[wplug-board] This saturday's GUM and board meeting

Bill Moran wmoran at potentialtech.com
Fri Dec 2 11:59:22 EST 2005


Crazy week.

I'm just getting caught up in reading all this.

I tend to be rather middle of the road on most of these topics.  I feel
that keeping a level of officialness is good, as it keeps things organized
and lets people know what to expect.  I think officialness becomes bad
any time it adds unnecessary work, or hinders a person or group's ability
to do its thing (whatever that may be).

The hard part, in my experience, is figuring out where to draw this line.
I've worked jobs that (in my opinion) were too far on both sides (i.e.
some jobs where there were too few rules, others where there were too
many).

I think this board will have the worst time of it, because we're dealing
with an entirely new method of organization.  We aren't sure exactly
what level of strictness will be necessary.  It seems as if Dave is
trying to err on the side of caution, while Patrick is trying to protect
us from becoming overly beauricratic.

I think this is a good sign.  With Dave trying to keep us strictly following
the rules, while Patrick tries to keep us from becomming big government, I
feel pretty confident that we'll find a happy middle ground.

(Note that this isn't to say that I believe Dave without Patrick would
result in big government, or that the reverse would result in anarchy, I
don't.  The point I'm making is that I think this kind of discussion is
good.)

Specifically:

1) I'm honored that Beth intends to "pass the Penguin" tomorrow.  As far
   as an official rule of order for using the penguin as a discussion
   control device - do we actually need one?  Isn't it common for groups
   to have "traditions" that aren't always documented?  Correct me if I'm
   wrong.
   This isn't to say that Dave's work is unnecessary.  It won't hurt to
   have it codified.  The point I'm making is that I don't believe that
   there's any reason we can't use the "pass the penguin" system even
   before it's officially documented, as it does have a traditional
   precedent within the group.
2) I think the most important things about board meetings are:
   a) We aren't sneaky aobut them - minutes must always be posted so the
      membership know what we're up to.
   b) We don't use meetings as a way to try to oust any particular board
      members.  The bylaws have specific rules on how that is to be done
      if it's required.  With the group we have, I don't expect this to
      be a problem.
   c) That we make an effort to ensure that we have board meetings at a
      time/place that makes it most likely that all board members can
      attend.
   Aside from that, I don't think we have to be too terribly strict
   unless problems arise.  We do want to be careful that we don't
   arbitrarily reschedule meetings and have a particular board member
   complain that he/she would have made the original timeslot.
3) I think we should migrate as much of the event work to the program
   committee as possible.  This includes scheduling, planning, selection
   of people like host and co-host, and announcement.  I would encourage
   the program committee to document its best-practices to establish
   what works and what doesn't.  I agree that when a membership meeting
   accompanies (for example) a GUM, this will warrant 2 announcements
   (one for the GUM, and another to the membership)  The PR committee
   will have to coordinate closely with the program committee to make
   things really work smoothly, but we don't even have a PR committee
   yet ;).  I think that the interaction between the PR & programm
   groups is something that will be best fleshed out though experience,
   and again, I'm going to trust to those committee members to document
   best practices for themselves.  I think we, as the board, need to
   ensure that we facilitate such documentation by requesting the
   Internet committee make space available for storing that documentation.
   This is something that's already been established by prior tradition,
   with Beth's "duties" web page, but could be made official via a
   rule.
4) We, as the board, don't have to dictate everything.  If the program
   committee approaches the Internet committee to get something cool
   to happen, we don't _need_ to be involved, as long as neither of
   those groups is violating any rules.  I would like to see such things
   occur, as (to me) it will be a sign of a healthy, thriving group.

I think we all need to be prepared for mistakes and mijudgements to happen.
In my experience, being up front and honest about mistakes will keep the
potential problems to a minimum, and make it easier to correct our mistakes
in the future.

For example, if we decide to move the next meeting up a few hours, and then
it causes trouble, we simply admit that it was a mistake, possibly negating
any decisions that were made at the meeting, and take care to learn so we
don't do it again.

-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com



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