Open Stack

Jim, 

Thank you for communicating your concerns. 

We recognized the potential impact both positive and negative that a board meeting has at an event.  This impact is not something that we take lightly. That’s why this topic is regularly discussed at the board meetings and via polls and emails. 

As the board discusses when and where to hold F2F board meetings it is not an easy decision and involves many different factors of consideration.  The points you raise are a good sample and, interestingly, are arguably both reasons for and against holding a board meeting at events.  For example, we do recognize the time impact of holding the meetings during an event but also, as you noted, that F2F discussions are needed for conversations which are difficult to have any other way.  At the same time board members, as you pointed for all of us, have limited time, funding and travel approval. Over the many discussions for meeting dates and locations such limitations brings consensus back to holding them at the events. 

I (and the board members) do take your concern seriously. I want you to know that I have been and will continue to work with the staff and board members to try to schedule the meeting date, time, length and topic(s) schedule so as to minimize the impact as much as possible, enabling the board members to contribute to their key meetings and discussions at the event. 

Regards,
AlanClark

>-----Original Message-----
>From: James E. Blair [mailto:corvus at inaugust.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2018 3:02 PM
>To: foundation at lists.openstack.org
>Subject: [OpenStack Foundation] PTG Board of Directors Meeting
>
>Hi,
>
>I'd like to suggest that the board of directors meeting currently scheduled for
>February 26th be rescheduled.
>
>I think this came up the last time the board scheduled a meeting which conflicted
>with a Foundation event.
>
>Every 6 months, as many of us as can manage to find the time, funding, and
>travel approval to do so, fly to somewhere in the world to get together and make
>serious progress on these projects that we all work together on.  It's a really big
>deal.  We put a lot of effort into planning it beforehand, and we save up
>conversations which we know are difficult to have any other way for these
>events.
>
>The same is true for the board.  What happens during the conference calls, and
>what happens at the face-to-face meetings are very different.
>
>Some of us have our feet in both worlds, and we're all the better for it.  However,
>we can't do both at the same time.  They are both too important.  We have folks
>who are involved in many OpenStack projects as well as the board, and those
>projects will all suffer if these folks are unable to participate in our cross project
>collaboration.  Likewise, the board discussions will lack important viewpoints if
>they don't attend.
>
>Scheduling the board meeting during the PTG sends a signal about how the board
>values the discussions we have there and the participation of folks engaged
>across our community.  And as a practical matter, if we aren't able to have the
>discussions we need to at the PTG, we will need to find yet another place to have
>them -- a problem the PTG was intended to solve.
>
>-Jim
>
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