[wplug-board] Tomorrow's meeting agenda

[Bill Moran]

In response to "David Ostroske" <eksortso at gmail.com>:

> On 8/4/06, Bill Moran <wmoran at potentialtech.com> wrote:
> > In response to "David Ostroske" <eksortso at gmail.com>:

> > As Chair, I can say that the meeting _will_ start at 10:30 sharp.  If we
> > don't have a quorum, we'll take the appropriate RONR actions.
> 
> I like that. 10:30, sharp!
> 
> Since we've been awfully quiet about this meeting on the lists, we may
> have to rely on quorum calls to bring people in. Beauty, if we don't
> have to. Feck all, if we do have to.

There's absolutely no reason why we can't send out reminders.  It's
probably a good idea to do so.

> > As far as who is eligible for the swag, the point was to get people to
> > show up for the meeting on time.  My opinion is that anyone who signs in
> > prior to 10:30 is in the raffle.  Anyone who shows up after that is late
> > and not in the raffle.
> >
> > Personally, I want to encourage responsible behaviour.  Showing up a little
> > late is no big deal ... it just means you're not in the raffle.
> 
> Well, to that end, it's safe for me to just say that anyone who shows
> up in time for the meeting will be entered into the raffle, and nobody
> else will be eligible. I'd thought that we'd be selling tickets to
> other people who wanted in on the raffle. I really ought to stress
> that "all you gotta do is show up."

Agreed.

> Does this imply that non-members also won't be eligible? Or will we
> give tickets to absolutely everyone who shows up early? I'm inclined
> towards the latter notion, actually. We'd be in a position to say,
> "Cope, okay? Lucky Bob's not a member, but at least he showed up!" :)

Not in my opinion, although we didn't specifically discuss this angle.
My thought is that it's a "members" meeting, so only members should be
able to win.  Thoughts?

> > If the goal were to punish irresponsible behaviour, we could do something
> > like lock the door from 10:30 - 11:30 and anyone who shows up late can't
> > attend.  Hopefully it won't ever come to punishment.
> 
> It should never come to that. We don't want to get in the habit of
> driving people away, for any reason that wouldn't involve the
> Investigating Committee.

As I said, I hope it never comes to that.

> > > * What precisely is our recommendation that the members will be voting
> > > on? Is it just setting dues at $10? Or will the vote be on both that
> > > and dropping the pizza coupon? My thought is, it's only the dues
> > > amount, but the coupon thing is immediately tied to that.
> >
> > Technically, the dues to this point have been, "$5 per year, and you're
> > guaranteed a coupon for 1 free pizza".  The new dues are "$10 per year"
> > While we probably need to verbally clarify that this no longer includes
> > pizza, I don't see that it needs to be official wording.  Thoughts?
> 
> Since we're bound by the bylaws on this matter, we MUST have official
> wording.

See my response to Patrick.

> We can't be fuzzy about this. Thing is, at the last Board
> meeting, we got a decent recommendation together, but didn't describe
> it in firm language. I'm partly to blame for that. I knew that the $10
> amount had to be approved, but it wasn't until later that I realized
> that the status of the pizza coupon wasn't clear. Was it part of the
> dues, something which the Board can't change without recommending an
> alternative to the membership, or just something the Board
> unilaterally offered new members? And for that matter, do we give out
> free pizza every time somebody renews their membership?
> 
> So. The old $5 dues amount, and the pizza coupon policy, was set by
> the previous Board. Beth, you posted this page (linked below) on the
> website last year, so you and Mark Dalrymple probably know better than
> any of us how the pizza coupon works. Is it part of the dues policy,
> or something else?
> http://www.wplug.org/membership/dues
> 
> No matter how it goes, I think more clarity is better than less. We'd
> face a firestorm if it wasn't made explicitly clear that the pizza
> coupons would be going away. I want to be upfront about it.
> 
> I could say this:
> "According to our bylaws, the Board recommends the dues, and the
> membership votes on whether or not to approve the recommendation. This
> is our main business for the meeting.
> 
> "Our current dues are $5 per year. Also, new members get a coupon for
> free pizza for 1 meeting. The Board recommends setting the dues at $10
> per year, without the pizza coupon."
> 
> If the pizza coupon isn't part of the dues, the second paragraph would
> just read:
> "Our current dues are $5 per year. The Board recommends setting the
> dues at $10 per year."

Reports and motions are two different things.  I think something akin to
the language that Patrick and I are discussing on the subthread is good
for the motion.  The report can be as detailed as whoever writes it wants
to be.  If there's confusion, hopefully it will get cleared up in
discussion prior to the vote.

The old dues was grandfathered in as a transition measure.  Clarifying it
in hindsite isn't something I'm interested in doing.  If the new dues
get approved, personally, I could care less about ambiguities in the
old dues.  We'll only have to approach that if the membership starts
getting fussy, or the new dues aren't approved, which is part of the
reason we're implementing new dues.

> > I looked this over.  While there are some interesting parliamentary twists
> > and turns, I don't see any of them being a big deal or ambiguous.  Here are
> > some possible scenarios and their resolution.
> [...]
> > 3) Membership rejects and has a "counter proposal" (let's say the
> >    membership thinks the dues should be $20).  Since the membership is
> >    ultimately in control, they simply vote down our original proposal,
> >    then move that the board must recommend the dues be set to $20.
> >    Assuming this passes the vote, the board must abide.  At that point
> >    the board has a new proposal that the dues be set at $20, and the
> >    membership will approve that (if they don't, then something is
> >    really weird).
> 
> Woah. The Board instantly recommends $20, because the membership can
> put it in our laps like that? If that's the case, what's the Board
> for?

As I stated with Patrick: the membership has the right to override
anything the board does or dissolve the board if it's unhappy with our
actions.  What would be our point in refusing to make a motion that
the membership requested us to make?

The purpose of the board is to handle the day-to-day management of WPLUG,
not decide what is best for WPLUG.

> The "recommendation and approval of dues " part of the bylaws
> seriously needs to be revised. In preparation for the annual meeting,
> we should put together all of the bylaws changes that we'd need
> members to vote upon, and bring them up in September as part of the
> nominations meeting. That way, we could handle Board elections and
> bylaws changes with the same absentee ballot mailing.

I don't foresee nearly as many problems with this as you do.  I guess
tomorrow will be an interesting litmus test.

> > > P.S. Beth, can you report for the Program Committee? And Chris, we
> > > don't need an ErieLUG Revival report for the membership, but it would
> > > be nice to have one. Are you up for that?
> >
> > Have you heard from anyone on the Internet Committee?
> 
> Yes, Duncan said that the secondary server has been put up, and that
> it's not currently offering any services. Have you got more, Bill?

Yes.  I asked Duncan if he was willing to officially take on the role
of chair of the Internet committee and have not heard from him.  I'd
like to have a point of contact for that group.

> It took me an hour to reply to this message, mostly because of the
> vagueness that we've all had to muddle through. I gotta get this off
> my shoulders... We've got to be crystal clear in the future, at least
> make clarity a priority when we do business. Otherwise we're in for a
> heap of trouble. Fuzziness leads to confusion, which leads to bad
> policy, bad action, and the inevitable violation of people's rights.
> Tell me of an era when this hasn't been so.

I don't disagree with your desire for clarity.  I like to think that
we're getting better.

-- 
Bill Moran
Collaborative Fusion Inc.