VZW General Assembly 2008-01-15

General Assembly Details

The first General Assembly was held Tuesday, January 15, 2008 at 20:00 CET for a duration of 3 hours. The meeting was held over IRC in #drupal-association on irc.freenode.net. There was 100% attendance, therefore quorum requirements were met and all decisions were legal.

Applications for new Permanent Members were accepted at a temporary website setup on Drupal Association President Dries Buytaert's personal domain, buytaert.net. It was done here, rather than on *.drupal.org, in order to protect the results of the voting (because the permanent members are highly trusted, most of them have elevated privileges on *.drupal.org and could see who voted for which candidates).

Each candidate submitted an electronic profile prior to the vote (and indicated whether they wanted to also apply for Board membership, if elected), and both the existing permanent members and the broader Drupal community had time and opportunity to comment on these profiles and/or ask questions prior to the election. During the 60 minute election, potential candidates were also asked to join #drupal-candidates on irc.freenode.net, where permanent members could ask questions in real-time.

Attendance

General Assembly members in attendance for Permanent Membership election:

Bert Boerland
Dries Buytaert
Angela Byron
Robert Douglass
Neil Drumm
Gerhard Killesreiter
Dries Knapen
Kieran Lal
Boris Mann
Earl Miles
Steven Peck
Zack Rosen
James Walker
Moshe Weitzman

Absent: None

General Assembly members in attendance for Board Membership election:

All of above, plus:

Khalid Baheyeldin
Addison Berry
Jeff Eaton
Larry Garfield
Greg Knaddison
Michael Meyers
Narayan Newton
David Norman
Jacob Redding
Nedjo Rogers
Laura Scott

Absent: None

Financial Status Update

Dries Knapen posted a financial update of the 2007 budget to the Association mailing list prior to the proceedings (attached below). This document shows the overall budget, our sources of income, our expenses, and some graphs on memberships, donations and Packt Royalties.

The 2008 financial plan was not included, as the Board of Directors will be changing. Instead, Dries will work with the new Board members on this plan, and submit it for approval at a subsequent General Assembly within a few weeks (at which time we may also suggest amending the statutes).

The General Assembly was then given time to raise any questions/objections before approving the financial report.

Bert Boerland asked for a breakdown on which money was in Euros and which was in U.S. Dollars. Dries Knapen responded that both the Drupal Association's Paypal account and bank account have sub-accounts in Euros and U.S. Dollars, but the official bookkeeping was in Euros only, so everything was converted.
Bert Boerland asked the follow-up question of what exchange rates were used in order to perform the conversion. Dries Knapen responded that for money in the bank account currently in USD, today's exchange rates were used. For Paypal, the exchange rate depends on what date the money was wired to the bank account. The money in Paypal is not part of the official book keeping, but only the money that has been transferred from Paypal into the bank account.
Bert Boerland noted that tax information was missing. Dries Knapen stated that the year 2006 taxes went in only a few weeks ago, and almost nothing happened so the result (which we'll be notified of within a couple months) should be negligible. The 2007 taxes must be filed by the end of 2008, and their impact will be part of the 2008 budget.
James Walker asked if additional feedback could be submitted to the mailing list after the meeting. Dries Knapen confirmed that it could, and that he would make adjustments later if needed.
Boris Mann mentioned that the word "Evolution" within the graph titles (for example, "membership revenue evolution") was awkward in English, and recommended the word's removal from the final document. Dries Knapen agreed.

There were no further questions/comments, and the General Assembly approved the financial status update.

Permanent Member Election

Dries Buytaert ran down an summary of the Association's accomplishments in 2007:

Since we launched the Drupal Association in January 2007, roughly one year ago, we:

improved the drupal.org infrastructure.
helped organize two international Drupal conferences.
established a relation with an accounting firm.
funded Drupal's presence at a number of events.
started setting up fundraising campaigns.
entered into a relation with the Software Freedom Law Center.
are close to launching a Drupal Association membership model, etc.

Everyone gave a round of applause for the 2007 General Assembly. :)

Prior to the election, General Assembly members were given the opportunity to raise any questions about the election.

Angela Byron asked for clarification on whether or not discussion of candidates should be part of the official minutes. Dries Buytaert pointed out that voting is anonymous, and therefore it should not, and the minutes should contain only the final result. Voters were encouraged to ask the candidates questions during this time, although voting was limited to 60 minutes.
Boris Mann asked for each member to talk about their voting criteria. The qualities looked for in candidates by various members were:
- An existing track record of getting things done.
- Goals and strategies that are in-line with the Association's goals and fill gaps in ways we can support the Drupal project.
- People who we've interacted with positively in the past or have endorsement of other members who have.
- Roles/personalities complementary to existing members; signs of cooperation with other people in the community.
- Evidence that individual can meet their time commitments.
- People who "get" open source/GPL/Drupal and are not likely to change the nature of the community.

After this, the vote took place, during which time the General Assembly gave the applications a final read-through, weighed pros/cons of candidates among themselves, and also spoke directly with some of the candidates. This part is not part of the official minutes, in order to ensure anonymity of voting. In the end, 11 new Permanent Members were elected:

Khalid Baheyeldin
Addison Berry
Jeff Eaton
Larry Garfield
Greg Knaddison
Michael Meyers
Narayan Newton
David Norman
Jacob Redding
Nedjo Rogers
Laura Scott

Additionally, the following 46 members submitted a candidacy and were not elected at this time: Nicolas Amado, Jeremy Andrews, Kemas Antonius, Ilya V. Azarov, Ivan Boothe, Steven Brown, Geoff Butterfield, Marco Carbone, Nicholas Chan, Bing-Chuan Chiu, Lombart Christophe, Jim Craner, Jimmy Elias, Bill Fitzgerald, John Fintan Galvin, Robert Garrigos, Nathan Gasser, Caleb Gilbert, Eric Goldhagen, Anthony Guntharp, haimoura, Gregory Heller, Gordon Heydon, Robert Hinrichs, Denis Lafont-Trevisan, Ryan Lathouwers, Rob Loach, Augustin Masquilier, Nat Meysenburg, Wim Mostrey, Joe Murray, Karoly Negyesi, Henry Poole, Steven Rude, Fabiano Sant'Ana, J Matthew Saunders, Robert Scales, Roshan Shah, Dral Spire, Kaustubh Srikanth, David Strauss, Frank Urro, Ywein Van den Brande, Kristof Van Tomme, Aaron Winborn, Vinay Yadav

The new Permanent Members were then invited and welcomed into the Association channel.

Board Member Election

After an initial frenzy of excited talking when the new Association members meeting the existing ones, the Board Member election process began. 7 Permanent Members were running for Board positions:

Bert Boerland: Legal
Angela Byron: Secretary
Jeff Eaton: Communications/Marketing
Gerhard Killesreiter: Infrastructure
Larry Garfield: Legal/Licensing Coordinator
Kieran Lal: Fundraising
Jacob Redding: Event Coordination

First, members were allowed to ask any questions/comments prior to the voting.

Kieran Lal pointed out that there was a very small pool of candidates, and we should make an attempt to educate the new permanent members about roles/responsibilities. He also asked whether or not new members would have the opportunity to ask questions prior to voting; Dries Buytaert confirmed they would.
Khalid Baheyeldin asked whether the Board of Directors elected here would replace the existing ones. It was pointed out by various members that everyone except for Dries Buytaert (President) and Dries Knapen (Treasurer), who have 2-year terms, have to re-apply for their positions. Apart from those members, the Board is a clean slate.
Steven Peck asked for clarification about the Secretary role, since that was also a 2-year term. Dries Buytaert answered that this role was originally filled by Steven Wittens, who then resigned. Angela Byron acted as interim secretary in his absence, and she is running again this term in order to avoid confusion about where her previous term started/ended. The person elected to Secretary position will have a two-year term, unlike the rest of the positions. This also puts one of the two-year terms at an offset, so there is always at least one person remaining on between boards.

After this intial round of questions, a discussion ensued about the candidates, which are not part of the official record in order to protect anonymity of voting. Most questions were directed toward Larry Garfield and Bert Boerland, who were both running for a legal position on the Board.

At the end of the voting, all prospective Board Members were elected.

The Drupal Association 2008 Board of Directors is: