Board Meeting Minutes 2012-09-16

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

OpenStreetMap Foundation Board meeting

16th September 2012, 20:00 GMT, Telephone Conference

Participants

OSMF Board Members: Matt Amos, Richard Fairhurst, Henk Hoff, Oliver Kühn, Dermot McNally, Simon Poole, Frederik Ramm

Guests: Steve Coast (Chairman Emeritus)

Administrative: Previous minutes

July 17th 2012
Proposed: Richard
Seconded: Dermot
Approved

August 14th 2012
Proposed: Dermot
Seconded: Oliver
Approved

September 5th 2012
Proposed: Dermot
Seconded: Matt
Approved

From previous minutes

Richard & Henk: Communication Policy >>> Ongoing.

Mikel to sent request for help with organization development >>> Talked with 4 organisations. Needs follow up by board. Henk: Will send Mikel’s summaries to the new board members.

Matt: boiler plate contract for future freelance hires >>> Ongoing

Appointing Officers

The following officers were appointed by the board (with number of votes):

Chairman: Henk: 3, Simon: 4 >> Simon is appointed Chairman

Secretary: Matt: 2, Frederik 4: >> Frederik is appointed Secretary, takes over minutes from here.

Treasurer: Oliver is sole nominee, accepts.

Vote of thanks

Steve proposed a vote of thanks for last year’s board. Matt proposed a vote of thanks to Henk for all his hard work, including the recent SOTM12 conference. Dermot proposed a vote of thanks to all those who got the license change done.

All were unanimously agreed upon. Thank you!

Working Group representation

The board intends to have one of their group as a board liaison in each of the working groups. We identified the following:

  • Communication WG: Richard (primary contact), Henk;
  • Data WG: Frederik (primary contact), Matt;
  • Engineering WG: Matt;
  • License WG: Oliver, Simon;
  • Local Chapters WG: Simon;
  • Operations WG: Matt;
  • SotM WG: Henk, Steve;
  • Strategic WG: currently dormant, to discuss at F2F (also includes AoA WG)

Management Team

In a mail to Board (and Management Team) on last July 20th, the MT suggested to change the role of the MT to a slightly different role. (Henk to forward mail to Frederik and Simon.) Instead of the go-between for WG’s and Board, it suggested to focus on supporting the WG’s: Promote the WG’s within the community as a means to get involved / active with OSM, chasing after “non-existent” WG’s, setting up new WG’s (if needed), etc.

During a short discussion, it was pointed out that MT never really fulfilled the hope we had when setting it up, namely reducing the day-to-day workload of the board. Possible reasons for this include that MT was never really equipped with decision-making powers, and also that typically board members are drawn from the most active and best-connected people in OSM so many tasks naturally end up with the board. But it was also pointed out that we should perhaps not re-organise things all the time.

Board decided to discuss this in depth at the face-to-face meeting.

Face to Face

Oliver volunteered to manage the location (i.e. booking accomodation, meeting place etc.). Everyone is responsible for their own travel arrangements. The location will be either Berlin or Munich, and the meeting will take place on 3-4 November. Board members will attempt to arrive at Friday the 2nd in the evening, and will leave on Sunday evening.

Berlin or Munich will be decided in the coming days on the mailing list.

Frequency and mode of board meetings

In the past, meetings were held by telephone conference, sometimes as often as once a week, sometimes only averaging once a month. After a short discussion about possible other modes of meetings and decision making, board agrees to discuss this during the face-to-face meeting.

Day33 vandalism issue

A persistent vandal in Northern Germany has meanwhile burned through 11 accounts; board discussed whether OSMF should initiate legal proceedings. It was decided to liaise with FOSSGIS in Germany who are our quasi local chapter. Frederik to make contact.

Chairman Emeritus

Frederik suggested that the Role/Privileges of the C.E. be more clearly defined. It was agreed to postpone this discussion until the next meeting.

Next meeting

The next meeting is to be conducted around the time of SOTM-US (either before or after) which is the mid-point between now and the planned face-to-face meeting. Details to be determined via the mailing list.

Meeting End

Meeting ended at 21:30 GMT.