> On 2022-03-30, at 1:51 PM, Lauren P <drurowin at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> On Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:39 tim Rowledge <tim at rowledge.org> wrote:
> > On 2022-03-30, at 7:04 AM, Ron Teitelbaum <ron at usmedrec.com> wrote:
> > Right now we have only 4 people running for 7 board seats.  And one of those doens't want to be elected!  
> 
> Please, please, think about running. This entire thing only works when people get together to do something. The board isn't some super-secret-old-farts-only shadow conspiracy (they are in the meeting room three doors down, you'll need a password), it's just a group trying to keep things moving, keep the website going, organise releases, come up with ideas to improve the Squeak world and so on. Anyone that makes some use of Squeak is qualified to join in; everyone that makes any use of Squeak should consider it.
> What are the ingredients to make the perfect Squeak Boarder?
> 
> Like,
> 
> * How much Squeak experience do you need? Is the board a collection of gurus? or can mere mortal squeakers be useful on it?

The board is really mostly about 'keeping the lights on' rather than 'bossing the software'. We have very minor legal responsibilities that we mostly outsourced to the 'Software Freedom Conservancy' in order to have things looked after by suitable experts. We don't do much with money, mostly because we don't have any; that is rarely an issue in practice.

Technical expertise in any kind of software is close to irrelevant for this. Love for Smalltalk is relevant because why else would one bother? TBH we could benefit immensely from someone that simply loves organising stuff, like almost any human enterprise.

> 
> * How much time does it need? Is it something somebody in school or full time job do?

We meet for about an hour, twice a month, over Zoom. Some of us have even met in person over the decades - I got to meet Dave Lewis physically a year or two ago when he visited my island, and Craig & I have worked together in several jobs, etc etc. Occasionally one or other of us agrees to do some more time-consuming activity in order to get some important thing done. Often that involves being part of one or other of the teams that care for the servers, or the website, or the release process. (And I should wave the flag and point out that those teams can always do with interested members)

> 
> * Is there any really technical non-Squeak knowledge needed?

Nothing special that I've ever noticed, though obviously if you gather a bunch of geeks together it will turn out that some are experts in interesting areas. The current board are all fairly, to extremely, experienced Smalltalkers, but I think everyone also has quite a bit of experience with other systems & languages too. 

> 
> Stuff like that, to let the people thinking they want to but don't know if it'll work out or they're qualified.

The real qualifications are
- interest
- love of Smalltalk
- a little time to offer


tim
--
tim Rowledge; tim at rowledge.org; http://www.rowledge.org/tim
There *are* worse crimes than burning books.  One of them is not reading them.