Governance

From Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP)
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Subgroup Members:

  • Rob Raskin
  • Chuck Hutchinson
  • Bruce Caron

Issues to Be Addressed:

  • Permanently Name Alternate Voting Reps for which no proxy is needed – education and communication are key parts toward the successful implementation of this;
  • What to do with Community Engagement, Commercial Development & Products and Services Committees; look at all committee charters
  • Clusters lifespan – related to membership; finance; AQ was never envisioned to short term; perhaps more appropriate for AQ Cluster to be a WG
  • Membership dues
  • Leadership succession/terms/when elections are held
  • Governance should support strategic plan... meetings should support governance structure

Discussion:

  • Permanently Name Alternate Voting Reps for which no proxy is needed – education and communication are key parts toward the successful implementation of this
    • Is there an issue?
    • What would be required to make the change? Look at Bylaw II.2.3 - get clarification from C&B
    • Resolution from Excom articulating the policy change
    • Primary and Secondary alternates would have to be named
  • What to do with Community Engagement, Commercial Development & Products and Services Committees; look at all committee charters
    • Active committees - Education/IT&I are more self-serving; Inactive committees have larger organizational roles
    • Committee activity review: # of telecons/meetings; # of active people
    • Are committee functions related to ESIP Types? What role might affinity groups play? Belonging to more than 1 ESIP Type?
    • Eliminate committees that are inactive - would require bylaws changes
    • Open process to invite new committee to be formed
    • Invite Outreach Managers from Data Centers to future meetings
    • Community Engagement is now served by Foundation Front Office
    • P&S perhaps getting split among all other committees
    • Commercial Development as a cluster? ping Howard
  • Clusters lifespan – related to membership; finance; AQ was never envisioned to short term; perhaps more appropriate for AQ Cluster to be a WG
    • What are Clusters when they grow up? - Working Groups
    • What are Working Groups when they grow up? - Committees
    • Natural Evolution of cluster to working group
    • Air Quality Cluster was created out of the Executive Committee under Yunck - should change the name to Air Quality Working Group
    • Semantic Web Cluster was to help the EIE mature - should it fall under IT&I?
    • Working Groups are sponsored by Committees - financial oversight by committees as part of their budgets
    • Semi-annual reports on how money was spent to ESIP Federation Assembly
  • Membership dues
    • Every ESIP pays a basic amount (the equivalent of 1 meeting/person) - a meeting credit $600/year
    • Will trigger consolidation of partner projects
    • Credit has to be sufficient enough to differentiate between members and non-members
    • Waive membership fee for Type IVs
    • Calendar membership dues structure, pro-rated if join mid-year
    • Unanimous consent required for imposing dues
    • Optional dues
  • Leadership succession/terms/when elections are held
    • Length of terms probably should stay at 1 year b/c of difficulty in getting people to serve
    • Consecutive terms limited to 1 set of back-to-back; possibly change to 3
  • Governance should support strategic plan... meetings should support governance structure
    • town hall meeting to ask what affinity groups are needed?

Recommendations:

  • Permanent Naming of Alternate Voting Rep
    • Draft a Resolution from Excom articulating the policy change which provides for a primary and secondary alternate voting rep. (no bylaws change needed)
  • What to do with Community Engagement, Commercial Development & Products and Services Committees
    • Excom to Review all Committees (# of meetings during past 2 years; # of people in attendance; upcoming activities) and make recommendations on what should be kept, what should go
    • Open a process to invite new Standing Committees
  • Lifespan of Clusters and Working Groups
    • Natural Evolution of cluster to working group
    • Oversight of working groups from a committee that created it.
    • Financial oversight is done through the budget request review process & semi-annual reporting on activities
  • Membership dues
    • Implement a *voluntary* dues structure that provides a meeting credit
  • Leadership succession/terms
    • No changes need to term length
    • Increase consecutive term limit to 3 (from 2 1-year terms)
  • Governance should support strategic plan
    • Conduct a town hall meeting to identify new affinity groups for Federation partners