Interim Board meeting Minutes/13 June 2005

Prior:
6 June 2005

Interim Board meeting Minutes

Next:
27 June 2005

Minutes approved: 27 June 2005

Present: Geoff Halprin (chair, minute taker), Lorette Cheswick, Trey Harris, David Parter.

Election

The process of exporting data from USENIX has been tested, and is reasonably expiditious.
- We need to ascertain the lead time we must give the USENIX office. It was asserted that USENIX only need an hour, and Matt only needs a few minutes to do the import.

Many people didn't know about the election. There was a question regarding whether they had received renewal notices from the USENIX office at all.
- Lorette said that she didn't receive a renewal notice.
- Trey said that he didn't.
- This is disturbing information.
The upshot of this is that we can conclude a number of poeple didn't know that they were ineligible to vote.

A round table of opinions:
- David: Many people did not have advanced notice of the election due to the above problem.
- Lorette: This is an extraordinary circumstance. We should show flexibility. It also should contribute to building enthusiasm for the new organisation.
- Geoff: Thinks our original philosophical stance was correct: eligibility should, in general, be coincident with the announcement of the resolution under ballot. That avoids people rushing to join to affect a resolution. However these are not normal circumstances, especially in light of the above renewal notice problem.
- Trey: Geoff's philosophical point is moot under the circumstances.

Action Point: Trey will investigate these occurences with USENIX office.

MOTION: That the eligibility cutoff for participation in this election be Monday 2005-06-20 @ 1200 PST.

We will need to send an enotify to all expired members (since 2004-06-01), informing them of the election, deadline to renew, and reminder to ensure their passwords are correct.
- Action Point: Trey will send email to sage-members/e-notify.

Action Point: Trey will ask Greg Rose to ensure a reminder email with voting instructions is issued to all members at the start of the voting period.

We have an issue regarding how we handle the existing members with respect to transferring them into the new association.
- We would prefer to have them "opt-in" to the new association during the voting process, but this raises questions regarding D&O insurance.
The consensus of the meeting was that if we could have D&O finalised in time for the opening of the election, then we would proceed with opt-in. If D&O was not in place, then we would grant members of the SAGE class of USENIX a right to vote in this election, and make the directors so elected members and directors of the Association.
Action Point: Geoff to submit motion by email.
Action Point: Geoff to follow up with AH regarding timing of D&O insurance.

They are waiting on paperwork. Geoff will fax everything through after the meeting. Lorette will provide follow through to expedite the process.

Geoff put a copy of the contract up on the wiki, and sent an email out with feedback.
- Geoff will continue to work with AH to finalise the contract.

AH has provided a resume, and asked if we would be happy to proceed with this candidate (without proceeding to seek other candidates).
- The consensus of the meeting was that we are happy to consider the candidate submitted, but that this should not short-circuit the process we have already agreed upon.