Board meeting 2010-12-14

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Board meeting 2010-12-14

This board meeting convened primarily for the purpose of discussion the upcoming election for board of directors.

Miloh Alexander, Ani Niow, Shannon Lee, Andy Isaacson, Rachel McConnell, Jonathan Lassoff, and Seth Schoen were present at 2169 Mission.

Shannon: Noisebridge seems to be losing its identity and become more diffuse and consequently people don't feel a sense of responsibility to the organization.

Others: You've been saying that for a long time...

Shannon: It's still true. And it relates to our problems sustaining the organization.

Miloh: Noisebridge is a shell organization to do whatever people want to do, so this is OK if it doesn't have a single identity.

Shannon: This is proposed as an agenda item for the annual member meeting.

Andy: OK, this will be an agenda item for the member meeting. We have to actually have one and so designate it.

Miloh: Why isn't the regular meeting enough?

Andy: It's officially supposed to be designated as one. The main purpose of such a meeting is to elect the board. Then it can meet and elect officers.

Shannon: I can't come on Jan. 4.

Rachel: Jan. 11?

Seth: I can't be here but I could designate and teach someone else how to do it.

Rachel: Someone will need to run the election.

Jof: I will run the election.

Seth: Does the board agree to hold the election on Jan. 11?

Andy: It's too bad that it can't happen before then.

Seth: Shall we have all the features of the election the same as last year? Viz.

  • Condorcet
  • Electronic tallying
  • Paper ballots in a ballot box
  • No formal controls of people's ability to vote
  • Having a list of people who are eligible but not enforcing it

At least two board members object to the lack of controls against fraud.

Seth: Last year this was made explicit.

Rachel: It was made explicit that we couldn't do anything "reasonable" to prevent fraud so we decided not to.

Shannon: Kelly could accept the ballots and check people off or otherwise verify people.

Rachel: Although she might not be able to be here.

Andy: It seems important to have some mechanism to actually use the list to verify things, so that people don't have the perception that there are no controls or that their votes won't matter or will be overwhelmed by fraud.

Discussion of whether Condorcet tallying tends to detect / deter fraud and whether there are other ways to show that we actually do deter ballot fraud.

Rachel: The person managing the process could deal with accepting proxies and then it could all happen in a single day.

Miloh: Maybe we don't need this process.

Seth: The bylaws say that nominations should be complete 21 days before the election.

Jof: Can we get a proposal today and ratify it together with nominations at the next meeting, one week from today?

Seth: It turns out that nominations are supposed to begin 30 days before the election. Which would mean that we don't actually have enough time to comply with the nomination process as of now and hold the elections on Jan. 11.

Discussion: Move elections to 18th. The board also designated January 18 as the 2010 annual member meeting.

Seth: The bylaws say that the president shall choose a committee to nominate candidates. Last year this was apparently "any person".

Jof: All Noisebridge members in good standing are hereby appointed to the nominating committee, to commence today (December 14).

Jof plants the "HEREBY!" flag in reality.

Jof is going to send a plan to the membership.

Discussion of the timing of consensus on the election plan. We can't consense on it unless it's discussed at a general meeting today. However, Jof agrees to tell us his plan right now and then it will be up for consensus next week.

Nominations will be open for 9 days. Consensus on Jof's election process to occur at next general meeting, one week from today. Election itself to occur on Jan. 18, administered by Jof.

All those who are candidate are requested to be present on Jan. 18, which is also designated as the annual member meeting for purpose of election of directors, with the aim of achieving a quorum for a meeting of the newly elected board of directors.

Motion for adjournment. Meeting is adjourned.