Joining Silicon Sentier

Board Discuss
#1

Hi,

I would like to ask that TDF joins the Silicon Sentier Association in
Paris (www.siliconsentier.org) . Silicon was our partner that hosted the
first LiboCon but more importantly, the membership comes with the
ability to run events either for free or with a nice price in the heart
of Paris (at La Cantine or elsewhere).

The membership fee is 179 ¤. I'd like to ask the BoD members to vote on
this asap.

Thanks,

#2

+1.
Will La Cantine host the forthcomming (much awaited) Paris LibreOffice
HackFests? :slight_smile:

Regards
- --
Olivier Hallot
Founder, Board of Directors Member - The Document Foundation
The Document Foundation, Zimmerstr. 69, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Fundação responsável civilmente, de acordo com o direito civil
Detalhes Legais: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
LibreOffice translation leader for Brazilian Portuguese
+55-21-8822-8812

#3

Olivier Hallot <olivier.hallot@documentfoundation.org> a écrit :

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Hi,

I would like to ask that TDF joins the Silicon Sentier Association in
Paris (www.siliconsentier.org) . Silicon was our partner that hosted

the

first LiboCon but more importantly, the membership comes with the
ability to run events either for free or with a nice price in the

heart

of Paris (at La Cantine or elsewhere).

The membership fee is 179 €. I'd like to ask the BoD members to vote

on

this asap.

Thanks,

+1.
Will La Cantine host the forthcomming (much awaited) Paris LibreOffice
HackFests?

That's a distinct possibility, yes, but nothing's decided.

Best,
Charles.

#4

Hi Charles,

I would like to ask that TDF joins the Silicon Sentier Association in
Paris (www.siliconsentier.org) . Silicon was our partner that hosted the
first LiboCon but more importantly, the membership comes with the
ability to run events either for free or with a nice price in the heart
of Paris (at La Cantine or elsewhere).

The membership fee is 179 ¤. I'd like to ask the BoD members to vote on
this asap.

you are the one local, and thus are the expert, and I of course trust your judgement on whether this makes sense or not. :wink:

So, +1 from my side.

Florian

#5

Hello,

The Board of Directors at the time of voting consists of 7 seat holders without deputies. In order to be quorate, the vote needs to have 1/2 of the Board of Directors members, which gives 4.

A total of 2 Board of Directors members have participated in the vote.
The vote therefore is NOT quorate.

Result of vote: 2 approvals, 0 neutral, 0 disapprovals.

Based on our rules of procedure (https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/BoD_rules), § 5 I, "not answering in the vote thread for longer than 2 business days (for reasons including absence and illness) counts towards approval".

Therefore decision: The request has been accepted.

This message is to be archived by the BoD members and their deputies.

Florian

#6

Hi Florian and BoD,

While I agree totally with joining Silicon Sentier, I was wondering how the BoD can run a vote when there is no quorum reached for the meeting? Are business for the meeting not cancelled and must be re-scheduled for proper discussion at a future meeting with quorum?

Is the application of the "BoD § 5 I rule" not for only votes taken when a quorum is reached? It just seems strange to allow voting like this.

Cheers,

Marc

#7

Hi Marc,

While I agree totally with joining Silicon Sentier, I was wondering how
the BoD can run a vote when there is no quorum reached for the meeting?
Are business for the meeting not cancelled and must be re-scheduled for
proper discussion at a future meeting with quorum?

Is the application of the "BoD § 5 I rule" not for only votes taken when
a quorum is reached? It just seems strange to allow voting like this.

this is the intention of the § 5 rules of procedure. It is designed that board members who are not active and miss voting, cannot block the foundation's business. To make that happen, and avoid abuse, this paragraph is limited on daily business, has a two business day waiting rule, and is limited to costs of 500 ¤.

In a perfect world, all board members would vote within one business day, but this time, it seems this was not possible.

Luckily, it was the first time, most of the board did not vote, and I hope it remains an exception, for sure.

Florian

#8

Hi Tom,

Ouch! Seems like a bad way to make the decision but it's worked well
this time. It sounded like a good deal with people that are likely to
be great to work with.

thanks!

Agreeably, it's the worst way of making decisions, and I definitely hope this stays an exception. If it occurs more often, the board has a serious problem.

However, from time to time people are simply busy or not available, and that should not block daily operations of TDF, which is why we had incorporated § 5 in the rules of procedure.

Florian

#9

Florian Effenberger wrote:

>Is the application of the "BoD § 5 I rule" not for only votes taken when
>a quorum is reached? It just seems strange to allow voting like this.

this is the intention of the § 5 rules of procedure. It is designed
that board members who are not active and miss voting, cannot block
the foundation's business.

Hi Marc,

I second Florian here, and since I was the one putting that rule into
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/BoD_rules, let me put some
more rationale behind it. TDF is not like the usual foundation, with
the board living in the same city, or some executive director plus
team sitting in the same office. So far, decision making, even over
trivial amounts, always happens at the board level, and thus requires
a team of seven spread across the world to react timely, mostly on
email. §5 was meant to balance this - the board members trust each
other enough, that we believe a director proposing something and
calling a vote presumably knows what he or she is doing. The rule
simply codifies that, but puts a (IMO reasonable) limit on the
importance level of such-decided items.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

#10

Hi Florian and Thorsten,

Florian Effenberger wrote:

Is the application of the "BoD § 5 I rule" not for only votes taken when
a quorum is reached? It just seems strange to allow voting like this.

this is the intention of the § 5 rules of procedure. It is designed
that board members who are not active and miss voting, cannot block
the foundation's business.

Hi Marc,

I second Florian here, and since I was the one putting that rule into
https://wiki.documentfoundation.org/TDF/BoD_rules, let me put some
more rationale behind it. TDF is not like the usual foundation, with
the board living in the same city, or some executive director plus
team sitting in the same office. So far, decision making, even over
trivial amounts, always happens at the board level, and thus requires
a team of seven spread across the world to react timely, mostly on
email. §5 was meant to balance this - the board members trust each
other enough, that we believe a director proposing something and
calling a vote presumably knows what he or she is doing. The rule
simply codifies that, but puts a (IMO reasonable) limit on the
importance level of such-decided items.

Cheers,

-- Thorsten

Thanks for the explanations and as Florian says that "... I hope it remains an exception ..."

I have to say still, that, having sat on quite a few committees, the rules of quorum are such that if it not reached, and where there is a planned vote on items (which are most items on an agenda), the business of the day is cancelled and another meeting scheduled where a proper quorum may be reached for the vote.

I can see the application of "§ 5 rules of procedure" allowing members, who are not present at a directors' meeting where quorum is met, the chance to vote on items put to a vote within a delay of 2 days. This to me makes sense.

However, passing votes at a meeting where there is no quorum reached, to me, does not make sense, as there is no opportunity for reasonable debate on the matter that is being put to a vote. The fact that the physical distance being of concern, also, does not seem a plausible excuse considering our ability to connect by phone, IRC, email etc. by board members or, for that matter, having someone fill in for the missing board member(s). I have sat on boards where we reached members by phone just so that we could reach quorum and pass items on the agenda, as well as vote.

My experience has always been that when a meeting does not reach quorum, we usually re-scheduled the meeting (and items that were being put to a vote) and we discussed other items on an "unofficial" level for the next re-scheduled meeting -- pretty well a coffee break amongst friends.

Anyway, thanks again for the explanation.

Cheers,

Marc

#11

Hi :slight_smile:
I kinda agree with Marc about this except that the clear and very low upper-limits on items that can be passed this way makes the rule entirely reasonable imo.

In most organisations i have been in there have been several layers of spending that have only required various numbers of cheque signatories to authorise. Also the central main top level committee, board of trustees, directors or whatever usually authorise various sub-committees or working groups to spend either set budgets (with proper year End accounts) or on a fixed limit per spend. Also there tends to be a certain amount of “petty cash” for office workers to buy sundry items such as tea, coffee, milk, pens, packet of screws to fix a defective device or pins and blue-tack to stick notices to walls.

There are tons of costs that really shouldn’t be taken up to the main board because it wastes time and trivialises the importance of the work the board does.

Regards from
Tom :slight_smile:

#12

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the explanations and as Florian says that "... I hope it
remains an exception ..."

I have to say still, that, having sat on quite a few committees, the
rules of quorum are such that if it not reached, and where there is a
planned vote on items (which are most items on an agenda), the business
of the day is cancelled and another meeting scheduled where a proper
quorum may be reached for the vote.

I understand your concerns. However, I second Thorsten's thoughts here, that for an entity built up as TDF, and for the way we act, the intended meaning of § 5 is suitable.

Let's see how things develop in the future. We can always adjust the rules of procedure should we see things don't work as intended or expected.

Florian

#13

I understand your concerns. However, I second Thorsten's thoughts here,
that for an entity built up as TDF, and for the way we act, the intended
meaning of § 5 is suitable.

Let's see how things develop in the future. We can always adjust the rules
of procedure should we see things don't work as intended or expected.

+1 :slight_smile: I think that guessing at what future problems might occur creates a
lot of tension or at least has the potential of that. If a situation comes
up where there's a clear problem, then I say modify as needed. I don't
think saying "this is how others do it" is enough of a reason to change
something.

Best Regards,
Joel

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