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Grex > Coop11 > #71: Minutes for the Grex 1/26/99 Board Meeting | |
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scott
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Minutes for the Grex 1/26/99 Board Meeting
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Jan 27 01:51 UTC 1999 |
The January, 1999 Grex board meeting was held in Zingerman's Next Door
on Tuesday, January 26.
Attendees:
Jan Wolter (janc, outgoing President), John Remmers (remmers, Board),
Mark Conger (aruba, Treasurer), Misti Tucker (mta, Board), Mary Remmers
(mary), Steve Gibbard (scg), Drew (drew), Charles Mitchell, (arthurp),
STeve Andre' (steve, Board), Scott Helmke (scott, outgoing Secretary)
Absent:
Dan Gryniewicz (dang, Board)
Afteryule Initial Gavel Pounding - janc, valerie, arlo, STeve
The meeting was gaveled to order by janc at 6:35 pm
Solmath Election of 1999 Officers - all
Nominations for President: mta, remmers, steve nominated, nobody
enthusiastic about serving. votes: mta 1, remmers 3, steve 2 after the
1st vote tied. Remmers is President.
Nomination for Treasurer: aruba
Aruba is elected by acclamation.
Nominations for Secretary: janc
Janc is elected by acclamation.
Rethe Treasurer's Report - aruba
Dec in black by ~$75, 3 new members. Jan. doing very well (4 members)
this month
P.O. Box renewal ($44) is this month.
InterNIC billing strangeness, we just paid $35 to avoid complications.
auction: total closed $1359, paid so far $747.
Astron Publicity Committee - mta
nothing to report.
Thrimidge Technical Committee - staff
new hardware (Sun CPUs and memory, SCSI disks) was donated.
We may be getting a donated modem rack (33.6!)
A flaky terminal server port was causing modem problems
mic's new menu system in testing
staff is trying to push FAQ rather than email for questions from users.
Forelithe Stupid Landlord Tricks - aruba
Having problems w/ building management about rent, electricity and lease
conditions. We recently got a letter saying we owed money, related to
electricity use changes. After some discussion w/ management, we have
been informed that they are dropping our lease and will be offering a
new lease at a slightly higher rent. The management person was
apparently difficult to deal with, and we may get some other weirdness
(including very little time for us to review new lease). However, the
owner (from before the management co. was brought in) has been helpful.
We may want to research other locations to strengthen our bargaining
position. Aruba will enter a Coop item.
Afterlithe Ratifying HTTP Access - remmers
HTTP access for nonmembers. This has been the default, but was never
actually ratified by board.
Remmers moved that outgoing HTTP access be given to all users. Misti
seconded. Vote is 6-0-0 (dang is absent), motion passes.
Wedmath UPS Purchase? - all
Purchase a UPS (uninterupptable power source) to replace power
conditioner, saving electricity $? STeve estimates ~$120/year savings,
plus better reliability. Probably would cost $600 for our needs. We
need to research this more, need a proposal to vote on.
Halimath Credit Cards - all
Should Grex accept credit cards? Most people starting to want this, but
needs research. Probably need to have a secure way to take card #s (Web
server?). Need to find some proposals from banks, etc.
Winterfilth New Business - all
1. The person who arranged for our donated Sun hardware has asked for
outgoing telnet access in return. This is normally not something we do.
However, he paid for shipping, so we could reimburse with money put
into membership for that person (Grex was planning on paying for
shipping originally anyway). No objection about this.
2. Valerie welcomes the new board.
3. Are there any better meeting locations (aruba)? Basically this
(Zingermans) is about the best for now.
Blotmath Final Gavel Pounding - remmers
The meeting was closed at 8:10 pm.
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| 75 responses total. |
valerie
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response 1 of 75:
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Jan 27 06:11 UTC 1999 |
This response has been erased.
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scott
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response 2 of 75:
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Jan 27 11:59 UTC 1999 |
Ah, that's where those names went.
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richard
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response 3 of 75:
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Jan 29 22:55 UTC 1999 |
should be a run-off election between remmers and steve for president
since neither received a majority of the votes of the board members.
just as you cant have quorum without 4 of 7 board members, you shouldnt
elect board officers who dont have the votes of 4 of the 7 board members.
or at least the President of the Board shouldnt be elected without
a majority.
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robh
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response 4 of 75:
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Jan 29 23:34 UTC 1999 |
The by-laws don't specify how many votes are needed to elect
the officers of the Board. The only thing specified is that
a quorum of 5 Board members must be present to conduct official
business, which would include that election.
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steve
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response 5 of 75:
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Jan 30 02:23 UTC 1999 |
I was perfectly happy with the way things were done.
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rcurl
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response 6 of 75:
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Jan 30 04:36 UTC 1999 |
If you follow RRoO, only a majority of *those voting* are required
to adopt a motion, unless the bylaws (or state law) require otherwise.
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cmcgee
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response 7 of 75:
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Jan 30 20:49 UTC 1999 |
We don't ;-)
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rcurl
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response 8 of 75:
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Jan 31 04:46 UTC 1999 |
True, which is why no one knows what is the right thing to do. :)
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davel
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response 9 of 75:
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Jan 31 21:14 UTC 1999 |
Nope, everyone except Richard knows what the right thing is.
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rcurl
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response 10 of 75:
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Feb 1 06:11 UTC 1999 |
That's just the majority running roughshod over the minority, since no
rule has been adopted to resolve the question. Sounds like the partisan
politics so popular right now, but not based on "rule of law".
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cmcgee
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response 11 of 75:
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Feb 1 13:34 UTC 1999 |
Concensus is _not_ the majority running roughshod over the minority. Running
an organization by concensus is just as orderly as using Roberts Rules. And,
in this organization, it creates a more harmonious organization.
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rcurl
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response 12 of 75:
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Feb 1 16:29 UTC 1999 |
Concensus functions essentially on intimidation. In order to keep
"harmony", people swallow hard and go along with the majority. Our
national constitution was not founded in concensus, and neither should
those of small clubs, for the same reasons. If concensus really worked,
then you could substitute for it a voting rule that required a unanimous
vote on every motion. An organization would then grind to a halt on
addressing many issues.
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mta
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response 13 of 75:
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Feb 1 18:07 UTC 1999 |
I know of very few situation in Grex history where anyone has had to "swallow
hard and go along with the majority". In almost every case, the decision is
held off until a solution is found that can satisfiy (if not please) everyone.
That has resulted in some far more creative and satisfactory decisions being
come to than would have been the case otherwise.
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aruba
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response 14 of 75:
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Feb 1 19:59 UTC 1999 |
Re #12: I see some pretty big differences between our national government and
the government of Grex. Size, for starters; Grex has about a hundred members,
which makes it a lot easier to find consensus ehan if we had, say, 260 million
members. THere is also a lot more at stake in governing the nation, so there
are a lot more strong opinions. When considering issues of governing Grex
we can afford to be more relaxed.
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scg
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response 15 of 75:
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Feb 2 00:33 UTC 1999 |
There were certainly times when I was on Grex's board when the majority wanted
to do something, but somebody vocally objected and a bunch of people changed
their minds, refusing to do something that one person objected to. It struck
me as a form of reverse-consensus. In those cases, I often voted against the
eventual majority, or at least urged a vote until it became clear that that
would be futile. Other board members certainly could have also decided to
disregard the naysayer and push things through, had they wanted to. The
reason Grex board decisions tended to go towards what some people for some
reason decided to claim was consensus was because a majority of the board
wasn't willing to vote differently than that.
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rcurl
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response 16 of 75:
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Feb 2 06:25 UTC 1999 |
Of course, the Grex board does not act by concensus anyway, since they
conduct votes. However there are no bases for the votes, since there
are no rules that govern them. So it is sort of a crazy system in which
unfounded votes are held and if the board "feels" a decision has been
made, they so declare that. It works, of course, because there isn't enough
at stake to create big arguments, as well as the fact that there is still
a core of leaders that others don't mind following.
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pfv
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response 17 of 75:
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Feb 2 07:30 UTC 1999 |
"Consensus"
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cmcgee
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response 18 of 75:
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Feb 2 12:13 UTC 1999 |
Consensus is a decision that everyone can support. It is not necessarily a
decision that everyone likes 100%. But the process does require continuing
to work on a statement until everyone agrees that they can support it and its
consequences.
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davel
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response 19 of 75:
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Feb 2 12:30 UTC 1999 |
Rane, I don't think I'd offer the current, polarized condition of national
government as an argument in favor of adopting RRO (or anything else).
Pete, don't be so picky. (That's *my* job.) 8-{)]
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pfv
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response 20 of 75:
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Feb 2 14:13 UTC 1999 |
Sorry, it was grating an exposed nerve ;-)
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rcurl
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response 21 of 75:
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Feb 2 17:10 UTC 1999 |
cmcgee started it... 8^P.
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cmcgee
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response 22 of 75:
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Feb 3 05:11 UTC 1999 |
Ack!
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rtg
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response 23 of 75:
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Feb 3 07:12 UTC 1999 |
The religious Society of Friends (aka Quakers) has always run their
meetings on the basis of consensus. Change happens slowly. cmcgee's
definition in resp:18 sums it up pretty well.
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rcurl
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response 24 of 75:
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Feb 3 16:38 UTC 1999 |
They are involved in few decisions that have much urgency. Families function
by consensus as do most neighbors (though battles arise in both, with
no agreed upon procedures to resolve them). It is, however, not as good
an idea for businesses with legal and financial responsibilities that
also claim to be democratic, to rest upon consensus. The minority is never
treated fairly (or is driven out by a domineering majority).
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