Hi,

As Goran announced -
http://lists.squeakfoundation.org/pipermail/squeak-dev/2005-October/095378.html
- the SqF board thinks it would be a good idea to have an election
team outside the board to take care of everything around succession.

It doesn't need to be a large team, and there's not a lot of work
involved - but it is a very responsible task, and the Election Team
must jump into action whenever necessary, so we don't leave empty
seats on the board for too long. And, of course, you must be prepared
to defend whatever you come up with, procedure-wise, to the Squeak
Community - that could be a bit of a daunting task ;-).

Anyway, this is not a Formal Board Communique, but rather a reminder
by yours truly that we think this Election Team thing is a good idea,
and that if anyone volunteers to be part of it, we'd like to hear it
(here on the list, preferrably, but otherwise mail to
board at discuss.squeakfoundation.org - please don't contact any of us
through private mail, we want to keep an archive of everything in this
place).

Regards,

Cees

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Repeating Goran's write-up for reference:

Representational model
---------------------------
Now when we merge we also think it is important to take a first, small
careful step towards a more representative/democratic model for SqF.
Note that the model below is NOT anywhere near a perfect model - but
instead of getting caught in an endless debate we chose something
simple and careful that we could quickly agree on. So please keep that
in mind. :)

The model is this:

- We want to create an Election Team with a Team leader that is NOT in
the SqF board.

- Whenever someone of us current 7 board members decides to step down
*and* the board wants to get a replacement, it is the job of the
election Team, in *whichever* way it finds suitable, to come up with a
replacement. This means that the first job of the Election Team is
probably to establish some kind of voting procedure (or whatever)
ready for use.

- Whenever the board wants to recruit someone specific (or non
specific) thus growing the board, we do it "through" the Election
Team.

- The Election Team also has the task to come up with a better future
model than the above. Any such new election model it presents needs to
be approved by a united board though.


A few notes on the above:

- We leave it to squeak-dev to discuss and find a suitable Election
Team leader. We will only try to help if noone steps forward willing
to pick up the ball. So consider the ball rolling. :)

- We deliberately did not include an option for the board to refuse
the replacement presented by the Election Team. We will trust the
Election Team to do a good job and to communicate with the board
during its process.

- The full procedure to find a replacement is entirely delegated to
the Election Team. If the team chooses to use public voting or
throwing a dice :) - it is up to the Team.

- When we want to recruit a specific person we will go through the
election Team and simply give them our name and motivation. Then they
use their process, whatever that might be. In theory they could end up
rejecting that person or whatever.

- Whichever new future model the Election Team produces, we still
currently reserve the power to reject it. Yes, a bit on the cautious
side, but as we said, the above model is not perfect. ;)

- The fact that the model still leaves no options for the community to
*initiate* any changes in the board (any initiative still comes from
inside) should motivate the Election Team and the community to come up
with a better model to replace this one :).