[foundation-board] an interesting potential coordinator

Fri Aug 27 18:32:11 UTC 2010

On 27 August 2010 19:04, Jo Walsh <metazool at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 27/08/2010 18:06, Becky Hogge wrote:
>>
>> On 26 August 2010 18:38, Jo Walsh<metazool at gmail.com>  wrote:
>
>>> Thoughts?
>
>> suggestion would be that we continue with the recruitment process ...
>> we will also have other options, not to mention an open and fair
>> process, too.
>
> I wonder what "fair" means here; if Mark were to pipe up and shape up, and
> he seemed to be doing a pretty good job, would it be fair to ask other
> people to interview who we were certain it was unlikely we would give the
> job to unless their behaviour was really startling.

If we knew we wanted to give the job to Mark, then no, that wouldn't
be fair. But I'm still willing to put the work in to solicit
approaches from folk not in our immediate networks who might be a good
fit for the job. I just think this is a crucial, perhaps long term,
position and it would be worth our while to see who else is out there.
This shouldn't prejudice the work Mark is doing, as I said in my
previous mail, his coming on board seems like a good development.

<snip>

> I want to keep the projects coordinator position quite part-time, probably
> no more than 2 days a week

I'd like to know more about why you want this - I'm not sure we fully
explored the full-time / part-time question in the f2f meeting,
perhaps something revisit?

I think our views on who this person is / why we want them are
diverging. To me, the project coordinator fulfills all the roles of an
executive director (in terms of reporting directly to the Board and
taking responsibility day-to-day for the good running of activities,
particularly where contracts and money is involved) minus the
strategic role, which is delegated to the Coordination committee. My
hunch, from reading your email and from other conversations, is that
this is a characterisation/set of hopes that you would not share. I'm
beginning to think we need to revisit this issue, perhaps at the next
Board meeting, before we move to recruit a project coordinator. Would
that be useful? What did others on the Board take from the discussion
of the project coordinator?
>
> what is
> fair?

Indeed - I spend quite a bit of time thinking about this myself. The
observation "fairness, equality, opportunity, pick two" pretty much
characterises my beliefs, not least because I don't quite understand
it. An interesting discussion, but one that, if you want to pursue it,
I suggest we take off list.

Sorry if anything in my earlier mail implied that I didn't trust your
judgement on Mark (I do), or that I thought you were somehow being
unfair (I don't).

bests

Becky
>
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> jo
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