The recent attempt at a special election prompted a few suggestions.  This
item is for the discussion of those suggestions.  Any ideas that result in
a proposal for the membership will have to have their own items when the
occassion arises.

Here are the responses that prompted this item:

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Item #241: Response 29 Ken Josenhans (krj) Tue, Sep 30, 2008 (11:42):

 I think we are going to have to look at shrinking the board, 
 to respond to the loss of members.  We're about at the point where
 one would need close to 20% of the membership to serve on the 
 board, and that's unrealistic.

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Item #241: Response 30 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Tue, Sep 30, 2008 (12:01):

 I would 'volunteer' to run (accept nomination) if grex still met at
 Zingerman's or some place else near central Ann Arbor.

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Item #241: Response 31 S. Lynne Fremont (slynne) Tue, Sep 30, 2008 (12:07):

 I think shrinking the board is a good idea. I also think that fewer
 meetings would be a good idea too. 

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Item #241: Response 32 Sindi Keesan (keesan) Tue, Sep 30, 2008 (14:40):

 Would current board members be interested to meet via some type of internet
 chat session?

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20 responses total.

In general, the Directors decide where they will meet.  The constraint is
where all of them can get together.  Right now, the major limitation is
getting a telephone number for those not local to Ann Arbor to use.

I think the change that allowed remote Directors allows using an Internet
chat for the meeting, but that imposes its own limits on who can attend and
on how freely the discussion at the meeting can flow.

I think that the hardest part of having remote directors is that it
limits where the meetings can be held. It is worth it though. Still, I
wonder if there might be some public spaces where we can have remote
directors and meet in a public place. Does the Ann Arbor library have
meeting rooms? Are there any places in town that have free wireless
networks that are robust enough to handle skype?

slynne, the piece of shit that calls himself unicorn can't afford 
a pc with wireless capabilities because he works a part time job while
trying too look for something better. This poor excuse for a human 
thinks he is smart and is just waiting for some company to give him
a chance.

With that, I hope Chuck Martin fucking chokes to death tonight and then
goes straight to hell with his whore mother.

Can grex 'talk' or 'ytalk' be used for meetings, and if so, are there any
directors who cannot ssh/telnet to grex?  Someone should be able to figure
out how to record 'talk' sessions in a log.  Non-board-members should be able
to participate the same way.

I rather think Grex needs *more* BoD meetings, not fewer.  We didn't
have one for nearly a year, and in general, I believe inaction by
the board is going to do more harm to Grex than good.

Grex needs a vibrant, active user community in order to survive.
For several years, we've been trying to figure out how to (re)build
such a thing, but so far, we haven't come upw ith much.  If we
cannot, then it has been suggested that perhaps we need to bring
Grex to a close before it dies a slow, painful death.  I hope it
doesn't have to come to that.

The idea of using some sort of real-time chat technology for general
meetings has been discussed in some round-about manner; I don't
want to steal his thunder, but Steve's not been around a lot lately
so I'll spill the beans.  He suggested (and I think it's a pretty
cool idea, personally) that Grex hold some sort of "town-hall"
meeting in Ann Arbor to try and --- among other things --- forster
interest in the system.  I suggested that, if someone could provide
Grex with some video projection equipment, some speakers, a microphone
and a high speed Internet connection, it might be pretty cool to
try and hook it in with iChat AV or something similar to make it
global.  There's no reason we couldn't do the same for a board
meeting.

That said, neither talk nor ytalk would really be sufficient (if
for no other reason than that someone would have to type everything
in!).  That sort of terminal-based interface really isn't sufficient
to capture the sort of dynamic interactions that are supposed to
happen in face to face meetings.  VC gets us much closer, and would
probably be better than a simple phone call.

I am certain that everyone who uses grex can type, and it would eliminate the
need for a secretary, and make it possible to refer to what someone said
verbatim.  

It would also cut out about 90% of the interaction that happens at a BoD
meeting.  Sorry, good initiative, bad judgement.

I didnt mean less board meetings than we have had recently but I mean
fewer board meetings than once a month. I think that most things can be
accomplished with meetings every other month.

That could be true....  But we have a long road ahead of us to get Grex back
on track.  There's work to be done!

I think eventually having board meetings less often could work... But 
right now I'm in agreement with Dan that there's a lot of work to be
done  right now and thus, meeting every month for awhile is important.

I think that, no matter how much there is to do, if there's more than
people want to do, it's not going to get done.  It would seem to me to
make sense to develop a list, and find out people's priorities, and work
from that.

Maybe some things won't require a meeting.  Find out those and try to
get someone to do them outside of meetings.

Maybe some things just aren't that important.  Leave them for later.

I see one thing of overwhelmingly crucial importance.  It's time for the
next Board election pretty soon.  Maybe no one will want to run.  What
will you do then?

If anyone does run, then the problems will become theirs pretty soon.

If you want to get people to run, it seems to me they'll want to know
what they will be expected to do.  It takes us back to the prioritized
list I suggested.

Let's concentrate on getting the work done, not the frequency with which we
have board meetings.  If it takes a meeting a month, then so be it.  If less,
then that's fine too.

I don't think that worrying about meeting frequency is productive *right now.*

It might matter to someone considering running for the board in a couple
of months

True, and we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

What happened to the system and who got it back online?

My hope: "cdalten" and "unicorn".

Frankly, either order would be entertaining.

I'm not sure why it went down; Chuck called and got it rebooted.

 i met unicorn at the board meeiting ... nice dude.

did he spear you with his penis?  i mean, horn.

he didn;t even try ... nor would he ... imo.

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