(1) In-person meetings in between Bostonian
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Oversight_Board members and Sugar/OLPC
Local Lab Boston, quasimonthly. Community is neither a buzzword, nor a
fantasy, with Sugar Labs' only 4 active board members now living in
Boston today. Community is the 132 volunteer members of
http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/olpc_boston who want to particitepate
in Sugar/OLPC but our promise withers, when accomplished teachers and
volunteers willing to pull their weight, simply don't -- as too many of
us are unintentionally hiding behind our IRC koolaid, yep myself guilty
as charged :) So it's time to throw a few parties. And get over a
couple of our antisocial hangups, at all levels of our organizing. As
our 130+ person high-energy http://olpcSF.org/summit this past weekend
proved far beyond a shadow of a doubt. As SF's own amazing hackerspace
(http://noisebridge.net) reminded us all late into the night before.
Sustainable volunteerism == bringing people together in a physical
space, even in Boston! Like others have already done globally here:
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Local_Labs . I made this happen last week
in San Francisco for almost 10 valiant-but-poor-volunteers, by lining
them up with other more well-off volunteers, using peer2peer donations
instead of bureaucratic budget molasses. Next year we can do this for
20 volunteers instead of 10, if we bring ourselves together. Meantime:
I, Walter, Bernie and CJB (etc) can do our Boston and Global community a
gigantic favor if we Get Out More right here at home :) Learning (i.e.
healthy) communities live or die based on the Rhythm their members
create -- physical bonds feed online bonds and vice versa. Let us begin
now. Progress beckons: Walter, Bernie & I will meet all together Thurs
(tomorrow) for the first time in about a year, to discuss our
breakthrough community catapult in SF, even before SF's Mayor issued his
proclamation:
http://blog.laptop.org/2010/10/22/october-23-is-olpc-day-in-sf/
(2) Democracy does NOT grow on trees, or in the back of stale legalistic
texts. It is the worst form of governance, if we believe Churchill, and
accordingly I and Sugar Labs' Oversight Board have been negligent in not
getting folks fired up about the current election process, failing to
bringing strong awareness around precise key election dates, even
understanding it ourselves! I personally consider both to be
constitutional duty: the cleanest elections happen when we enable
get-out-the-vote mobilizations of all kind, enabling expression and
reflection AKA learning. Disturbing evidence I've uncovered in the past
24hrs is that board members themselves I've spoken to privately remain
confused about nomination/election dates, confused about duration of
terms, confused about lame duck/impeachment/replacement/re-invitation
procedures for the several absentee board members already gone. Pity
our rank+file volunteer just trying to get some work done, or get fired
up about our so-sweet possibilities! Now drowning in this
unadvertised/undecided election machinery-- No more! I suggest we start
with Informed Consent, meaning strong advance awareness of all deadlines
and voting times -- that we hopefully all together agree to publicize
very directly off:
http://google.com/search?q=sugar+labs+election
(3) One specific proposal around strengthening awareness of Sugar Labs'
election clearly, widely and far more passionately, with all dates
clearly layed out, right off the uniquely memorable page above -- was
advanced by Luke Faraone (administering the election) earlier this
evening. Walter Bender says he would agree to support Luke's proposal
to extend registration (welcoming quality candidates & eligible voters
both) until something like Nov 10th 23:59 EST, if the election itself
was delayed until approximately Nov 14-27, IF our broad community and
board agrees this will all deepen our Participative process, strengthen
who we are, illustrate our shared sacrifice -- and most importantly:
waken our family and friends to our cause. Yes, I'm paraphrasing,
Walter please speak for yourself :) In any case, for me
clearness-in-democracy is non-negotiable, as is our blessed
responsibility to stay young, Meaningfully open (Lovable too please!)
while at last growing up as a 2008-2012 organization, as this election
will now decide. I support Luke's above thoughtful proposal and hope
others will too, enhancing it ideally if you can, but most important all
speaking our consciences towards deciding quickly and carefully, however
we proceed.
(4) First kill all the lawyers (but please Shakespeare DO read our "SFC
by-laws" at
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/SFC-SugarLabs_Agreement and
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_Labs/Members/List carefully before
the light goes out :) And if a board meeting is needed to finalize any
electoral learning learning consensus(es) emer