[Noisebridge-discuss] Noisebridge Board Elections 2011

[Josh Myer]

It's also worth mentioning that the board at Noisebridge exists to follow,
not to lead.  It's an artifact of corporate structure requirements, and, as
a bonus, makes it easier for people to pay cash for pseudonymous
memberships.  Any meaningful decisions are actually made by the membership
via consensus, and the board follows these decisions.

For instance: the way Jof became President was, at one Tuesday meeting, it
was decided, "The next person who walks through the door will be President,"
and he happened to come in next.

Noisebridge's corporate structure is kinda what you'd expect from an
anarcho-libertarian hacker organization.  This worked great when we had a
treasurer who was sitting on members to pay their damn dues, but the
previous treasurer was quite bad about that.  I understand that Kelly has
been far better about this.
--
/jbm

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:34 PM, Shannon Lee <shannon at scatter.com> wrote:

> The board is just a board, like a board of directors; none of them have
> specific duties.
>
> Officer positions at Noisebridge are Executive Director (AKA President),
> currently Jof; Treasurer, currently Kelly; and Secretary, currently Seth.
>  Officers are (theoretically) elected by the board, but in practice they are
> consensed on by the membership and then the board elects the officers that
> consensus has selected.
>
> I believe that only board membes are up for election this time around.
>
> --S
>
>
> On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 3:26 PM, Patrick Keys <citizenkeys at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> What positions are board-level positions?
>>
>> I am honestly not a member (yet).
>>
>> However, as I have some business experience and a college degree in
>> business, I'm prepared to commit some time to getting the financial
>> matters somewhat in order.
>>
>>
>> Patrick
>>
>>
>> On 12/16/2010 3:53 PM, aestetix aestetix wrote:
>> > I think there's a lot of room for misinterpretation as to what board
>> > elections are actually for.
>> >
>> > Carrying with my own understanding that the point of the board is to
>> > handle external affairs which may arise, rather than to monitor the
>> > ongoings within Noisebridge itself, and to that end performing only with
>> > the most minimal obligations required by the nonprofit status, let me
>> > elaborate on what I think Jim is getting at.
>> >
>> > Culturally, we view elections as a sports game or a class president
>> > round. It usually boils down to who is most popular, best looking, has
>> > the most money, or in some way is seen as the "best." This attitude is
>> > counterthesis to the notion that everyone as a member of Noisebridge,
>> > either officially or through community, brings something to the table,
>> > and exudes that some people are "better" than others.
>> >
>> > Further, having a popular vote aggrandizes the wrong things. We want to
>> > be able to appreciate people for who they are and the cool projects they
>> > work on, not because they were able to get enough votes and "won." It
>> > also brings too much attention to the fact that there's a board, and can
>> > extend false social powers to the board members, when in reality they
>> > are just regular members who are filling out paperwork so the rest of us
>> > don't have to worry about it.
>> >
>> > That said, figuring out a valid solution to this is tricky. Picking
>> > random members to be the board could work, but most people don't want to
>> > deal with the actual headache of legalese and paperwork when the board
>> > does get called for something, or don't realize how annoying it can be,
>> > and why those of us who are not on the board are so gracious to those on
>> > the board who handle that stuff for us. Plus, we do have board members
>> > who know the legal stuff decently, and it could make sense to simply let
>> > them go on unless one wants to step down.
>> >
>> > Most of us who have been around Noisebridge for a while already
>> > understand this, so perhaps this is a good time to let new people ask
>> > questions. I'm assuming we do a sort of introductory thing at the
>> > meetings, but perhaps having a meeting where we go into a bit of detail
>> > on the purpose of the board and how it differs from what elections would
>> > normally entail would be cool?
>> >
>> > On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Jonathan Lassoff <jof at thejof.com
>> > <mailto:jof at thejof.com>> wrote:
>> >
>> >     On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 8:01 AM, jim <jim at well.com
>> >     <mailto:jim at well.com>> wrote:
>> >      >
>> >      >   this voting business seems distasteful. last
>> >      > year there was a little discussion that included
>> >      > the suggestion of randomly picking board members:
>> >      > i like that a lot, kind of like the way we got
>> >      > our president--worked great!
>> >
>> >     I'm curious to understand what you find distasteful in the
>> >     nomination process?
>> >
>> >      From what pool of candidates could we randomly select from? To
>> >     clarify, the Presidential position is not a position on the board it
>> >     is an officer. As far as I know, we've never had random selection of
>> >     board members.
>> >
>> >     We will be discussing this proposal and hopefully coming to a
>> >     consensus on something at next weeks meeting.
>> >
>> >      >   is there any reason why we can't just draft
>> >      > members in good standing and let them object if
>> >      > they don't want to be board members?
>> >
>> >     Is is possible (if you are in good standing) to just nominate
>> >     everyone, and those who are uninterested can concede their
>> nomination.
>> >
>> >     Cheers,
>> >     jof
>> >     _______________________________________________
>> >     Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> >     Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> >     <mailto:Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
>> >     https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >
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>
>
>
> --
> Shannon Lee
> (503) 539-3700
>
> "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science."
>
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>


-- 
Josh Myer 415.230.9791 <-- NOTE: New number!
 josh at joshisanerd.com
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