Hey John, all That clause was aimed at preventing people whos only interest is to get on boards getting on the board, and has been a topic of debate. Based on your input about the constitution its probably a good idea to just replace it with ’nominees shall be nominated in accordance with clause 74 and 19.3 of the constitution [link])
It is worth remembering we all just kinda nominated ourselves at the start. Cheers Adam On Sun, 13 Sep 2020 at 05:43, John Bryant <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > Great work, and thanks for the opportunity to discuss the election > process. I've added a couple of comments to the Google doc, but I have a > specific concern that may need a little more room for discussion. > > In the proposed process, there is a section called "*Minimum term of > membership*", which says: > >> *To be nominated as a Director, you must have been a Member for a minimum >> of 12 months (calculated from closing date of elections). This ensures that >> potential Directors have had the opportunity to participate in OSGeo >> Oceania business, and gives the Board an opportunity to mentor those who >> would like to take up leadership positions in the future.* >> > > I think there are a couple of issues with this: > > *1) It's not an effective way to assess someone's capability to act as a > director. * > > For example, I want to nominate Edwin Liava'a to stand in the next > election. Edwin was a keynote speaker at last year's conference in > Wellington, and has been a highly engaged leader in the Pacific open > geospatial community for many years. He's volunteered on a number of > committees that would count as OSGeo Oceania business. He's done plenty to > prove his dedication to this community, would be an asset to the > organisation, and would be an effective voice from the Pacific, which to > date has been missing from the board. > > But (as far as I can tell) Edwin's not currently a formal member, so by > this clause he wouldn't be qualified to serve as a director, even if he > became a member now. > > My point is, there are likely many people in our community who would be > excellent additions to the board, and the length of their membership > doesn't seem to be a relevant measure of their potential for contribution. > If someone has a valuable contribution to make, why would we want to put > this up as an obstacle? > > *2) It may not be within the board's scope to decide who is qualified to > serve as a future director.* > > Required qualifications to serve as a director are already defined in the > constitution > <https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kZD8pcW2efjLEY7ih3rzcWpe7X0hEG2A> > (section 74: simply, "*Each Director must be a Member*"). > > Members' rights to nominate are also defined there, subject to this > qualification (section 79.3: "*Any Member may nominate a person who is > eligible for appointment under clause 74 to serve as a Director.*"). > > I'm not sure that it's appropriate to use the election process to create > additional eligibility hurdles, it seems this might be impacting on > members' rights. > > If a nomination were declared ineligible based on this section in the > election process, could a constitutional challenge be made? If the election > process were found to be in conflict with the constitution, could this > potentially render the election invalid? Obviously it's a hypothetical, > unlikely scenario, but maybe not impossible. > > My feeling is the election process would be better without this section. > If there are new director eligibility requirements to add, it seems a lot > safer to stick to using constitution amendments, which would require formal > assent by the membership through a statutory process. > > Cheers > John > > > On Wed, 9 Sep 2020 at 17:58, Hamish Campbell <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> Dear OSGeo Oceania Members, >> >> Our proposed November 2020 election process and timeline for appointing >> directors to the board requires your review and feedback. >> >> You can review and comment directly on the Google Doc >> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1td2oDBssX_33yIFN1h0UgSvkoUa8MckZiix7nsIdmcs/edit?usp=sharing>. >> We also welcome feedback on the OSGeo Oceania mailing list by replying to >> this email. Feedback to the board must be received by midnight on >> Wednesday, September 23rd. >> >> The board will review the feedback and finalize the election process and >> timeline in early October. >> >> Thank you for your contribution! >> >> On behalf of the OSGeo Oceania Election Group >> _______________________________________________ >> Oceania mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania >> > _______________________________________________ > Oceania mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/oceania >
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