response 87 of 299:

Aug 27 14:42 UTC 2002

resp:79 - Thank you, Mary for saying this!

There is no controversy, and I do believe that folks are fueling the 
pot instead of coming up with constructive ways of dealing with this 
issue.  I highly doubt this is "too radical" for grex, or that 
there's "fear of the unknown."  Those are charges as borne out of 
arrogance, and they really don't help matters.  I've proposed 
questions, so has Mary, and others are to get a word in and lend to the 
discussion.  If this is going to be resolved one way or another, start 
actually debating these questions, rather than throwing around charges 
and making accusations. 

To dangle a membership in front of grex's face and and demand that 
certain conditions be met is beneath all of us.

In my opinion, the majority of the BOD should be local.  If an 
emergency meeting has to be called, all BOD members must be notified 
and the location secured so that as many remote and local members can 
be assembled as possible.  Six reps, or eight?

Will "remote reps" only be eligible if they live in the US? This should 
not neccessarily be the rule, but obviously time zone differnces will 
affect some individuals' ability to attend the meetings.

response 89 of 299:

Aug 27 16:18 UTC 2002

Thanks for the link!

response 91 of 299:

Aug 27 17:39 UTC 2002

Hmm . . . I haven't gotten a chance to read it.  Might as well take a 
look at it anyway, as soon as I get around to it.  Again, my thanks, 
Rane.

response 93 of 299:

Aug 27 19:30 UTC 2002

http://www.michiganlegislature.org/law/printDocument.asp?objName=mcl-act-
162-of-1982&version=txt

Single document html file containing the entire Act.

response 95 of 299:

Aug 27 22:32 UTC 2002

OK - I found it:
http://www.michiganlegislature.org/law/mileg.asp?page=mostrequested

response 105 of 299:

Aug 28 02:40 UTC 2002

When two remote board members are calling in to a meeting can their
share one incoming call and one speakerphone or would two connections
and two speakers be needed?  I doubt Zing's would be willing to 
allow us free meeting space and access to their phone lines for 
hours.  So any ideas on where this could happen, on the cheap?

response 107 of 299:

Aug 28 05:28 UTC 2002

I served on the board of a national all-volunteer non-profit for many
years.  Board meetings were held thirdly, all around the country. Board
members were responsible for their own transportation costs (all
deductible if on itemized, of course). Accomodations were provided at each
meeting location by members living in that area (so was the party
location).

When I was president I introduced meetings of the four officers between
board meetings, in order to deal with an increasing management
responsibility as the organization grew. We met and stayed at each others'
homes and *shared* the travel expenses (total divided by the number of
officers (4)). (The organization is incorporated in the District of
Columbia, but we never had board/officer meetings there.) 

So, anything is possible. 

response 109 of 299:

Aug 28 06:46 UTC 2002

The main goal the founders had was to provide the least structure that
would be maximally functional and satisfy state law.  FTF meetings have
hundreds of years of legal heritage, and thousands of years of human
evolution before that, they're well tested both to functionality and
legality.

The founders hoped that any really controversial decisions would be
made by the membership at large, hopefully via the electronic
conferencing, and not by the board behind closed doors, but there's not
a lot of logic in the bylaws to force this to happen, and certainly
nothing to dictate when or how it happens.  The logic that is there
consists mainly of the fact that members vote for the board, the board
minutes and treasurers report are to be made available online, and of
course the member referendum facility.

It may be useful to remember that when the bylaws were written, it was
by no means clear that a member owned & operated public computing
system was in fact viable.  There were no such systems in existance
then; there are precious few today.  Starting such a system was in
itself a pretty massive experiment; the founders tried to be
conservative and pick solutions that would work, rather than create new
frontiers or barriers in terms of group management.  Nearly everything
in the original grex design was not original to grex; ideas were
borrowed from many places, and incorporated into a synthesis that it
was hoped would be as viable as possible.

It is also worth keeping in mind that the founders did not necessarily
expect that grex would be come either national or international in
membership.  Grex's initial connectivity was 100% phone lines, &
internet connectivity was at best a pipe dream of some of the
founders.  Grex's original funding model and operating design was
definitely as a "local" system based in Ann Arbor.  The bylaws were not
cast in stone and expected to be the final answer for all time; it was
always expected that when they proved to be inadequate, they could be
amended, provided the problem was serious enough.

Jamie seems to be arguing that there is some sort of mass conspiracy
amongst the founders to keep people like himself from serving on the
board.  This is not so; simply put; the founders did not think it was
necessary to predict that somebody from Maryland would want to serve on
the board of a small local bulletin board system based in Ann Arbor.

Jamie seems to think that grex meetings last too long.  Well, from his
perspective, he's probably right.  Too many people on the board feel
group hugs are important.  Probably if we didn't engage in so many of
them, meetings would be over a lot faster.  Also nobody on the board
wants to hug a speakerphone.

Grex clearly exceeded the wildest expectations of the founders.  It's
now got international membership, and a *lot* more users than we ever
expected.  It's also doing things that the founders had no reason to
expect.  Grex does a lot more email than was ever originally expected.
Web access, both for pages hosted on grex, and outgoing access are both
quite popular; the web basically didn't exist when grex was founded.
It is certainly a good question where grex's original design, created
for a local system, is still valid today.  I suppose there are really 2
parts to that: is it broke today, and is it what we want for tomorrow?
Even today, I think it's difficult to find places where grex's
design is really broken.  A lot of things *do* get decided in the coop
conference.  Grex is still operating, and that's nothing to be ashamed
of right there.  There is not a real schism between members & board.

For the future, now that's a much more interesting question.  Even
though grex has a lot more users on it, the *members* have not
increased in nearly the same proportion.  The main reason we can afford
so many more users is that hardware has gotten a lot cheaper and more
powerful.  Even though most of our users are from elsewhere, most of
our *members* are not.  I believe (aruba can correct me) that most of
our money still comes from people who are either local, or who were
once local.  We still have a vocal local user community including many
members who use dialups; these are a significant fraction of our
operating overhead, but are probably irrelevant to 99% of our user
population at large.  I think this presents some real challenges
to us of which the board is only one relatively small part.

response 111 of 299:

Aug 28 13:02 UTC 2002

Our corporation elects its board.  The founders each have one vote.  As far
as I know, being a "friend" of a founder has not appeared in anyone's
campaign statement as an argument for voting for that candidate.  

Also, there is no residency restriction on BoD membership.  Some
Grexers seem to be concerned that because they, personally, have
financial problems over attending face-to-face meetings in Ann Arbor,
that the bylaws are somehow restricting their candidacy.  

I would hate to see us build in technology-based bylaws, when
technology changes so quickly.  It does seem to me that, if the
membership elected someone to the BoD who was physically restricted
from reaching the meeting place, that the BoD would apply some
creativity in solving the problem.  I don't see any reason for solving
the problem in advance, since we don't know exactly what problem we are
solving.