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Improving Member Section Governance

From: Scott McGrath
To: [email protected]
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2012 21:15:00 -0000

Greetings LegalXML folks,, Having the benefit of working with you and the other Member Section Steering Committees, staff has observed some of your pain with the MS governance - specifically three issues. I think you folks have seen some of these issues directly or indirectly: - The need for and availability of a specific number of Steering Committee members evolves over time and the current process for changing the number is very onerous and distracting to your work. The need for Special Elections to fill vacancies in a rapidly changing environment can be a distraction. - Keeping members meaningfully engaged with the Member Section when things are going well is hard - they don't think they need to pay attention. - The current rules have no attendance/[participation requirements to maintain voting status in MS Governance. This in combination with the Super Majority of all Voting Members makes an impossible barrier for change. The attached document describes these issues in more detail, why they are a problem and a draft solution proposed to address these issues. Key to this proposal is a change in the way the Steering Committee elections are held. The example ballot at the end of the document shows a use-case where the ROP describes a balance in the Steering Committee. As a tribute to the Broadway play "West-Side Story" this ballot is for the steering committee for the Street Gang Member Section, where balance is critical. But we would allow an unlimited number of Jets and Sharks candidates, allowing the members to ultimately choose. We take the position that they will self-govern appropriately because the alternative to balance is unattractive. (except in the West-Side Story where the blood-letting was undertaken with a different style of singing and dancing than we are accustomed to in standards work) The OASIS Board is considering the ideas in this discussion and have asked for your input. Please review the attached and provide your feedback. I'd be happy to join your next Steering Committee meeting to discuss directly, or we can use mail discussion. Thanks, Scott... -- Scott McGrath COO [email protected] Tel +1 781-425-5073 x202 Fax +1 781-425-5072 Follow OASIS on: LinkedIn: http://linkd.in/OASISopen Twitter: http://twitter.com/OASISopen Facebook: http://facebook.com/oasis.open Attachment: Improving MS Governance 2012-3-27.pdf Description: Adobe PDF document