Re: Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Marina Zhurakhinskaya

[Marina Zhurakhinskaya <marinaz redhat com>]

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Oliver Propst" <oliver propst gmail com>
> To: "Foundation-List" <foundation-list gnome org>
> Cc: "foundation-announce" <foundation-announce gnome org>
> Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2014 4:28:05 AM
> Subject: Re: Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Marina   Zhurakhinskaya
>
> On Sat, May 17, 2014 at 11:56 PM, Marina Zhurakhinskaya
> <marinaz redhat com> wrote:
> > Name: Marina Zhurakhinskaya
> > Emails: marinaz redhat com and marinazik gmail com
> > Affiliations: Community Engagement Lead at Red Hat, Advisor and Director at
> > the Ada Initiative
> > Blog: http://blogs.gnome.org/marina
> >
> > Dear Foundation,
> >
> > I'm running for a second term on the board to lend my organizing skills and
> > my interest in reaching out to people to the Foundation and ensure its
> > growth. We have an amazing community and high quality technology. My
> > interests as a board member are to enable face-to-face work, development
> > in the areas of interest to donors and advisory board members, and better
> > external visibility of GNOME. Most recently, I've been helping organize
> > sponsorship materials and process for GNOME.Asia and GUADEC, and
> > contacting prospective sponsors.
> What have you learned the past year as a Director?

I learned that the key activity that the Foundation enables is travel - for face-to-face meetings between 
contributors and for external events where we can promote GNOME. To accomplish this, our priorities are to 
have a current view of our financial accounts, work to keep them in order, replenish them with 
well-structured fundraising, have good processes for travel, and have good event organization.

> How does a Board position help you become more effective in your
> contributions?

I have a better view of what the Foundation needs help with the most at a current time, which I can offer. 
For example, right now it's reaching out to sponsors and helping with logistics for GNOME.Asia and GUADEC. 
The idea that you can do things useful to the Foundation without being on the board is very accurate - being 
on the board or being an ED is triaging these tasks, finding people who can complete them, and then filling 
in whatever gap is most essential to fill in with your skills.

Thanks,
Marina

> Thanks!
> --
> -mvh Oliver Propst
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