A few observations from Saturday's meeting and, above all, what is coming in the next few days: amending the bylaws and adding online voting.
Hi everyone,
A recording of the meeting will be available too (at the weekend), but the photos in Toms's presentation were unfortunately hard to see. I am curious whether the recording will show what fixed it... For now, have a look at the photos from the meeting.
So I have uploaded all the slides to the website.
They show the TODO list we have taken on. The biggest item needing almost immediate attention is adding online voting to the bylaws.
Under the current bylaws in the register, we did have a quorum. But since we had no good wording prepared and certainly could not come up with anything better on the spot, let us draft a new version based on the current text that covers online voting. We can then handle any further changes online, if any are actually needed.
The bylaws currently give the members' meeting a quorum regardless of attendance. But you saw how many people came. A few people in one place, acting on the mood of the moment over a few hours, could send an organization hosting so many people, hopes, dreams and plans into existential trouble with a rushed, poorly considered amendment, even by accident. We do not want that, so let us take it relatively calmly.
All we need to address is moving voting and ordinary and extraordinary meetings into a format spread over more time, with most matters discussed online.
My idea is:
1. Invitations to both extraordinary and regularly convened ordinary meetings must include provisional but clearly worded items that may be put to a vote
2. A physical meeting presents all the information members need for an informed decision; at least the slides, and ideally recordings, reach all members, including those who were not there in person
3. Time for discussion on the mailing lists
4. Voting through vpsAdmin on the precise wording of specific items (no new item may be added during the process; only what was in the initial invitation can go to a vote, otherwise a new meeting is needed)
5. The meeting ends
The question, as Oskar (Ondra Caletka) rightly raised straight away on the spot, is how to arrive at results once we have some input data. What counts as the right result, and what method should we use to tally the votes? We should decide and agree on that fairly soon.
Our bylaws currently establish a BDFL Board and Supervisory Committee (benevolent dictator for life, with an unlimited term as long as they do a good job). So whenever the full membership votes on something, it will be a relatively significant event. Changing a team that was expected to be stable is unlikely to be a trivial matter.
We therefore need a process as resistant as possible to emotional appeals from any side. The solution that is technically excellent and best serves the organization's goals must always win. We have vpsFree so that something we share works well, not so that we have something to argue about.
So let us find the simplest, smallest amendment to the bylaws that allows meetings, and therefore our future operation, to work at least roughly this well.
On Saturday, twenty-five of you gave me a written mandate to vote on amending the bylaws, with an oral understanding that the change would concern enabling online voting.
There will also be a recording on 9 March, and probably a live stream. Adam from AVC took up the challenge and will come to Brno.
I need to know who is coming. Base48 is not big, and judging by Saturday's turnout in Prague, I guessed we would meet in a small group of about five again. Please mark your attendance in Doodle so we can prepare at least some space.
Thank you very much to everyone who came on Saturday, and to everyone who trusts me enough to give me a blank check to amend the bylaws. That trust means a great deal to me personally. With support like this, I know it is worth carrying on, on a larger scale, and doing it even better.
Thank you again.
See you in Brno on Saturday in just over a week. Or earlier if you like; I am at Base48 almost every day...
If you liked Brmlab and feel like playing with electronics and similar things now and then, do not hesitate to go there. Things are only just getting started across Czech and Slovak hackerspaces, and it is worth being part of them... More information in time.