007 at 06:12:27PM -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:
> The current schedule of SPI elections for the Board is this:
> 2007: 6 seats
> 2008: 3 seats
> 2009: 0 seats
> 2010: 6 seats

Err, what? Isn't it:

2007: 6 seats (Bdale, Branden, David, Ian, Jimmy, Joey)
2008: 0 seats -
2009: 3 seats (Josh, Michael, Neil)
2010: 6 seats ?

(preceeded by
2006: 3 seats (Bruce, John, Mako)
)

Cheers,
aj