Re: minutes of last four board meetings

["Luis Villa" <luis tieguy org>]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 5:27 AM, Dave Neary <dneary gnome org> wrote:
> I do have one question. I don't mean to be a shit-stirrer or anything,

yes you do. :)

> but it's not clear from the minutes of the past few board meetings what,
> if any, priorities the board is attacking systematically this year. Are
> there any specific goals that the board has identified as things to
> address in this term?
>
> I'm impressed with the way the advisory board's been getting more
> attention, and with the preparation of the ad board meetings, but what
> is the over-arching theme of the board this year, one year into its 18
> month term?

Among others:
* ad board (as you already noted)
* increased delegation (mobile team, guadec team)
* events (lots of bandwidth spent on gnome.asia, summit, and
hackfests- pushing to still have more of these)
* increased financial transparency (you don't see this in the minutes,
but we get a regular report from Zana now detailing finances
regularly, and we've been more proactive in budgeting and
understanding our long-term financial picture)
* hiring and management (management and advising of Stormy is taking
up a /lot/ of our bandwidth, which is really a good thing- she's
learning from us while she ramps up, and we're avoiding some of the
problems we had with previous employees by being more hands-on. Like
the previous, this is less than obvious from the minutes, since I
don't bother to say 'received and discussed Stormy's status report' in
every set of minutes. I can do that if it would make you feel better,
Dave. ;)
* getting our legal bits in order (this goes in cycles, depending on
my bandwidth; hopefully it will be major focus next semester. Brian's
insurance work also falls into this category.)

And of course the normal miscellany of board life- pushing ahead on
the DVCS survey, for example- lots of little things like that.

Luis