[Linux-aus] Converting Linux Australia's "Committee" to a "Board"

[Andrew Bartlett]

On Fri, 2007-03-02 at 15:51 +0000, Stewart Smith wrote:

> It's *very* common in voluntary organisations for positions such as
> treasurer and secretary to go unfilled, or be filled by semi-unwilling
> volunteers each year in part due to the extra workload of holding these
> roles (ESPECIALLY for a full year).
> 
> Being able to move the roles around would mean the flexibility of:
> - active training of new people (especially for treasurer) and sharing
> of workload (especially for treasurer).
> 
> The workload of the treasurer is IMMENSE. Sorry... i don't think that
> got the point across...
> 
> the workload of the treasurer is
>  _                      
> | |__  _   _  __ _  ___ 
> | '_ \| | | |/ _` |/ _ \
> | | | | |_| | (_| |  __/
> |_| |_|\__,_|\__, |\___|
>              |___/      

Indeed.

> and it has a tendancy across volunteers to wear people out and have them
> running for the hills at the end of the time, or do a really half-arsed
> job and leave some poor sod to try and clean up the mess (like having to
> wind up the organisation because it discovers it's bankrupt).
> 
> Solving this problem is probably THE most important thing for an
> organisation to achieve to be sustainable.... we've probably solved it
> 20%.
> 
> Think of the situation in the current system if nobody nominates for
> treasurer... what on earth do we do then? Panic is probably the best
> answer.
> 
> If treasurer and secretary came from the board, we'd know that somebody
> on the board would have to take this role (even if it were by drawing
> the shortest straw) so we'd be in less of a disaster.

Interestingly, at my Church (where I'm on Parish Council), the
treasurers are 'ex-officio'.  They do not sit on Council, but prepare
the books and do all the other normal duties.  The job is also shared
between the two treasurers.  This arrangement means that they do not
need to be part of the decisions of the council, and often only one
attends meetings, and can leave early (removing workload).  It also
helps that one is an accountant by trade...

The procedure seems to be that if nobody on council nominates for the
position, then we vote to appoint the ex-officio treasurers. 

Andrew Bartlett

-- 
Andrew Bartlett                                http://samba.org/~abartlet/
Authentication Developer, Samba Team           http://samba.org
Samba Developer, Red Hat Inc.                  http://redhat.com
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