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

[David Ostroske]

Comments below. I started writing this response yesterday but ran out
of time. So Beth, I'll answer your message shortly.

On 11/29/05, Patrick Wagstrom <pwagstro at andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-11-29 at 13:27 -0500, David Ostroske wrote:
> > Patrick, even if we all arrive early, we don't really have authority
> > to start early. If we could meet 3 hours early, there's nothing to
> > stop us from meeting 3 days earlier, or 3 weeks.
>
> Geeze, what is this, the FCC where no more than two commissioners can be
> together at the same location outside of official meetings?  If we need
> to get together and talk about something, then we should talk about it.

I just don't want us to get in the habit of playing loose and free
with the structure of the group. I can be flexible, though; if 4 out
of 5 of us arrive a few hours early, and we agree unanimously on
everything, then no problems. Done and dusted! But it's still not
fully representative if we don't hear from everyone and get started
too early.

[...]
> My experience with Roberts, which is moderately extensive, is that it's
> not meant to be used like a blunt instrument like this.  Even when I've
[...]

Heck, my intention isn't to hamstring the group. We've already set a
precedent for the penguin, and I want that precedent codified. That's
good legislative practice. The penguin's gonna get passed, whether we
write it up or not, since it's worked so well for us in the past.

But I want to make sure that we follow procedures properly, even if
it's just a formality, to ensure that we are as representative as we
possibly can be. If we ever get in a situation where another $person
causes the group trouble, the reputation of the organization will
depend on how well we can follow these procedures.

We can loosen up in due time. I don't want to be a parliamentarian
wonk for its own sake; I sympathize with what you're saying. I do want
to make sure that we're acting fairly, though.

> Isn't part of lining up an event making sure that people know about it?
> If we're expecting the folks from the program committee to really take a
> vested interest and put their hearts into this, we can't say something
> like "well, sure you can plan them, but all communications need to go
> through us so we can slow you down".  Taken from 7.3 of the bylaws:
[...]

I did read 7.3 before I wrote that paragraph.

As long as *somebody* makes the announcements, then there are no
problems. But if *nobody* makes announcements, we have to find out who
is supposed to, and then either let them announce, or do it for them
if they fail.

> Seems like announcing stuff is making arrangements isn't it?  Unless I'm
> missing something.  The less work the board does the better.  If we can
> get committees to do it, why not?  It builds up new leaders and
> encourages true ownership of the organization.

I'm all for letting the Program Committee make event announcements.
But for official notification, perhaps I should send the announcements
to the -members list.

> --Patrick

--
David Ostroske <eksortso at gmail.com>