Soliciting Applications and Nominations for the SPI Board
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Below is a message from Martin (Joey) Schulze, the current Vice President
of Software in the Public Interest (SPI). SPI is the non-profit corporation
that was formed to provide Debian with a legal and financial existence in the
United States, and which now provides similar service to several other notable
projects in our community. You can read more at http://www.spi-inc.org/.
As Debian Project Leader, I serve as an advisor to the SPI board.
As a Debian developer, you are a contributing member of SPI. Currently, you
need to express your interest at http://www.spi-inc.org/membership for SPI
to recognize you as such, since there is no automatic connection yet between
the Debian developer database and the SPI membership database.
The SPI board hasn't been very active lately, but there is great potential for
good work to be done on behalf of the community if contributors of sufficient
passion and energy emerge and devote themselves!
Please direct any followup to Joey, and/or the SPI mailing lists.
Bdale
Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2002 12:05:37 +0100
From: Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
Subject: Soliciting Applications and Nominations for the SPI Board
Some members of the current Board of Directors of Software in the
Public Interest would like to expand its Board. According to the
by-laws, the Board should include 8-12 people, and we may add a number
of advisors as well. We are soliciting applications and nominations.
It is my understanding that SPI should recruit new Board members
primary from its own members, the spi-general list and affiliated
projects, but consider new people as well. Hence, I'd like to
encourage you to forward this mail to your own members.
However, people in the Board of Directors are responsible for SPI.
The past has shown that busy people who are already affiliated in
several projects, and who have a day-time job and perhaps a family as
well, may not be best suited for yet another important job. They may
be too busy to join meetings, vote on resolutions or join the
discussion on certain topics.
I would also like to add a special "Assistant to the President" (one
could even say Secretary) to the Board, whose job would be to help the
(vice) president maintaining the Corporation, run meetings, draft
documents etc. It may be useful to split the work among two people
(maybe a Secretary and an Assistant) due to the large amount of
continuous work.
The tasks include but are not limited to:
. Writing minutes from board meetings and general meetings
. Monitor + merge corrections, additions, comments etc. to those
minutes
. Monitor votings on resolutions and minutes via mail
. Watch, prepare/propose, correct, help with, monitor
etc. upcoming resolutions
. Monitor meeting minutes and see which jobs still need to be done
. Remind people who agreed to work on a particular issue to work
on it accordingly
. Monitor discussions, so they leed to something, probably a
resolution
. Remind Board members to vote on a subject if they did not vote
on a particular resolution or minutes yet
. Simplify difficult (or large) postings so people with less
english skills are able to understand them and vote upon them,
even if they disagree with the content (they may vote NO in that
case, though)
. Watch or work on forgotton tasks
. Work or discuss with third parties who have sent in requests for
SPI
. Work together with third parties in order to accomplish certain
tasks (internet domain name registrars, for example)
. Doing research on certain topics that require more input
. Present research results to the board so people understand them
. Check whether meetings, resolutions and votes are done in
accordance to the by-laws and coi and other potential official
documents
. Prepare an agenda for Board meetings together with the (vice)
president
. Preparing amandments to current official documents and
resolutions
. Do or help with our official paperwork. I believe that the
state of our incorporation etc. requires some paperwork, which
not only the treasurer should be burried under.
. ensure meetings meet the required quorum
. backup with by-laws and coi that SPI works within the rules of
these documents, i.e. legally valid.
Of course, there should be a strong connection between the President
and the Assistant/Secretary. This person needs to be able to donate
time to SPI continuesly to work on these issues. We are also
soliciting applications for this position.
Regards,
Joey
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