Hi :) I kinda agree with Marc about this except that the clear and very low upper-limits on items that can be passed this way makes the rule entirely reasonable imo.
In most organisations i have been in there have been several layers of spending that have only required various numbers of cheque signatories to authorise. Also the central main top level committee, board of trustees, directors or whatever usually authorise various sub-committees or working groups to spend either set budgets (with proper year End accounts) or on a fixed limit per spend. Also there tends to be a certain amount of "petty cash" for office workers to buy sundry items such as tea, coffee, milk, pens, packet of screws to fix a defective device or pins and blue-tack to stick notices to walls. There are tons of costs that really shouldn't be taken up to the main board because it wastes time and trivialises the importance of the work the board does. Regards from Tom :) >________________________________ > From: Marc Paré <[email protected]> >To: [email protected] >Sent: Thursday, 24 January 2013, 15:45 >Subject: [board-discuss] Re: Joining Silicon Sentier > >Hi Florian and Thorsten, > >Le 2013-01-24 04:51, Thorsten Behrens a écrit : >> Florian Effenberger wrote: >>>> Is the application of the "BoD § 5 I rule" not for only votes taken when >>>> a quorum is reached? It just seems strange to allow voting like this. >>> >>> this is the intention of the § 5 rules of procedure. It is designed >>> that board members who are not active and miss voting, cannot block >>> the foundation's business. >>> >> Hi Marc, >> >> I second Florian here, and since I was the one putting that rule into >> https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/BoD_rules, let me put some >> more rationale behind it. TDF is not like the usual foundation, with >> the board living in the same city, or some executive director plus >> team sitting in the same office. So far, decision making, even over >> trivial amounts, always happens at the board level, and thus requires >> a team of seven spread across the world to react timely, mostly on >> email. §5 was meant to balance this - the board members trust each >> other enough, that we believe a director proposing something and >> calling a vote presumably knows what he or she is doing. The rule >> simply codifies that, but puts a (IMO reasonable) limit on the >> importance level of such-decided items. >> >> Cheers, >> >> -- Thorsten > >Thanks for the explanations and as Florian says that "... I hope it remains an >exception ..." > >I have to say still, that, having sat on quite a few committees, the rules of >quorum are such that if it not reached, and where there is a planned vote on >items (which are most items on an agenda), the business of the day is >cancelled and another meeting scheduled where a proper quorum may be reached >for the vote. > >I can see the application of "§ 5 rules of procedure" allowing members, who >are not present at a directors' meeting where quorum is met, the chance to >vote on items put to a vote within a delay of 2 days. This to me makes sense. > >However, passing votes at a meeting where there is no quorum reached, to me, >does not make sense, as there is no opportunity for reasonable debate on the >matter that is being put to a vote. The fact that the physical distance being >of concern, also, does not seem a plausible excuse considering our ability to >connect by phone, IRC, email etc. by board members or, for that matter, having >someone fill in for the missing board member(s). I have sat on boards where we >reached members by phone just so that we could reach quorum and pass items on >the agenda, as well as vote. > >My experience has always been that when a meeting does not reach quorum, we >usually re-scheduled the meeting (and items that were being put to a vote) and >we discussed other items on an "unofficial" level for the next re-scheduled >meeting -- pretty well a coffee break amongst friends. > >Anyway, thanks again for the explanation. > >Cheers, > >Marc > > > > >-- Marc Paré >[email protected] >http://www.parEntreprise.com >parEntreprise.com Supports OpenDocument Formats (ODF) >parEntreprise.com Supports http://www.LibreOffice.org > > > > >
