[Linux-aus] With elections coming up soon I thought I'd post a few ideas

[Pia Waugh]

Hi Brenda,

<quote who="Brenda Aynsley">

> have you considered an 'orderly approach' to the office bearers positions?
> By this I mean having a qualification period, via 'apprenticeship' 
> working your way through the hierarchy.

Hmm, interesting idea.
 
> The Law Society in NSW I believe sets an example in this regard, where 
> you have president and a senior and junior vp.  the senior vp steps up 
> to be president, but if s/he isnt available then the junior steps up. 
> So in effect when you elect the senior office bearers, you are doing so 
> for up to 3 years in advance.  In doing that, the pres would be well 
> versed in the issues of the organisation and could then hit the ground 
> running, bringing his/her special talents to the position for the period 
> of the incumbency.

I do like the idea of a completely new president coming in and breathing
life into the org, after all, if we'd had that system, then LA might not be
where it is today. I think some grooming of new committee members needs to
happen, but I'm not sure how to formalise that process without losing the
sponteneity which can be good for an org like this.

> Of course as pia says, one year terms renewable does the job quite 
> nicely.  :-)

If we have yearly elections for the ordinary members, and 2 yrs for the
"named" positions (pres, vp, secretary and treasurer) then maybe that would
work? Constantly getting new blood in, but the roles with most of the work
have a bit more consistency. 

I think there are some great models out there. The main key to success is
the community buy-in and expectation coupled with the transparency and
accountability of the ctte, which means that if the ctte is ever slack then
it is the community that upholds the standard. I've tried to write-up how
the org should work to some degree on the policies and procedures page of
the website. Some of it is currently being done, some not, but if the
expectation is there and it is written down to point at and compare against,
then even a dodgy ctte would have to do the right thing :)

Policies and procedures along with the official organisation mission/vision
etc is all up at http://www.linux.org.au/about/. What do people think about
this approach?

Cheers,
Pia

-- 
Linux Australia                                         http://linux.org.au/