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

[Jeff Waugh]

<quote who="James Purser">

> First off I would like to revisit the idea of extending the terms of the
> office holders(President, Vice President, Treasurer and Secretary) on the
> committee. One year is really not enough for someone to get elected, get
> used to the position and the responsibilities and then get stuck into long
> term projects. In my opinion two year terms would be best .

Disagree. Continuity and the opportunity to disrupt it should be entirely in
the hands of the membership. If an office holder believes he or she should
continue on in that role, they have every opportunity to state why (and why
we should vote for them) in their election platform. If a member believes
the office holder is not doing their job, there are options available to
rectify the situation:

 a) run for that position (which in itself can be a strong message in a
    community organisation like Linux Australia)
 b) publically state their reasons for not endorsing the office holder
 c) vote against the the office holder

If the office holder *is* doing a good job, then either no one will stand
for their position, or they will receive a majority vote. It's not like we
are optimising out an expensive election process here (in fact, we would not
be removing any election process - we'd still have to elect ordinary members
under your proposal), so an enforced two year term is a false benefit. It is
easier to continue with the process, and provide the membership with every
opportunity to confirm the status quo or fix problems than it is to mandate
an inflexible, benefit-free, zero-saving, false optimisation. :-)

> Should we be looking at maybe taking on the role of Linux Australasia,
> becoming a body that represents LUGs and the FOSS community both here and
> in New Zealand? This is of course predicated on whether the New Zealand
> FOSS community would want to be part of such an organisation.

I think we should encourage the New Zealand community to rock hard on their
own merits. We're giving them a helping hand with linux.conf.au 2006. In any
case, let's leave this discussion for Dunedin. :-)

> As to the openness, I know the committee is a volunteer org and time is a
> rare commodity, however I might suggest something like a monthly
> Presidents report or similar, just to keep people up to date with what is
> going on.

Regular reporting from the committee (there's no reason why it has to be a
particular member of the committee) would be nice, but if there's nothing
major to report, then there's nothing major to report. :-) Meeting minutes
would be nice, though.

- Jeff

-- 
linux.conf.au 2006: Dunedin, New Zealand               http://linux.conf.au/
 
    "Women are too irrational to be crazed killers anyway." - Angus Lees