On Wed, 2014-05-21 at 13:35 -0400, Jeff Fortin wrote: > Le mardi 20 mai 2014 à 21:17 +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova a écrit : > > > I am glad that so many of the candidates did take the time to respond > > to this question. Going by the current responses, I honestly think > > that some of the candidates are underestimating the time that board > > duties take and that they may not be flexible enough to put in the > > hours in times of need (such as the current financial situation). > [...] > Not to say that candidates shouldn't have a minimum commitment/know what > the heck they're getting into, but at the same time, there's only so > much people can do *in their spare time* with their daily life > commitments. A board like this is advisory in nature, it happens to > advise employees whose role include the daily execution of the > foundation's operations - otherwise, you might as well say everyone is > an employee.
Unlike other foundations, this board is *not* like an advisory one.
Although many board directors have acted like this. *Somebody* has to
do the work, *somebody* has to follow up what the employees do or don't
do, set the priorities, etc. And all in all, it is not enough with the
employees, so *somebody* has to do the rest of the work. The board could
delegate some tasks, but *somebody* has follow them up, and communicate
them, etc. So, the question at hand is "who are those *somebody*?".
In my experience, at any given time only 2 or 3 directors do the work,
the remaining ones participate in the meetings and give their opinions.
But like in any project, talk is cheap.
And some board members start to feel bad about it, like:
"My personal experience in being a Board member is that I never
have time to do all the little administrative things that are
part of being a Board member, and I end up feeling terrible
about myself." [1]
And he has not been the only one.
For me it is ok that 2 or 3 directors do the work in a given time, as
long as the workload rotates among directors through the weeks. However,
it is better when everybody is in the same boat. And it is way better
when the boards communicates timely and delegates properly. Otherwise,
the board would end-up concentrating more work and doing less things.
So, I can understand where Ekaterina's thoughts come from, and I share
her concerns.
[1]
https://people.gnome.org/~federico/news-2006-11.html#board-member-mini-howto
--
Germán Poo-Caamaño
http://calcifer.org/
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