[okfn-discuss] Open Knowledge Foundation Governance

Pieter Colpaert pieter.colpaert at okfn.org
Mon Jul 15 08:50:06 UTC 2013


Hi Daniel,

+1, but...

OKFN Belgium has been invited a couple of times to participate actively 
in OKFN Central just for that reason. The problem is however that all 
this should be done voluntarily. A few OKFN enthusiasts in Belgium have 
been travelling around (Mathias, Lieven, Stephane, Katleen, myself, etc) 
to meet up with OKFN people globally, but this is not sustainable. Until 
now I have been comfortable having OKFN Central taking decisions for us 
since we wouldn't have time/funds to get involved in the process anyway.

We are doing a couple of funded projects which should give us the 
time/funds to start participating internationally somewhere next year 
though. The set-up of OKFN Belgium since 2012 and all its project and 
working groups has taken a lot of effort from crazy volunteers who are 
way too devoted, and this is only on a national level. If during this 
time (and I think a lot of chapters are now going through the same phase 
as we did a couple of months ago), we should also have joined 
discussions and confcalls internationally, I think it would have been 
impossible to be where we are today. There I think the international 
council is impossible to function if it is ran by volunteers, as the 
members of the international council who really know about things on a 
national level should first of all use all their spare time to set-up 
projects, which take a hell of a time.

Kind regards,

Pieter


On 07/15/2013 10:27 AM, Daniel Dietrich wrote:
> Hi Abbas, Laura, all,
>
> we have already touched upon this issue last year in Helsinki and
> discussed again in OKFN's winter summit. I think there is a general
> agreement that chapters, local groups, working groups and perhaps
> other stakeholders of the international community should have some say
> on certain decisions that effects them as part of the global network.
>
> Until today, in fact, the board of OKFN central takes decisions for
> the hole network. This is not a good situation and should be changed.
>
> However, we have not agreed on how this representation might look
> like. I think there are multiple options. For example we could think
> about an model were members of the community join OKFN central board
> for a period of time alternately. Or of a model were an additional
> international board is established, that itself becomes some say in
> the decisions of the OKFN central board.
>
> Perhaps we should start by thinking of what kind of decisions should
> remain in the responsibility of OKFN central board and what kind of
> decisions the international community should become involved in
> decision making process.
>
> @Laura, I think it would be good to already include members of the
> international community in this governance discussion. Perhaps the
> newly created OKFN-International-Council is a good place to start
> with?
>
> All best
> Daniel
>
>
>
>
> Daniel Dietrich
>
> Chairman & Direktor Policy
> Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland
> www.okfn.de | info at okfn.de | @okfde
> +49 30 57703666 0 | Fax: +49 30 57703666 9
>
> Wir setzen uns für offenes Wissen ein.
> Mach mit: http://www.okfn.de/getinvolved
>
>
>
> On 14 July 2013 19:06, Laura James <laura.james at okfn.org> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> By an amazing coincidence, just today there's been a Board Retreat and we've
>> discussed this very question. We agreed that there should be a community
>> representative on the board, and we'll be putting together a process for
>> this shortly. So watch this space!
>>
>> Other board members are selected to ensure the critical board functions
>> around governance can be delivered by people with the appropriate skills and
>> expertise; we hope to refresh the processes and documents to explain this in
>> more detail shortly too.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Laura
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Dr Laura James
>>
>> Co-Director  | skype: laura.james  |  @LaurieJ
>>
>> The Open Knowledge Foundation
>>
>> Empowering through Open Knowledge
>>
>> http://okfn.org/  |  @okfn  |  OKF on Facebook  |  Blog  |  Newsletter
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 14 July 2013 12:34, Abbas Mahmoud <abbasjnr at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I'm interested in knowing how the Open Knowledge Foundation Board of
>>> Directors are selected. I'm pretty new to the OKFN movement, so I'd highly
>>> appreciate some pointers to relevant links, if any.
>>>
>>> Also, has the OKF ever considered empowering the community to (s)elect
>>> some seats at the Board Level? I know that other like-minded organisations
>>> like Wikimedia Foundation and Creative Commons usually does that, which
>>> tends to give the community a sense of belonging and a voice at the
>>> decision-making level.
>>>
>>> Your thoughts?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Abbas.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> okfn-discuss mailing list
>>> okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org
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>>>
>>
>>
>>
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