[wplug-board] board meeting?

David Ostroske eksortso at gmail.com
Sun Oct 29 23:36:07 EST 2006


Regarding our Monday night meeting, here's my homework. I'm keeping
Patrick's meeting room stuff here, since this is new to all of us. My
comments are below.

On 10/28/06, Patrick Wagstrom <pwagstro at andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:
[...]
> 8220.  I've booked a room in EPP instead, mainly because it's a whole
> kaboodle easier for me.  We'll be meeting at CMU, EPP Conference Room,
> Baker Hall 129.
>
> http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=5003+Frew+St,+Pittsburgh,+PA
> +15213&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=40.441134,-79.944195&spn=0.005422,0.014849&t=h&om=1&iwloc=addr
>
>  -- or --
>
> http://tinyurl.com/y9od2f
>
> Enter on the second floor where I've marked on the map.  Walk forward to
> the main long hallway.  Take a right (you'll see the hallway here is
> very long and sloped), walk up a little past the slope, it's the set of
> offices on the left.
>
> Got problems?  Call me on my cell at 412-606-9730.
>
> Please review what I sent out the other day about this meeting.
> Specifically, take some time to write up the questions I asked in the
> previous email.  This is really important.

SECRETARIAL DUTIES
My major duties as Secretary were:
* Write draft minutes for the meetings
* Send out business meeting announcements
* Call for reports from the committees each month
* Maintain the membership roster, including making calls for renewal
* Keep records for the group
* Draw up the ballots for absentee balloting
* Do some parliamentarian duties (and I had a lot of help with this)


Q: What did you do that went well?
A: Drafting minutes, maintaining the wplug-members mailing list, and
drawing up the ballots.

The minutes were somewhat easy to handle, based on my previous
experience with the bylaws revision subcommittee. My note taking might
have been better, but I did well, and I wasn't afraid to ask questions
right away if I couldn't write everything down.

The mailing list is a big part of the job. It took us a while to get
everyone on the list, but once it happened, list maintenance ran
smoothly. I still do maintenance, primarily deleting spam.

The ballots were probably the most enjoyable part. Mark Dalrymple had
given me a great precedent to work with. I hope I did the same for
next year... and next month, too.


Q: What went poorly?
A: I didn't coordinate with the Chair as much as I should have.

I should have spoken with Bill more before meetings, especially when
drafting the agenda. Bill, I'm sorry. If there's anything I would've
done better, that was it. I hope you'll work with Patrick on this.


Q: How could the position run better?
A: Maintain a tighter calendar.

Just like any volunteer, I had been tempted, time and time again, to
put stuff off until the last minute. I took my duties seriously,
though, and got my work done, when it needed done, to the best of my
ability. I should have done some more time planning, and saved myself
from a lot of pain.


Q: Who were key contacts for you?
A: WPLUG's biggest contributors, really.

Beth for the mailing lists. Mark Dalrymple and Vance for the website.
Duncan for the Internet Committee reports. Patrick for the Program
Committee reports. Vance for the newsletter. Chris for the ErieLUG
updates. Greg Simkins for certain PR things. Vance, Patrick, Bob
Turley, and John McCarter for help on parliamentary procedure.


Q: How did the position surprise you?
A: Being Secretary of the 2005-06 Board of Directors was very
different from being secretary of the 2004-05 bylaws revision
committee.

The bylaws committee was a legislative body, in a way. I concerned
myself with maintaining language proposals; that was the most
important part of the job. The Board is an executive body, and
coordinating text wasn't so important; recording actions and proposal
for actions was what was important. I didn't realize how informal we
would be during Board meetings, even though we got much accomplished.

Also, Bill took me by surprise when he said on September 16th that the
Secretary had the hardest job! Maybe it was. I never realized it until
the last month, and that was really the toughest month: ballots, the
election, the membership renewals, the draft minutes (for Board and
membership), and everything else involved with proper procedures
surrounding it all.

(I wasn't at all surprised that most of the real WPLUG work takes
place outside the meetings.)


Q: What would you like to see the position do?
A: The same, but better!

Bill, you'll be able to establish structures and procedures for the
Board and for the membership, just by doing the job. You'll have to
write the draft minutes and send out the business meeting
announcements. And this year, you'll have to handle membership
renewals in a timely fashion. Get familiar with your toolsets for
taking notes, writing important (probably boilerplate) stuff, and
maintaining lists. I'll help wherever I can.


LONG-TERM PLANNING
An observation before I get started. I'm writing these plans with the
intent that they be revisited at least on a monthly basis. It's too
easy to forget why we agree to do things. I'm not saying that we ought
to review these plans at every meeting (though we could!). I'm saying
that:
* the plans we write should be our own (they've gotta start in our own minds),
* they should be meaningful (nothing we can't rationally justify),
* they should be implementable (we can take steps to get them started), and
* we should be able to talk about them (we gotta have passion for the stuff).


ONE-YEAR PLAN:
Let's start with an obvious one:
* Find a reliable meeting place, and schedule all of our GUMs and
events at least three months in advance!

I can't help too much with this effort, but it's vitally important if
we want to keep folks showing up for our get-togethers.

Also associated with this effort:
* Get the new Penguin up and running, and encourage its use.

That one is admittedly fuzzy, but I do want folks to use the wiki.
More on that below.

Now, I made the following list during the election. It's the sort of
stuff that I'd want to get myself personally involved in:

* Keep inviting interesting people who use Linux and open-source
software to talk to us.
I know a few companies that could give us insights into how companies
use Linux. I will make contacts with them, and encourage them to make
a techie-friendly talk to us. (I'm not as resistant to "marketroid"
speeches as others; I gotta remember to keep the tech focus.)

Also, we should hold at least a few tutorials on some bread-and-butter
software packages. OpenOffice Calc, Writer, Impress? Evolution?
Business-friendly wikis?

* Hold social activities, to build the community, and especially
during the summer!
This is something that I spoke with Brian Seklecki about. I'd like us
to arrange for next year's summer picnic early. I'd also like us to
arrange at least two on-site visits. Could we reschedule the site
visit that we had to cancel this past year? Could we get a tour of
some of the companies that our members work for?

* Promote ourselves to outside groups.
We've made some ties to Pittsburgh Perl Mongers. We could keep this up.

I will take it upon myself to attend other tech meetings in the
Pittsburgh area. When I go to such a meeting, I'll get contact info
and do what I can to promote WPLUG. And I'll report this to the Board,
if I haven't reported it on the main mailing list. Cross-promotion is
a good thing. :)

* Help organize a Linux conference in the Pittsburgh area.
This is LugRadio Live USA. I'll work with Chris Teodorski, who is the
real mastermind behind this effort. I've already got contacts for the
beer. ;)

* Promote our brand new wiki.
Let me break this down into a couple of things:
* * Get a canonical URL for the wiki.
It should be <http://www.wplug.org/wiki>. Nothing else will be memorable enough.

* * Post last year's minutes, the bylaws, the rules of order, and a handbook.
The wiki will include our precedents and our past work. I want to
start with last year's minutes and post them in reverse chronological
order; even though Bill will be secretary, I still feel obliged to do
this, and Bill can make changes to the layout as he sees fit.

THREE-YEAR PLAN:
Seriously, I can't think that far ahead. I want to do the 3-yr and 5yr
plan thing at the same time.

NO-YEAR PLAN:
I don't give a damn about the following things, and here's why:

* Building membership!

If we do our jobs correctly, then the membership will grow naturally.
The numbers only make sense if we intend to throw some weight around,
and I have no interest in gaining power without purpose.

* Putting people on committees!

We have some duty to form committees. But what we really want to do is
empower specific people for specific actions. "Let them own it, they
want to do it!" If they can make things happen, delegate complicated
tasks, and report on their progress, then all will be right. Heck, we
should let them form their own committees, just so long as they tell
us who's working with them so we can formally add the new volunteers
to the committees.

* Drawing distinctions between members and non-members!

A lot of people are deciding not to renew their memberships, and have
even decided not to join. They can't participate in formal business
meetings without membership consent, and they can't vote. This doesn't
mean that they don't care about WPLUG. If they can contribute, let's
let them. This will mean more in years to come than right now.

* Receiving praise!?

Maybe it's because it's late Sunday night, but I want to get a little
philosophical, even a little psychological. The practical purpose
behind my ramblings will become evident, so please bear with me.

Judgment, positive or negative, but improperly applied, leads to
nothing. Heaven and hell, both are final. But life keeps going.
Whatever lies beyond this life does not interest me. I just want to
live an excellent life. That being said...

I don't know about you all, but notes of gratitude make me nervous.
I'm absolutely sure that they're well-intentioned, I won't deny that.
But I've come to the conclusion that I don't believe in salutary
praise. All the accolades in the world won't make me a better person.
Kind words are the statues that you see on the tops of buildings,
finalities instead of gateways.

I'd rather be encouraged to keep doing good stuff in the future than
to dwell on the good stuff I did in the past. It's fine to let someone
know that they've done a good job, but I'd rather be told to keep it
up than to just leave it at that.

And I'd extend that notion to all of our dealings with our volunteers.
I'd like them to give us their best, and let them enjoy it, so that it
becomes a part of who they are. I do the same thing with myself. It's
not perfect, but it's an ongoing process.

I'm happy to be working with all of you again. But our work is only
just beginning.

-- 
David Ostroske <eksortso at gmail.com>



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