🚀 go-pugleaf

In <9214404.2221@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> kre@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Elz) writes:

>In <pjw.706535063@lobo> pjw@lobo.canberra.edu.au (Peter Wishart) writes:

>| A better scenario would be to only change half the committee every year.
>| So people have two year terms but they are staggered.

>But this isn't the solution - the committee doesn't "change" every year,
>it stands for re-election, assuming the members want to (if they don't
>nothing is going to keep them for even that long).  If the committee
>are doing a reasonable job, and want to be re-elected, chances are that
>at least most of them will be - there will be plenty of time to get
>familiar with the job.

I think there is a big difference between being elected for one year
with an *expectation* of reappointment and a two year appointment.  You
could argue that people on the committee should make progress towards
their stated goals within the one year and then get they will get
re-elected.  However that may be quite difficult to do and it may be
even more difficult to show.

Lets take a case in point.  Glenn has been on the committee for at
least several years, he has always had a stated commitment towards
chapter-like activities, trying to encourage AUUG towards some form of
decentralisation (I hope I am not mis-representing Glenn here).  Yet,
from where I sit, it has taken sometime for the members to start seeing
any benefits of that work.

I am not taking pot shots at anybody here, I am just trying to point
out that committees (by their very consensus nature) will move slowly.
This is even more true of committees with national representation which
are hampered by geographic realities limiting face to face meetings.

>There's no need to change anything here, its not as if the AUUG members
>periodically purge the entire committee and start with an entirely new one,
>in fact, I suspect that there's been some pretty good continuity,
>committee members more often retire than are disenfranchised.  

You are right, I don't think there is a problem now.   Right now, we
don't have hordes of people interested in standing for committee
positions.  Members of the committee interested in continuing will be
able to do so (because there is a lack of interested participants).
But, if we grow (and I hope we will), then I predict that we will have
problems.

I was not proposing to start initiating any change right now.  Even if
we did it would probably be two years before any constitutional
ammendment were enacted to bring it into force.   Somewhere in the next
two to five years (if we grow) I believe that we will have to face this
issue.

>I can't
>recollect a case where one of the office bearers failed in a bid to be
>re-elected.

In fact I suspect there have been more than few cases of office bearers
re-standing because no candidates came forward. :-)

Peter