[H-GEN] My nomination for President

[Russell Stuart]

This is just to let you all know I will be nominating myself for
President, and to tell you what I plan to do so you can figure out if I
am worthy of your vote.

The principle reason is I would like to see the club run a little more
openly than it has been in the past.  To achieve that I want to change a
few things:

1.  Currently we have a number of private lists, such as the Exec list.
We also have some "secret" lists, such as the SysAdmin list.  These are
lists only a select few members know about, and even less are invited to
join. To me this seems a very odd way of running a club that champions
open source, as it is anything but open.  It also seems to be counter
productive, as in people who might like to help out in these tasks
aren't aware they can.

If elected president, I will be replacing these lists with open
equivalents, and closing lists if inactive.  The archives on the
existing private lists will remain private, as people who posted to them
did so under that assumption.  If you would like to see it handled in a
different way put up a motion at the AGM.


2.  The committee we elect seems to be at odds with the work that has to
be done to keep the club running.  Here are the tasks that need to be
done in order for Humbug to run, and committee elected to do them
roughly in order of importance:

   Meeting scheduling [1]       - None elected.
   Running meetings             - None elected.
   Ensure computer systems work - None elected.  
   Handling the money           - Treasurer.
   Correspondence               - Secretary.
   Managing club assets         - Librarian.
   Bludger                      - Vice President.
   Make sure above happens      - President.

  [1] Meeting scheduling means ensuring rooms are booked, network is
available, and scheduling who is responsible for opening / closing.

I prefer to see that the tasks that matter have people allocated to
them.  So, if I am elected, the responsibilities will be:

   Meeting scheduling           - Vice President.
   Running meetings             - None elected - as scheduled by Vice.
   Ensure computer systems work - Librarian.
   Handling the money           - Treasurer.
   Correspondence               - Secretary.
   Managing club assets [2]     - Treasurer.
   Make sure above happens      - President.

   [2] The assumption here is the only assets Humbug has are used at
each and every meeting, and are passed between those responsible for
opening and closing the meeting.


3.  The committee members are elected to do particular jobs.  Right now,
unless things change dramatically from every prior Humbug AGM I have
attended, the only idea you will have on how well each committee member
did the the job they were elected to do will be based on hearsay.  This
is not conducive to electing a committee that gets things done.

If elected president, I will be asking each committee member to submit a
formal written (electronic) report on their area of responsibility at
each regular committee meeting.  These will become part of the minutes.
If no report is submitted, the minutes will say "this slack-arse
committee member didn't do their job" - or words to that effect.  If the
secretary doesn't published minutes with 7 days, I guarantee to publish
my own version sometime in the week following.

The reports will at a minimum consist of:

Vice President  Dates we have confirmed bookings to, changes to
                meeting open/close roster wiki page, total meetings
                closed and opened by each committee member YTD.

Treasurer         Bank balance at last report
                  + Itemised Income
                  - Itemised Expenses
                  = Bank balance now.
                AND: Changes made to assets list, which 
                will be a wiki page.

Secretary       outstanding correspondence from last meeting,
                correspondence received, correspondence sent,
                date PO Box last checked, date he sent minutes 
                from last meeting to general, names of new
                financial members (which have been added to a 
                wiki page of all financial members).

Librarian       List of any configuration changes made, disk and
                CPU Utilisation, backup status, distro/patch status,
                $ costs incurred since last meeting.

President       Report on who did what tasks above.  Hopefully this
                will consist of one line "All committee work was done,
                and was done by the member elected to do it - well
                done".  But if this is not the case it will be 
                longer, giving credit to who did it, and with an
                explanation as to why it happened.

Just to make it clear, the idea is these reports are very brief - a few
lines each, hopefully.  But they are sufficient to allow a club member
to see the committee is doing its job, ie is keeping well in hand all
administration tasks required to maintain Humbug in good day-to-day
heath.

By the by, if you are planning to nominate yourself for the committee,
and then see I got lucky and was elected, it might be an idea to
re-consider your nomination if you find the above burdensome.


4.  Meeting times.  This has always been a contentious issue.  I would
like to change the way we close meetings so being on the committee is
more attractive to early risers.  Below is my proposal.  The idea is to
bring it in line with how Humbug used to do it, as outlined here:

  http://lists.humbug.org.au/pipermail/general/2006-August/026156.html

Although this is just a proposal, don't vote for me unless you agree
with procedure something like the one below being followed:

There will be a wiki page for the meeting.  It will be initially set up
by the VP, and will consist of a minimum of:

  - Where it is,
  - A link to UQ contact numbers and information,
  - A link to obligations of people opening and closing meetings,
  - Who will open it at 3PM,
  - Who will close it, and the earliest time the undertake to close
    it, which will be no earlier than 10 PM.
  - The latest time the meeting can close according to UQ's rules.

A eligible person can close the meeting later if the indicate they are
willing to take on the obligations for closing the meeting by personally
modifying the wiki page under their own login.  Included in the
information they add must be:

  a.  Their name.
  b.  A way of obtaining their contact details (home address & phone -
      could be just a link to their home page on the wiki),
  c.  The earliest time they plan to close the meeting,
  d.  The words "I undertake to fulfil all the obligations listed 
      in the link above".

To be eligible you must be either:

  a.  Noted as such in the minutes of a committee meeting, or

  b.  Be:
      i)    A financial member in good standing, and
      ii)   have attended a majority of meetings in the last 3 months, and
      iii)  not be declared ineligible in the minutes of a committee
            meeting.

So in summary, the rule is the meeting closes when the last regular
attendee who is willing to take on the responsibilities associated with
closing leaves.  It must be no later than UQ permits, of course.