[Osmf-talk] AGM and board elections

Simon Poole simon at poole.ch
Sun Sep 21 18:41:31 UTC 2014



Am 21.09.2014 13:57, schrieb Randy Meech:
> On Sun, Sep 21, 2014 at 5:20 AM, Simon Poole <simon at poole.ch> wrote:
>> Formal membership in an organisation is simply slightly at odds with the
>> basic premise of OSM.
> 
> Possibly, but in fact there is an organization and it has remained
> largely static over the years. This seems more at odds with a large
> global project, to say nothing of how unsafe it is to have board seats
> won with so few votes on such a valuable project.
> 
>> As said above at least from a pure legal pov some of the hurdles are now
>> gone. We don't have a good solution wrt the membership fees which at
>> least for some regions are a big hurdle, but I'm a tiny bit optimistic
>> that we may have something this or next year (it is again one of those
>> issues that have been on the table since 2007).
> 
> There could be a multi-year plan with membership targets and
> accompanying price reductions. For example, double membership in 2015,
> cut the fees in half. Or something like that with the goal of raising
> roughly the same money from many more people.

Cost is the one thing, but in the discussions we were thinking more
about people that simply don't have a bank account and no way to
transfer any kind of funds.

> 
> As for other hurdles, removing them is great but I believe the real
> problem is lack of knowledge about the OSMF and what it does among the
> general OSM user base.
> 
>> If we take it as a given that increasing membership is a good idea, the
>> question is what should the board or more specific: I, do about it? This
>> might seem like a rhetoric question, but isn't.
> 
> Some ways to do this:
> 
> 1. Put up a notice on the website (like the one for SotM in Buenos
> Aires right now) with a message & a link to this:
> http://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Join

That sounds doable and I might even be able to convince somebody to do
it without having to code it myself.

> 
> 2. A yearly email to all registered users seems reasonable. Could have
> a few versions depending on user activity. For inactive users,
> reminding them about the project and pointing out improvements in
> editing tools since they joined could be good. For active users,
> educating them about the existence of the OSMF, what it does, how the
> working groups need help (per Paul's message on this thread), how to
> get involved, join, vote, etc.

With the absolute exception of the licence change (we really didn't have
a choice then) we haven't used the messaging system for broadcast
communications at all, and I know that there are a number of different
views on the legality and appropriateness of using it as a marketing
channel. So I would consider that a bit iffy.

> 
> 3. Reminder emails to OSMF members as their memberships expire per
> Michal's other email on the topic.

Henk does send out reminders on a regular base. So I think this is
covered (e-mail from unexpected sources tends to be rather flaky though).

> 
> I'd be happy to write up some of this if people think it's helpful. I
> talked to Harry about joining the CWG but haven't done much yet.

As Paul has already pointed out, the main issue is not the low number of
members, but far more the low (two dozen plus) number of people that
actually volunteer some of their time.

Simon

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