Minutes of the board meeting of May 18, 2020



Wiki location: https://wiki.gnome.org/FoundationBoard/Minutes/20200518

= Meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 18 May 2020, 14:30 UTC =

== Attending ==

 * AllanDay
 * NeilMcGovern
 * BrittYazel
 * PhilipChimento
 * FedericoMenaQuintero
 * RobertMcQueen

== Regrets ==

 * CarlosSoriano
 * RosannaYuen
 * TristanVanBerkom

== Agenda ==

 * Approve minutes of 13 and 27 April
 * Dividing the board into two classes
 * 2020 annual meeting and annual general meeting

== Minutes ==

 * Approve minutes of 13 and 27 April
   * Deferred.
   * The minutes of 27 April are not ready yet and the secretary is urged to complete them as soon as possible.
   * The minutes of 13 April are also deferred (but are ready now).

 * Dividing the board into two classes
   * Since the bylaws were amended so that directors' terms are two years long, the current board needs to split in two, with half the board carrying on for another year, and the rest of the seats being up for re-election.
   * The board has voted unanimously by email for Allan, Philip and Federico to continue for another year. This means that Carlos, Rob, Britt and Tristan's seats will be up for re-election. This decision was made on the basis of the directors with the most votes in 2019 carrying on, with runner-up Philip taking Carlos's place, due to Carlos being unable to commit to another year.

 * 2020 annual meeting and annual general meeting
   * Some key dates:
     * New board will be announced on 22/23 June
     * Annual board meeting needs to happen before 8 July
     * GUADEC is being held 22-28 July
     * We need to have an annual general meeting (AGM)
   * Allan: There are some concerns about holding an AGM virtually. For example, how would we practically allow for a referendum if someone wanted to hold one? This may be a question of a few of us sitting down with the bylaws and figuring out how it would work.
     * Rob: Looking at the bylaws, it does seem the AGM is assumed to be in-person.
     * Allan: We also have to give a month's notice, so we would have to send the notice of the AGM just after the new board takes over, so we have to know the details before then. Neil, can we leave the scheduling to you?
     * Neil: Yes, I already put a slot in the GUADEC schedule for the AGM.
     * Rob: Were we envisioning any membership votes, e.g. bylaw changes?
     * Neil: No.
   * Allan: The annual meeting of the board is the concern of the new board, so not our problem.
   * Allan: Are there any work items that we'd like to wrap up before we have any change in the composition of board members?
     * Rob: Launch GNOME Circle?
       * Allan: I've been working on it and I'd like to have a timeline such that this board will be able to vote on it.
     * Rob: Our main thing was "strategification", which we've achieved significant progress on. It's probably worth writing a "year in review" so that people will understand that this progress has been made and what it means.
       * Allan: It's been on my to-do list. I'd still like to revamp the meetings before the board changes. Maybe we should move to monthly meetings at the time of the board change and just start the new board off that way? Or is changing the meetings blocked on the mission and vision?
       * Rob: We have laid the groundwork for that during this board term.
       * Allan: The current board has been involved in the mission and vision work and when it changes, we may lose some institutional memory. But if I'm working on the GNOME Circle stuff, I will probably not be able to get this done. It would help if the other board members can help draft these.
       * Rob: Can we have a working session on this?
       * Philip: I can spend time helping with this, although not driving it.
       * Allan: Maybe a good "homework" item is for everyone to spend an hour and come up with some text to incorporate, even if you're not happy with it. Then we can use these as a basis for the discussion in our working session.
     * Philip: Turning the release team into a committee is in progress.
     * Philip: Reducing the environmental impact of the Foundation is not something we can bring to a close in one month but since we are forced to have an online GUADEC anyway, we can achieve progress in the next few months. For example, Neil is investigating conferencing technologies, maybe we can evaluate them for remote hackfests at the same time as well.
       * Neil: I am reasonably confident that whatever we choose for GUADEC could be used for hackfests in the future.
       * Allan: Are there any specific action items other than that? It doesn't seem like there's anything that can be resolved in the next month.



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