Present: Andrea Buntz-Neiman, Rogan Hamby, Ben Hyman, Galen Charlton, Chauncey Montgomery, Dan Scott, Kathy Lussier, Elizabeth McKinney, Stephen Elfstrand, Yamil Suarez, Amy Terlaga, Ben Shum (observer), Steve Wills, Shauna Borger

Update on Board elections

All four of the incoming Board members will be approved by midnight tonight.

Evergreen 2014 Budget Request

Kathy sent an updated budget yesterday. There was a change – the wireless fee was reduced to $9,000. A lot of this is based on the previous year’s budget. The contract is not signed yet but we are close. We are looking at a March conference to keep hotel rates affordable. Question – what was the final decision on charging registration to speakers? Kathy and Amy don’t think that we can afford to give free registration to all speakers. However, invited guests to speak would have their registration waived. Also outside speakers will get complimentary hotel room. Kathy and Amy had upped the registration fee by $10 due to the high wireless, but now that the wireless fee has been reduced, they wanted to know if they should leave the fee as is. The Board recommended that they leave the cushion in place. Elizabeth moved that the budget be approved. Rogan seconded. The motion carried. Kathy wanted to know if there are changes in the budget, should we come back to the Board? Galen said that for 5 to 10% differences, just go ahead. Anything more, come to the Board.

Change in Terms of Board members

Passed by email. Copy of Galen’s original email below:

[begin email, dated 4/11/13]

This is the technical motion I mentioned earlier today. I move that we change the rules of governance to clarify when Board member terms begin and end. Specifically,

[1] Change section 2.3 to

"The Board shall consist of eleven members."

[2] Add a section 2.4 containing

"2.4. Term

a. The term of each Board member is three years.

b. At the end of the Evergreen Conference for a calendar year, the term of outgoing Board members will end and the term of incoming Board members will begin. If no Evergreen Conference is held during a calendar year, terms will begin and end at midnight EDT on April 30.

c. One-third of the Board positions shall be open for election each year. To implement this, each Board seat shall be designated a member of a cohort labeled "A", "B", or "C". Appendix A lists the cohort and next election date for Board members as of 12 April 2013."

[3] Replace the original Appendix A (which listed the original Board members) with a table listing the election cohort of the current board seats.

I have attached a PDF of the rules of governance as revised by this proposal. A diff of the changes can be found at

http://git.evergreen-ils.org/?p=contrib/governance.git;a=commitdiff;h=ae74cc9220161599f8031554b7519206eb3cc639

Regards,

Galen

[end email]

Galen would like to handle some matters more by email before the monthly board meetings.

The Board's Role in the Community

Rogan explained that he would like the Board to be more of an advocacy Board for the community. He recommended that we should be building mechanisms to gather input from the community, then provide some leadership in getting us there. This could be anything from looking for grants to organizing community members to help with their development projects. Kathy agreed that what the Board is currently doing is not much to sustain an 11 member Board. Rogan asked should the Board play a leadership role in for instance the performance audit.

Galen asked Board members to give their opinion on the matter – what should the Board be doing? Stephen thinks we should take a long term view in the future development of Evergreen. Andrea suggested we support the advancement of patch testing from the non-developer side. Yamil recommended that we expand our resource throughput. For instance, they are using intern help at Berklee. Amy recommended that we improve our fundraising efforts and that someone should work on pursuing grant opportunities. Elizabeth would like to find places to share resources. For instance, the web team seems to have stalled. Rogan explained that the web team will be finding a way to improve input from other community members – there will be an advocacy group. Elizabeth would like the Board to maybe educate members to be good community members. Chauncey agreed with Elizabeth. He has heard a lot of people say at the conference that they want to help, but they’re not sure how. The Board could help foster communication between the members. Kathy thinks it’s important to prioritize based on time and funds. So far there has been cooperation between members but some projects have stalled due to lack of funds. If this came from the Board, maybe people would be willing to donate. Dan also emphasized the importance of prioritizing and ways to bootstrap the development community for projects like QA. Maybe the release manager could sit in on Board meetings to improve communication. Ben Hyman talked about prioritizing projects and making it easier for groups to get their projects off the ground. Steve Wills agreed with Elizabeth. He expressed frustration that there is still talk of communication deficits when we’ve provided that information on the website; clearly this needs to be a priority to get others involved. Ben liked the ideas that the group came up with. Galen recommended that we concentrate on showing people how to help on an administrative level and a technical level. Galen suggested a document, a roadmap for administrators to help guide them in helping with an open source project. This is what it means to donate 20% of my staff’s time to working on documentation, for example. Perhaps we could produce YouTube videos on how to test code, how to produce documentation. Every Board member could work on one of these projects. How about a talking points list for administrators to use with their Boards.

A discussion of performance issues and QA ensued. Should this be a focus for this year based on MassLNC’s work? Will they have information on their audit soon? Elizabeth would like to come up with a list of priorities for the year to present on Saturday. This could lead to a discussion with the community. The Board has two main themes in mind for the year – 1. Showing people how to help in the community and 2. Improving Evergreen’s quality. The Board will be actively seeking resources to achieve these two goals. The Board will also be working with the web team to get others involved. Steve suggested that we provide examples to give people ideas as to how we’ll be helping.

Rogan moved that we take on the two themes of Community Outreach and Improving Evergreen. Dan seconded. The motion carried.

The Hack-a-Way

Rogan stated that the Hack-a-Way was a success last year. He would like us to hold another Hack-a-Way for this year. Galen moved and Kathy seconded. The motion carried.

Galen moved that the release manager be invited to Board meetings. Dan seconded. The motion carried.

Rogan would like to work with others on spearheading the initiative of getting non-technical people plugged in to the Evergreen project. Andrea and Shauna volunteered.

Galen moved that we adjourn. Rogan seconded. Meeting adjourned at 8:55am.