[Osmf-talk] Hiring help for OSMF administrative tasks

Simon Poole simon at poole.ch
Wed Mar 11 12:31:20 UTC 2015


I'm rather on the fence on the issue. Which in itself might say if it
isn't clear cut and obvious maybe there is actually no case for the
specific position at this point in time.

Lets have a look at what the administrative situation is currently (I'm
assuming that nothing has changed over the last months, if it has I
apologize).

Currently the OSMF "office" is handled by Andy Robinson in the sense
that he receives any postal mail (1) and forwards it to the board member
or who ever is responsible, further he takes care of filing any relevant
documents. This tends to be a trickle of activity, most of the time
nothing with small bursts of activity. In my two years on the board the
only real downside was that there is no easy way to know what is on file
and get a copy without bothering Andy, so there was a natural reluctance
to actually ask for files even if they could have been helpful.

The other part of this is that nobody really knows how complete the
record keeping has been over the years and how many company documents
and correspondence is in somebodies personal files at home somewhere or
in a private mailbox. And I wouldn't exclude myself from such
misbehaviour, while all my correspondence (postal, fax and e-mail)
during my time on the board is available on the OSMF google drive and
related apps, it is not really on file in any reasonably searchable form.

Frederik at one point started an undertaking to provide a central
digital document repository and to collect all relevant material. I'm
not quite sure how far that has progressed in the mean time, but it
would likely be the way to go considering the nature of the organisation
(2).

Looking at the above, I think I could make a case for a limited time 1-2
months paid clean up effort, assuming that former board members would
actually support it. Ongoing I would consider it a bit over the top to
actually employ somebody for the day to day administrative work, but for
example making an arrangement with a secretarial service company of some
sorts could make a lot of sense given the low work load.

The other activity that has been suggested for an admin assistant is
that of minute taking during board meetings. I would consider this
rather dangerous to give to somebody who is dependent on one or more of
the participants for their livelihood. Public minutes tend to always be
political in nature, not just in the OSMF, and prone to being fudged
with.

Simon


(1)  Yes the OSMF has a published postal address (which is the same as
its registered place of business), which is more than can be said of,
say, HOT.

(2) Financial records are filed by the OSMF accountant, it is not quite
clear how far back complete records are available, but it is at least
the last handful of years since the mandate was given to an external person.

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