[Osmf-talk] AGM and board elections

[Ivo Stankov]

+1

On Sat Sep 20 2014 18:05:05 GMT+0200 (CEST), Simon Poole wrote:
> 
> 
> Am 20.09.2014 13:10, schrieb Frederik Ramm:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > On 09/20/2014 10:47 AM, Severin Menard wrote:
> >> Representation of all the (sub-) continents would also improve the
> >> diversity.
> > 
> > As would representation of all the religions, and I think we should not
> > ignore the LGBT community.
> 
> And all relevant age groups.
> 
> 
> Seriously now:
> 
> The OSMF board is not a representative political body (IMHO), it is the
> elected body of the OSMF with a quite narrow remit that oversees our day
> to day operations, sets policies and strategies where necessary and
> carries the ultimate legal responsibility for the foundation.
> 
> Yes, the OSMF board is not very diverse in any dimension at all. But
> given its consistency and the pool from which candidates are mostly
> drawn and the people our members elect in the end, that shouldn't be a
> surprise.
> 
> Simply adding people not involved in OSM to make the board more diverse
> might be a nice publicity stunt (they wouldn't even have to be elected),
> but doesn't change the underlying mechanisms that leads to OSM and the
> OSMF having the make up that it does (and the OSMF board is definitely
> not visible enough that you could use a role model argument).
> 
> Where we need really need more diversity is in the OSMF membership (in
> the end that is our representative political body), for example by
> making it financially easier to join. It is not quite clear if we will
> have a proposal for the November GM, but it is being worked on.
> 
> A further dimension is that the board is expected to do actual work,
> making practical and financial concerns issues. Right now, for all
> practical purposes, all board members are either financially independent
> or sponsored by the organisations that they are affiliated with. They
> neither get paid for their time nor do most submit and receive expenses.
> Substantially expanding the geographical, language and affluence spread
> will have the impact of making things a lot more complicated and expensive.
> 
> The equivalent body with the WMF with slightly more members (10) is not
> all that more diverse, and costs roughly $1'000'000 to organize, pay
> expenses and cart around the globe. In other words a good 6 times the
> total budget of the OSMF (I believe the costs for the OSMF board this
> year to be limited to the unheard of splurge of printing business cards
> for the board members).
> 
> Now I don't believe the current situation with 6 of 7 board members,
> more or less in the same time zone and a zero cost board should or will
> continue, changing it is just slightly more involved than stating that
> things should be different.
> 
> Simon
> 
> 
> 
>

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