[Linux-aus] Can Linux Australia survive?

[Andrew Cowie]

On Fri, Jul 01, 2005, James Purser wrote:
> > Executive committee members (President, Vice President, Secretary and
> > Treasurer) serve for two years while the standard members serve annual
> > terms.

No. Bad idea. Because

On Fri, 2005-01-07 at 15:53 +1000, Mary Gardiner wrote:
> They'd still need to be "staggered" terms to achieve the desired effect,
> which is strong institutional memory. Having the entire knowledge base
> of the organisation replaced every two years is nearly as bad as every
> year

Yes.

Just as a side note to the discussion, I injected this meme by noting
that my experience from numerous other (quite effective, thank you)
organizations are Board terms of *THREE* years, with one-third up for
renewal annually, and term limits of three three year terms (nine years
service max).

Myself, I think that even 2 years is a bit tight but Pia is adamant
about it not being more than two. <shrug>. Certainly, some number more
than 1 implies that agreeing to stand for election means absorbing a
non-trivial commitment.

[There is a deeper question around the role of the Board (Committee,
sic), that is, should the Board be carrying out a governance function
only, or is the Board somehow responsible to also be the Executors of
all the organizations actions? 

The latter is, regrettably, quite common in Australian associations...

(c.f., the Committee of each LUG around the country saying "shit, why is
everyone else sitting back and making us do all the work?")

...and quite dysfunctional, for the reasons that Stewart summarized in
his blog post]

AfC
Sydney

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Andrew Frederick Cowie
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