Interim Board meeting Minutes/1 November 2004

Prior: 25 October 2004

Interim Board meeting Minutes

Next: 8 November 2004

Minutes approved: 8 November 2004

This document is a board working paper, and commercial in confidence.

Present

Geoff Halprin, Lorette Cheswick, David Parter, Trey Harris

Meeting

2004-11-01 1900 US/East

Opened

19:00 (Lorette joined 19:30)

Closed

20:38

1 REDACTION APPROVED.

Consent Agenda

• Meeting minutes (2004-10-18) approved by consent.
• Meeting minutes (2004-10-25) approved by consent.

Action Items

• See action item list.

Unfinished Business

Legal Infrastrucure

• Appleman and Lemond spoke last week.

• USENIX POV is that 501c3 is better for USENIX.
• It was noted that articles had been drawn up as 501c3.
• Lemond says do c3 now (keep USENIX happy); then decide about c6.
• {7 words redacted; business sensitivity}
• Decision: Proceed as 501c3. Unanimous.

• Minor changes to bylaws.

• Will markup wiki.

• Sparse comment on membership xfer issues.

• No roadblocks raised.

Operations Infrastructure

• 2/3 through proposals. Uploading to wiki.
• Trey to send Geoff/board note on how to upload media files. (Action Point #20041101.01)

Computing Infrastructure

• Nothing to report.

• Geoff to bounce discussion with Perl Training Aust (Mel) to David. (Action Point #20041101.02)

Yerkes award

• Nothing to report.
• Need candidates identified ASAP.
• All board members willing to review nominations.

Outstanding Achievement Award

• Rob and team was meeting today.
• No report yet.

LISA Planning

• Covered meetings under action points.
• Atanta arrival schedule:

• David: Sat/Sun
• Trey: Sun
• Geoff: Sat
• Lorette: (Hawaii)

• Meeting: Monday 10am East (Geoff's suite)
• Teleconf: Monday 6pm East (with Lorette)

Memo to members

• Sent. Currently blockeed in approval queue.

• Just cleared by Rob.
• Now arrived on list.

Election Policy Decisions Discussion

• Electronic voting (side note)

• In NJ, statutes about voting have never changed.

• Electronic votings are ok.

• At large versus officers

• Trey:

• At large. (Continue sage method).
• Key issue: Conservation of talent.
• Better to choose leader rather than imposed.
• Primary importance: get the talent where its needed.

• David:

• Agree on talent issue.
• Don't like board choosing. Awkward, potentially devisive.
• Get bad choice anyway (least offensive to board?)
• Nomcom takes ego out of equation a little.
• First meeting can divide the board.
• Nomcom should nominate entire slate.

• Lorette:

• Have seen officers selected by nomcomm subset of board. Voted by board.
• Lemond suggested at-large, with officers from there.
• Make nomcom standing committee. Issue guidelines.
• For at-large board.
• Need induction training for board members.

• Will send existing induction materials. (Action Point #20041101.03)

• Geoff:

• Officers runoff to general?
• Staggering just confuses things. Breaks flow.
• Nomcomm should be standing committee.
• Prefer at-large.
• Need induction training for board members.

• Vote: Elections for directors at-large. Unanimous.
• Vote: Standing leadership committee/nomcom. Unanimous.

• breeding talent within subcommittees.
• maintaining induction kit, board training issues.
• nomcom (candidate slate) as x-annual duty.
• Lorette: mandate may be too broad.

• Electoral threshold (plurality, etc.)

• Trey:

• Proportional voting (ranked order of candidates).
• Last two SAGE elections, only top two candidates reached plurity benchmark.

• David:

• Intrigued, but no experience.
• People don't really run on platforms. Popularity contest.

• Lorette:

• Not enough experience.
• Don't like plurality.

• Geoff:

• Like proportional. (Best represents what most members want.)

• Voting method.

• Proportional: Trey, Lorette, Geoff.
• Plurality: David.

• Staggered elections.

• Don't stagger: Trey, David, Geoff.
• Stagger: Lorette.

• To be decided at next meeting:

• Term limits.
• Bylaw amendments.
• Size of membership quorum: 1/10 or 1/20.
• Size of board quorum.

Meeting closed

20:38