Re: The changing of the board

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

On Mon, 2005-11-28 at 09:19 +0100, Dave Neary wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Anne Østergaard wrote:
> > The changing of the board:
> > 
> > I have been thinking that it might be an advantage to the Foundation if
> > the next board in fact took their seats immediately after the final
> > announcement of the list of candidates elected this year. An overlapping
> > period I think is not really necessary as I have a feeling that there
> > will be sufficient continuation/ ways to ask concrete advice if needed.
> 
> While I agree with the idea of board members elect getting on the 
> various lists, and getting up to speed with the state of things, as soon 
> as possible, I disagree that no transition period is needed.
> 
> The old board has a couple of big things to do over the next few weeks - 
> hiring an administrator part time is one such thing. It would be 
> irresponsible of us to hand the baby to the new board. The current board 
> was elected for a term of a year, which runs until the end of December. 
> I think it's reasonable to allow the old board to avail of that time to 
> bring things either to completion, or to a state where we can transition 
> more easily to a new board.

Normally the old board can only do day to day business if needed. Once a
new board has been elected I think that it is the new board that should
rightly take all major decisions such as hiring new staff.  At least
this is customary in all the boards that I have served on. Governments
also follow this rule.

I have not been on the GNOME Board and do only know what has been in the
minutes from all board meetings so far (warm thanks to the secretary)
but I think that we should have been discussing the role and job
description of the new hired staff on the mailing list. It will be
public any how. So far I have only read that some one said it should be
an American or at least a person working from the States. Boston? 

> > It has also been mentioned that it might be a good idea if the new
> > elected board constituted itself directly after the election and pointed
> > out it's chairman, vice chairman, secretary and treasurer and may be
> > press spokesperson etc.
> 
> The suggestion was actually to have those positions be elected. But 
> having named positions nominated by the board is the next best thing, 
> and that seems reasonable.

I am glad you agree on this.

Anne
-- 
Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>