Meeting of the GNOME Foundation Board of Directors, 8 June 2020, 14:30 UTC
Attending
Regrets
Agenda
- Approve minutes of 13 April, 27 April, and 18 May
- Adelia Rahim's resignation from the travel committee
- Board handover arrangements
- GNOME circle proposal: the thorny gnome.io question
Minutes
- Approve minutes of 13 April, 27 April, and 18 May
- No amendments were proposed.
- Minutes are approved.
- Adelia Rahim's resignation from the travel committee
- Rosanna: Adelia hasn't been able to commit to continuing, and has sent her resignation from the committee.
- Allan: We need to update the committee membership.
VOTE: The board expresses its thanks to Adelia for her work on the travel committee.
- +1 unanimous
ACTION: Federico to mail Adelia thanking her for her contribution to the travel committee.
- Board handover arrangements
- Allan: We don't need to factor physical GUADEC into our arrangements, where we've waited until GUADEC to do the handover between the outgoing and incoming members. in some respects, this is better as we can more closely follow the election schedule:
- The new board comes into effect at the end of June 22nd: two weeks from now
- Start with an orientation for new members - the role of the board, how the board functions, conflict of interest forms, etc.
- Annual meeting of the new board, in the week starting 29 June (to elect officers for the new board)
- Next regular meeting of the board to be board planning for 2020-21, including: 2019-20 retrospective, board handover, schedule for the year (ideally this meeting would include outgoing directors)
Neil: When we started, we just pointed new board members to a wiki page and showed them the ropes gradually. This will now include D&O insurance, articles of incorporation, a look at finances, bylaws, the role of the board, the roles of individual board members versus the board as a whole, travel policy and processes, COI forms, etc. In short, more structured onboarding.
- Allan: Can the board see this material and give feedback?
- Neil: I will share the materials ahead of the session, but the session is also open to (and encouraged) for the remaining directors.
- Allan: The next item is the annual meeting of the new board: relevant to remaining and incoming directors. In this meeting we elect officers, which we need before the next item. Subsequently there is the first meeting of the board, with its new officers, chair, secretary, etc. This meeting will be in place of our in-person GUADEC meeting, where we discuss the handover topics. I would like to see the monthly schedule of meetings start from then on. For example, quarterly strategy, financials, policy, committee reports, sign off on finances, etc. on specific dates. May be the beginning of July, depending on the new directors' availability. Includes outgoing directors to hand over context, feedback and strategy, etc.
- Neil: We also have a virtual annual general meeting (AGM), 25th July at 15:00 UTC.
- Carlos: Are the outgoing directors and officers (i.e., treasurer) to present their reports here?
- Neil: Yes.
- Carlos: Please invite me to the relevant preparation meetings.
- Federico: How will the AGM work with many potentially participating members in the call? It's different to a speaker with many viewers.
- Neil: Big Blue Button supports interaction controls, multiple speakers, raising one's hand, etc. It will be moderated the same as the talks. We will be testing the GUADEC setup soon.
- Allan: We don't need to factor physical GUADEC into our arrangements, where we've waited until GUADEC to do the handover between the outgoing and incoming members. in some respects, this is better as we can more closely follow the election schedule:
- GNOME circle proposal: the thorny gnome.io question
- Allan: The idea is to use gnome.io and the app id for participating applications. There was a concern about the history of that TLD. Do we consider .io to be problematic, and if so, what to use instead?
- Another relevant domain name may be available to purchase.
ACTION: Neil to look into it.
- Britt: I think we should do it; it's a one-time-only thing.
- Rob agrees.
Allan: There are pending things like setting up GitLab projects, getting people to do the work.
Actions
Federico - Email Adelia Rahim on behalf of the board thanking her for her contribution to the travel committee.
Neil - Investigate purchasing a different domain for GNOME Circle.