Re: Voting and Leadership Discussions

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I join in the apologies for these long e-mails.  Forgive me; I know not 
what I do.

On Jun 2, 2005, at 1:14 PM, Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote:

> Michael Bond wrote:
>>
>> I apologize for following up a lengthy email with another rather long
>> one ...
>>
>> Jonathan, I know you mean well with the long email below, but I think
>> what you are trying to achieve is overkill for our group at this time.
>
> a group that have bylaws, too.  CMU has a great open door policy to
> outsider groups, but perhaps by establishing better formalities our
> group can be taken seriously by WVU as well and they can provide us a
> meeting place that doesn't conflict with our bylaws that specifies a
> regular "predictable" meeting place at a regular time.

Ah, yes, a meeting place.  I have in the past offered to secure one.  
As an RA I always have, at the very least, the ability to secure a room 
in one of the dorms during the school year.

I have to chime in with those who have suggested that meeting at SRSH 
might be hurting the group.  It's certainly made even trying to 
participate impossible for me.  Any place on or near one of the WVU 
campuses has the advantage of being accessible by walking to anyone 
living on EITHER campus thanks to our adorable little yellow PRTs.  If 
new students are interested in free software and looking for a LUG, 
it's a lot more of a barrier to go begging strange people (the kind 
that would hang out in LUGs ;-) ) for a ride than it is to walk down to 
the Moose, or PRT over to Engineering.  Look at the Campus Calendar in 
the DA for sample meeting places that work for student groups.  These 
would work for MorLUG too.

In contrast, my options for getting to SRSH are taking the single 
Mountain Line that goes nearby (getting there an hour+ early, last I 
looked) and begging for a ride back, or paying some ungodly sum to our 
local taxicab monopoly.  No car, no bike--no meeting for me, and I 
can't be the only person who will be in this situation.  It's a nice 
idea for a service project but, for me, an absolutely wretched meeting 
place.  I hadn't spoken up before because my schedule would have kept 
me from attending anyway, but I see that others have voiced this 
concern and want to drive it home.  To echo the bylaws, your "meeting 
place is restricting growth of the LUG."

> Do you really want just one leader?  This is always a great idea for a
> short lived or wavering organization, i.e., the organization will only
> be as strong as its one leader.  However, as  a step in the right
> direction and if this is what people ultimately indicate in these
> discussions, so it will be.  Only one person has expressed interest in
> being the President so far anyways, and you have already indicated to 
> me

"Only one person has expressed...?"  Why, who's that?  I'd never have 
guessed from the message ;-)

WVU's student organizations run just fine.  Let me go into a kind of 
brief, generalized case study (if that phrase is oxymoronic enough for 
everyone):

The group has a faculty or staff sponsor.  That sponsor's level of 
involvement varies from completely uninvolved to "benevolent dictator." 
  Since groups survive without one, we don't need to worry about 
it--through this I'll eliminate discussion of WVU peculiarities and 
focus on the operations of the group itself.

Four officers are required, although some groups get away with people 
holding multiple offices.  These are President, Vice President, 
Secretary, and Treasurer.  The President, as the name suggests, 
presides over meetings.  The Vice President presides in his absence.  
The Secretary keeps in contact with members and records minutes; the 
Treasurer handles monies, if any.

That's all you need for an organization.  I'd venture to say that you 
don't need a Secretary as long as someone each meeting volunteers to 
take minutes and send them to the list.  As we don't have any monies to 
worry about, a Treasurer is for now useless.  We're left with a 
President and a Vice President.

One to convene meetings, and another as backup.  That's it.  The 
presiding officer may use Robert's rules if he wishes.  Decisions are 
made by members.  If you can't get a plurality to agree on something, 
it's probably not worth doing.

> At our next meeting June 29th, this discussion is officially over.
> Because there are two interim leaders  (benevolent dictators), Michael
> Bond, and Jonathan Rosenbaum, who both agree that leadership in some
> form is a necessity, our decisions override anyone who doesn't desire
> leadership.  Here are some scenarios, a few members volunteer to be on
> the BOD, the BOD becomes a reality, or only one member volunteers to be
> leader, and we have one leader who will be on the BOD, but who will 
> have
> to talk to himself when making decisions as the ultimate decision maker
> for the LUG.   If someone desires a different form of leadership, now 
> is
> the time for them to speak up, however, does MorLUG really need to
> reinvent the wheel?  I think not.

I'm touched that the next meeting is on my birthday.  You guys think of 
everything.

I'm speaking up.  Here's another person who thinks some form of 
leadership--but not nearly as much--is necessary.

To action, then: we need a voting body.  I suggest it's anyone who 
wants to vote and hasn't already voted, but I'm sure there will be more 
complicated ideas.  Perhaps there should be a formal member list 
instead of just the list of mailing list members.  Perhaps we can set 
up a polling system on morlug.org--set a voting period of maybe a week, 
maybe less.  Voting membership would be locked when the vote starts, 
and a majority (not plurality) vote either way would shortcut the 
process and report the result.  I think this is a pretty quick question 
and needs to be taken care of before we start giving anybody two year 
terms doing anything.  This is one last question that must be decided 
by "consensus" if the outcome is to be representative.

I don't believe that MorLUG is of the size that it needs a cabal to 
make snap decisions.  If voting times are kept reasonably short, the 
full membership (however it's defined) should be capable of making 
decisions.  The President and Vice President can call regular meetings, 
so the group won't need to tussle over that.

Proposals (for when we can vote quickly on them):

Business meeting by IRC, social/demonstration gatherings in person?  
This makes it easier for those concerned to attend the business meeting 
and provides free record-keeping :-)

That regular meetings be held in reasonable walking/PRT distance of a 
WVU campus.

My $0.02,
- -- 
Daniel Harris
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