context: this post was written when the initial post was written asking for a total of 5 members. the response is based on that assumption but the initail post has now been changed asking for only one additional director.
have you run this passed the governamce team?
the meeting i went to they where adimemnt of having 3 directors. has there been a complete u turn?
having more dirsectors should not be the only solution for spreading the growing work load. we need to think much more creativly to end the current bottleneck caused by too few members having too much responsibilty. having more directors may just mean longer bottlenecks while the small group argues amnst it self rather than spreading reposnibility wider.
also there is in my mind and amonst the opinions of the people that i have spoken to confusion of what the roles of the directors are.
the scale gooing from at one end (people that just sign off the paper work and keep an eye on budgets) to the other end of the spectrum (that gives them the power and responsibility to oversae and approve or refuse ever single tiny decision that happens in the space)
coments on the role you have defined:
Deciding long-term strategy - members should decide and directors empower
Answering general email enquiries - should be done by a new tech role
Keeping financial records - tresurer
Authorising expenditures greater thn the £50 @role budgets - should be something else
Authorising shutter access - systems role
Coordinating the @roles - should be a roles coordinator
Handling and ruling on Grievance issues - we should have moderators to do this. the moderators are currently and hand full of people that got chosen at random when the space opened. this group needs to be reviewed.
i would liike to see more people given roles that mean we can react to things in a more timely fashion. givepeople more resosbility. allow them to be more envolved. grow confidence. do things they havent done before. allow people to make mistakes instead of just doing nothing. have a space that is made up of members that are more equal. trust people. a more dynamic and happy space.
We previously had 5. When I raised the question with other hack/makerspace directors on the hackspace foundation chat channel, nobody had fewer than 5 on their board.
Over the summer, there were multiple times when myself, dermot and pete were all unavailable. 3 is just too few people for a volunteer-run organisation to be able to have an effective leadership, regardless of the scope of that leadership.
ive posted you directly as im unclear what the outcome of the governamce process was and the decision of that process needs to be respcted. that is a decision made by the members.
the governance meetings are the place to discuss that.
the decision that comes from that should be respected.
the decision making and meeting are open to all members.
any one that wants to be envolved in helping can join.
There’s a time imperative here Paul. Tom’s leaving very soon.
The governance working group did propose keeping director numbers at 3. But my understanding is that that’s clearly within the framework of a modified governance system.
More importantly the WG isn’t necessarily correct, it’s the view of a very small group of members trying to offer some solutions, but there hasn’t been any vote or approval of these yet.
What we know right now is that the WG has proposals, but they’re not enacted, however we’ve been months without enough directors and putting pressure on them, and slowing things down as @tomnewsom observed and I’m sure many of us have experienced recently.
So lets get the 5 directors in place and trained up so that when @Dermot steps down next year as he has indicated he might, then we’ve got people in place to help with that, and should the members vote to reduced the numbers because the position is redundant due to the new governance process then perhaps we should run down naturally or offer people the chance to step down early.
What I’m concerned about is that we’ve been waiting for governance for a long time and that we end up rushing that and getting it wrong simply so we can replace the directors position, when actually we should get it right and just have a patch job for now.
How about finding a replacement for Tom first , then worry about the other 2 directors.
After all there is a meeting in a week where I am sure this will be discussed
A director was elected that was extremely contentious with the membership and the resulting Extraordinary General Meeting to get the director removed created a huge amount of ruffled feathers and bad feelings…
What I am saying is the directors holding a veto in this would protect us from that type of situation. Although it should absolutely not be something we should hold as a precident, but given that our articles are a little generic it would be a good protection mechanism.
can you explain what the rush is?
and what you are prosposing very clearly.
this is not a dicussions we shuold be having in text speak on a thursday afternoon at work.
you cant make a decision on a hoover but you can rush though something like this before consulting any one. utter madness.
this highlights that the power structure is failing the members.
let me make it very clear that more directors does not equate to a better directorship. there is no evidence for that. directors should have less power not the same power divided up amongst more people. its about time we looked at spreading the workload more appropraitely. by trying to ignore the problems and rush this threw is obsurbed, and not within your power.
if any one wasnt 100% clear about the fact we have some major issues that are not being dealt with they should be after reading this post.
there is no rush at tall to sort this out. we can continue as we are until we have made some decisions on some real positive changes. not rushed half backed good intentions.