Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! It seems unusual that only one of five incumbents is running again. Have the other current board members stated that they aren't going to run for re-election? ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
On 9/30/14 8:13 AM, Richard Weait wrote: On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! It seems unusual that only one of five incumbents is running again. Have the other current board members stated that they aren't going to run for re-election? this sort of thing happens from time to time. i wouldn't worry about it much. i was at one time the only holdover from one board to the next. richard -- rwe...@averillpark.net Averill Park Networking - GIS IT Consulting OpenStreetMap - PostgreSQL - Linux Java - Web Applications - Search ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
Well said, Martijn! I'm not sure I have much else to add. Like Martijn already said, while it does require patience, it also allows a lot of room and support to come up with new ideas to grow the OSM US community, and then put them into action. It was very rewarding to plan the largest OSM conference yet last year, and I hope that next year's board goes even farther than we could with outreach and diversity efforts -- both with SOTM US and the community in general. You'll also make some really amazing friends that you won't soon forget! I'm also happy to help answer any questions, so feel free to reach out. My best, Mele Sax-Barnett m...@openstreetmap.us / Twitter @pdxmele On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 9:13 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi Luis all, Those are great questions. Let me try and provide some more insight and clarity. I am expecting the other boardies to chime in as well. A lot of our work is generating plans and ideas to support our mission, which is to support and grow the OpenStreetMap project and its community in the United States, and executing those plans. Let me give one example from recently. We were talking about the upcoming State of the Map conference in Buenos Aires. We noted that the U.S. community could use a boost in presence at the international conference. And that we did a good job increasing gender diversity at previous US conferences. Why not combine this into a plan for scholarships for US community members to help with travel costs, and specifically target them at female applicants? OK, let's do this. Decide what the scholarships should look like. Reach out to SOTM organization for free tickets. Check budget. Write blog post http://openstreetmap.us/2014/09/argentina-scholarships. Tweet. This all happened within two weeks. A lot of our work is like this, and we discuss a lot of ideas in weekly meetings that usually last around 30 minutes. Of course there's longer term objectives that need work as well - there's always the next SOTM US to think about, and work on that usually peaks in the 2-3 months before the conference. (I think I probably commit 10 hours a week right before the conference, and more like 2-5 hours the rest of the year.) And there's administrative work as well, of course, but we retain the services of an accountants agency and legal council to offload some of that. Right now we're in the middle of applying for 501(c)(3) status which involves a little more of that administrative work than usual, but it will be worth it. We keep to-do lists and discussions mainly on github, neatly organized into projects. We use G+ Hangouts for meetings. We have systems in place to maintain the web site, member registration + payment (being overhauled), bookkeeping. Overall I think the board runs its operations pretty well. Ideally, to my mind, the board is made up of a diverse group of people who care deeply about OSM and its community, and can commit an average of say 2-5 hours a week to board things. For a board to run well you need a combination of skill sets. Writing. Event organizing. Listening. Patience with forms and figures. Leadership. Creative thinking - to list just a few. What I have enjoyed perhaps most of all working with various US chapter boards over the past three years is experiencing how much you can achieve with extremely limited resources when you have a great working environment where your fellow board members really listen, everyone knows what their strengths are, and debates are mostly quickly resolved because we all see the bigger picture. I hope that this sheds some light on what it's like to serve on the board. Don't hesitate to email / irc / skype / tweet me if you have more questions. Best, Martijn On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, Martijn, others: [Lurker here for a while, not a very active OSMer; possibly asking dumb questions as a result.] I've found in the past when recruiting for boards like this one that it is helpful to talk about things like: - What kinds of skills does the current board think would be helpful/desirable in a candidate? - What kind of work do board members do? Is it mostly fulfilling legal obligations/formalities? Other? - In particular, what sorts of things do board members do that they might not otherwise have done as volunteers? - What's the time commitment? - What do current board members enjoy the most? Putting this kind of thing out there might help shake some potential candidates loose. Luis (not a member, so not doing this on my own behalf :) On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! Let me tell you what made me
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.net wrote: this sort of thing happens from time to time. i wouldn't worry about it much. i was at one time the only holdover from one board to the next. Again, outsider/lurker, take with grain of salt, IANYL, etc., etc., but in my past experience this sort of turnover is hard for an org to handle - you lose a lot of institutional knowledge. The next board might consider either growing (which reduces the odds of everyone burning out at once) or moving to longer, staggered terms so only some seats are up for election in any given year. Or both. :) Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.* ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
I do agree that that is a challenge, and we have lost valuable time with the loss of institutional knowledge. We do have systems in place that should make the transition to a new board easier, but I agree that staggered terms make sense. We did actually discuss this with the current board, but I believe it would require a change to the bylaws which we just haven't gotten around to yet. Something for the next board to pick up! On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.net wrote: this sort of thing happens from time to time. i wouldn't worry about it much. i was at one time the only holdover from one board to the next. Again, outsider/lurker, take with grain of salt, IANYL, etc., etc., but in my past experience this sort of turnover is hard for an org to handle - you lose a lot of institutional knowledge. The next board might consider either growing (which reduces the odds of everyone burning out at once) or moving to longer, staggered terms so only some seats are up for election in any given year. Or both. :) Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.* ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us -- Martijn van Exel President, US Chapter OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.us/ http://osm.org/ skype: mvexel ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
Thanks, Martijn, for your detailed paragraph. As someone who's served on the boards of cultural non-profits, I'd add to Luis' list of common questions: are board members expected to fundraise and do board members take on fiduciary responsibilities? I think I know the answers in this case, but others might be wondering. And I don't know if that'll be impacted by the 501(c)(3) status. Longer (a two year commitment?) and staggered terms are a great idea for the reasons mentioned. Eric On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 10:11 AM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: I do agree that that is a challenge, and we have lost valuable time with the loss of institutional knowledge. We do have systems in place that should make the transition to a new board easier, but I agree that staggered terms make sense. We did actually discuss this with the current board, but I believe it would require a change to the bylaws which we just haven't gotten around to yet. Something for the next board to pick up! On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 9:56 AM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: On Tue, Sep 30, 2014 at 5:30 AM, Richard Welty rwe...@averillpark.net wrote: this sort of thing happens from time to time. i wouldn't worry about it much. i was at one time the only holdover from one board to the next. Again, outsider/lurker, take with grain of salt, IANYL, etc., etc., but in my past experience this sort of turnover is hard for an org to handle - you lose a lot of institutional knowledge. The next board might consider either growing (which reduces the odds of everyone burning out at once) or moving to longer, staggered terms so only some seats are up for election in any given year. Or both. :) Luis -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us -- Martijn van Exel President, US Chapter OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.us/ http://osm.org/ skype: mvexel ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
On 9/30/14 1:11 PM, Martijn van Exel wrote: I do agree that that is a challenge, and we have lost valuable time with the loss of institutional knowledge. We do have systems in place that should make the transition to a new board easier, but I agree that staggered terms make sense. We did actually discuss this with the current board, but I believe it would require a change to the bylaws which we just haven't gotten around to yet. Something for the next board to pick up! i see that two current board members have added their names, and a number of other candidates have been nominated. i think that we're in good shape now. this is an excellent slate and the US board will be in good shape however this election turns out. richard -- rwe...@averillpark.net Averill Park Networking - GIS IT Consulting OpenStreetMap - PostgreSQL - Linux Java - Web Applications - Search ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
[Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! Let me tell you what made me run the first time, and why I am running for a fourth term. I love OpenStreetMap and care about its future, and its community here in the United States. Serving on the board has allowed me to work with a small group of committed people to organize great events, spread the word about OSM, support local communities around the nation and help OSM grow in the US. Sure, it requires time and commitment, but it has really been extremely rewarding. In the years I have served on the board, I have seen (and helped) the Chapter evolve into a more professionally run organization, and I am periodically blown away by how much we've been able to do. If you've been thinking about putting your name on the ballot but haven't yet, feel free to reach out to me with questions, ideas, plans, anything you would like to discuss. -- Martijn van Exel President, US Chapter OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.us/ http://osm.org/ skype: mvexel ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
I presume that candidates would add themselves on the wiki, here? http://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/United_States/Elections/2014 I further presume that self-nomination is acceptable, as both candidates have done so. :-) DO consider adding yourself to the ballot. If you enjoy OpenStreetMap, you can enjoy contributing to a local chapter, or even the OSMF board. ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
On 9/29/14 7:00 PM, Richard Weait wrote: I presume that candidates would add themselves on the wiki, here? http://wiki.osm.org/wiki/Foundation/Local_Chapters/United_States/Elections/2014 I further presume that self-nomination is acceptable, as both candidates have done so. :-) DO consider adding yourself to the ballot. If you enjoy OpenStreetMap, you can enjoy contributing to a local chapter, or even the OSMF board. hmmm. if we're short of candidates, well, i've been off the board long enough to consider running again. i'll need to re-up my membership first. richard -- rwe...@averillpark.net Averill Park Networking - GIS IT Consulting OpenStreetMap - PostgreSQL - Linux Java - Web Applications - Search ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
Hi, Martijn, others: [Lurker here for a while, not a very active OSMer; possibly asking dumb questions as a result.] I've found in the past when recruiting for boards like this one that it is helpful to talk about things like: - What kinds of skills does the current board think would be helpful/desirable in a candidate? - What kind of work do board members do? Is it mostly fulfilling legal obligations/formalities? Other? - In particular, what sorts of things do board members do that they might not otherwise have done as volunteers? - What's the time commitment? - What do current board members enjoy the most? Putting this kind of thing out there might help shake some potential candidates loose. Luis (not a member, so not doing this on my own behalf :) On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! Let me tell you what made me run the first time, and why I am running for a fourth term. I love OpenStreetMap and care about its future, and its community here in the United States. Serving on the board has allowed me to work with a small group of committed people to organize great events, spread the word about OSM, support local communities around the nation and help OSM grow in the US. Sure, it requires time and commitment, but it has really been extremely rewarding. In the years I have served on the board, I have seen (and helped) the Chapter evolve into a more professionally run organization, and I am periodically blown away by how much we've been able to do. If you've been thinking about putting your name on the ballot but haven't yet, feel free to reach out to me with questions, ideas, plans, anything you would like to discuss. -- Martijn van Exel President, US Chapter OpenStreetMap http://openstreetmap.us/ http://osm.org/ skype: mvexel ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us -- Luis Villa Deputy General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation 415.839.6885 ext. 6810 *This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer.* ___ Talk-us mailing list Talk-us@openstreetmap.org https://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us
Re: [Talk-us] US Chapter board elections - time is running out!
Hi Luis all, Those are great questions. Let me try and provide some more insight and clarity. I am expecting the other boardies to chime in as well. A lot of our work is generating plans and ideas to support our mission, which is to support and grow the OpenStreetMap project and its community in the United States, and executing those plans. Let me give one example from recently. We were talking about the upcoming State of the Map conference in Buenos Aires. We noted that the U.S. community could use a boost in presence at the international conference. And that we did a good job increasing gender diversity at previous US conferences. Why not combine this into a plan for scholarships for US community members to help with travel costs, and specifically target them at female applicants? OK, let's do this. Decide what the scholarships should look like. Reach out to SOTM organization for free tickets. Check budget. Write blog post http://openstreetmap.us/2014/09/argentina-scholarships. Tweet. This all happened within two weeks. A lot of our work is like this, and we discuss a lot of ideas in weekly meetings that usually last around 30 minutes. Of course there's longer term objectives that need work as well - there's always the next SOTM US to think about, and work on that usually peaks in the 2-3 months before the conference. (I think I probably commit 10 hours a week right before the conference, and more like 2-5 hours the rest of the year.) And there's administrative work as well, of course, but we retain the services of an accountants agency and legal council to offload some of that. Right now we're in the middle of applying for 501(c)(3) status which involves a little more of that administrative work than usual, but it will be worth it. We keep to-do lists and discussions mainly on github, neatly organized into projects. We use G+ Hangouts for meetings. We have systems in place to maintain the web site, member registration + payment (being overhauled), bookkeeping. Overall I think the board runs its operations pretty well. Ideally, to my mind, the board is made up of a diverse group of people who care deeply about OSM and its community, and can commit an average of say 2-5 hours a week to board things. For a board to run well you need a combination of skill sets. Writing. Event organizing. Listening. Patience with forms and figures. Leadership. Creative thinking - to list just a few. What I have enjoyed perhaps most of all working with various US chapter boards over the past three years is experiencing how much you can achieve with extremely limited resources when you have a great working environment where your fellow board members really listen, everyone knows what their strengths are, and debates are mostly quickly resolved because we all see the bigger picture. I hope that this sheds some light on what it's like to serve on the board. Don't hesitate to email / irc / skype / tweet me if you have more questions. Best, Martijn On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 5:51 PM, Luis Villa lvi...@wikimedia.org wrote: Hi, Martijn, others: [Lurker here for a while, not a very active OSMer; possibly asking dumb questions as a result.] I've found in the past when recruiting for boards like this one that it is helpful to talk about things like: - What kinds of skills does the current board think would be helpful/desirable in a candidate? - What kind of work do board members do? Is it mostly fulfilling legal obligations/formalities? Other? - In particular, what sorts of things do board members do that they might not otherwise have done as volunteers? - What's the time commitment? - What do current board members enjoy the most? Putting this kind of thing out there might help shake some potential candidates loose. Luis (not a member, so not doing this on my own behalf :) On Mon, Sep 29, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Martijn van Exel mart...@openstreetmap.us wrote: Hi all, With just a few days to go, we only have two names on the ballot for the upcoming US Chapter board elections. We have all five positions up for election, so this is clearly not enough! Let me tell you what made me run the first time, and why I am running for a fourth term. I love OpenStreetMap and care about its future, and its community here in the United States. Serving on the board has allowed me to work with a small group of committed people to organize great events, spread the word about OSM, support local communities around the nation and help OSM grow in the US. Sure, it requires time and commitment, but it has really been extremely rewarding. In the years I have served on the board, I have seen (and helped) the Chapter evolve into a more professionally run organization, and I am periodically blown away by how much we've been able to do. If you've been thinking about putting your name on the ballot but haven't yet, feel free to reach out to me with questions, ideas, plans, anything you would
