Re: Board of Directors Elections 2014 - Candidacy - Karen Sandler

[Karen Sandler <karen gnome org>]

On 2014-05-20 11:30, David King wrote:
> Hi Marina
>
> On 2014-05-20 11:17, Marina Zhurakhinskaya <marinaz redhat com> wrote:
> In my view, having immediate feedback and ideas from someone with lots 
> of experience during the
> board meetings is very valuable, and can't be substituted with 
> occasional consulting. The board
> and the Foundation benefit from a diversity of skills and experiences 
> of the board members. As
> both Karen and I mentioned, she has been dedicating her time 
> volunteering on critical matters.
> Being on the board provides the best view into what these matters are, 
> which she is able to help
> us with. I think the composition of the board and the skills and time 
> commitments people can
> offer need to be considered together to create the best balance.
>
> Indeed, and there is no reason that the immediate feedback cannot be
> gained from Karen as an adviser if she is invited to board meetings. I
> do not think that a board composed of some members who are able to
> devote time to taking on many action items and some who are not able
> to take on many is a good balance, and certainly not the best balance.
>
> Karen, how much time would you have available to dedicate to board
> matters above and beyond your existing volunteering commitments? You
> mentioned elsewhere that you have been spending 5 hours per week on
> your volunteering efforts for GNOME. Would you be able to dedicate
> time above that to board duties, or would your board duties negatively
> impact your existing efforts?

I'm not sure Dave, it's a tough question. To be honest, if I'm not a 
board member I probably won't regularly join the board meetings. For 
reference, I was not invited to board meetings when I was just pro bono 
counsel to GNOME (from my SFLC days) and I'm unaware of any pro bono 
counsel being regularly invited to the meetings. While it's possible to 
join it's not really part of that role.

I try to give the maximum amount of time I have free to GNOME (much to 
the annoyance of my family, it's actually some weeks been much more than 
5 hours since I left as ED but I wanted to give a more conservative view 
of my time commitments).

The volunteer work that I've been doing is in part driven by the 
momentum I've had as ED and being a part of the board meetings in the 
past. I would expect that to diminish if I'm not on the board. On 
helping to collect invoices and asking for sponsorship (I've done both 
for GNOME even in the last 2 weeks), it will be much easier if I am a 
board member, as I'd have the authority to represent the org.

As I said in an earlier email, being on the board is a lot of work - I 
want to make myself available to serve, but am happy to leave it to 
others if the membership so chooses. I think I'd be an asset to the 
Foundation in this position which is why I've chosen to run.  It's also 
hard for everyone to make promises about availability going forward.  
I've seen a lot of people promise to do a lot during the elections 
period and then fail to step up over the course of the term. I've 
avoided other boards in the past (I've been asked to serve on a lot of 
them) but I am making an exception this time as GNOME is special :)

The current board has been really great, and very active. I've been glad 
to work with them. If elected, I will indeed have to readjust my 
priorities and overall commitments. And it might mean that I miss a 
marketing meeting in favor of a board meeting if I am very busy that 
week. I think that's probably true for every board member though.

karen