IMHO the structure of WMF is not the same structure of a local Chapter. The treasurer in fact must be the financial director (CFO). But I think that is *VERY VERY* important that the role of control is *DIFFERENT* from the role of executive. In this case the board must decide to have not a treasurer but a "Financial Controller". Ilario effe iets anders wrote:

No problem but in any case the name of Financial Controller is more correct than "treasurer". As you see here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treasurer#In_other_organizations probably that are skills that cannot be managed by volunteers. It seems more realistic to bound the role for control. Ilario Thomas Dalton wrote:

effe iets anders wrote: Not answering yet on the other points, but no, this is NOT the first time. There is no increased openness, I have done that in the past as well. Here: before october meeting (last one) http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2007-September/032838.html Ant

effe iets anders wrote: I do not think it will make a big difference to have a temporary treasurer right now. A lot of work has been provided by Mona, and we now have a brand new CFOO (Veronique), so it is not as if nothing was being done. The board recently agreed on a name which was suggested by Sue. However, when asked, the person refused the proposition. It was not out of interest, but for various reasons which I do not think I am allowed to publicly mention. One of those however, is likely to be a recurrent reason for all potential candidates: time commitment. We received several propositions by email, some of them being very serious propositions, worth exploring. Which is why it would be a good idea to meet at least some of these candidates face to face in april. ant including this in the discussions over elections seem a good idea. You know how supportive I am of that. I'll try to add that to the agenda. To be fair with you though, I fear board members do not pay any attention and interest to this option :-( ant

effe iets anders wrote: I agree; we need to give credit when something is done right. That's important too. Now that we have a person with the required skills to hold the staff accounting position there is a need to relax the requirements for the treasurer's position. The treasurer does not need to do the books, he needs only to understand them, and ask questions about the details. The treasurer is also a Board member, and participates on an equal footing with the other Board members on every issue that comes up at its meetings. If an existing Board member is willing and able, fine, make that person the treasurer. If not, this is an excellent situation for appointing a new member with adequate understanding. There would be some detailed questions that would need to be addressed about how long his term would be, and when he would need to face election, but not because any of these details would be so contentious. My own suggestion would be that a treasurer who is an appointed Board member would need to face the electorate not less than six nor more than eighteen months after that appointment. The six months should be enough time for him to put his mark on the job, and show that he can communicate with the general membership. Yes, there have been some concerns around that. An incidental issue arising from Erik's resignation during the first year of his mandate, is how to preserve the principle of staggered terms. Does his elected replacement serve a one- or two-year term? Elections will require a blend of such terms to maintain the stagger principle. The last comment on the Meta talk-page was on January 28. I feel very strongly that this is an important initiative that should not be relegated to the wastebasket of great ideas. Personally I'm ready to be very flexible about the concept, and believe that the initial group will need time to find its legs. Nothing in the early stages will be set in stone. For now we just need for someone in an appropriate position to do something. Ec

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 1:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I think if you look closely, the two members that were appointed, were specifically not appointed with a renewable term, but appointed *until* the next elections. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:40 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I don't know that I've ever seen anything saying that this position wouldn't be an elected one. Of course, maybe I haven't seen a lot of information, but without something specific there's no real reason to assume this to be true. To avoid further speculation on it, maybe a board member would be so kind as to tell whether the position of treasurer is generally an elected or an appointed one. --Andrew Whitworth

On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: I'm not saying that there isn't a choice. I'm also not saying whether a treasurer should or should not be appointed. I'm saying that I've never seen it written that the treasurer MUST be appointed, and so I have no reason to assume that such a rule exists. Maybe the board is, by your reasoning, foolish to the extreme. Maybe it is not. --Andrew Whitworth

2008/2/25, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>: For your information, even the elected board members are appointed to the board when they are elected. So that the page says "appoint" proves nothing. -- Jon Harald Søby http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jon_Harald_S%C3%B8by

Andrew Whitworth wrote: Previously, the position of Treasurer has been held by an appointed trustee (Michael Davis). The role doesn't inherently need to belong to an elected or an appointed trustee, but since the kind of qualifications suitable for the position (CPA designation, for example, or extensive experience in business/non-profit financial issues) haven't been evident among candidates in previous elections, it's likely that a new Treasurer will be appointed, not elected. People who actually possess suitable qualifications are welcome to make themselves known to us (see http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Treasurer_Search for information). I think it's fair to say we hope to appoint someone before the next election, but if not and a qualified person happens to be chosen in the election, we won't look a gift horse in the mouth. --Michael Snow

Thomas Dalton wrote: Of the two people being replaced Erik was elected, and Michael, the former treasurer, was appointed. Ec

Ilario Valdelli wrote: Ilario, We are not looking for a treasurer in the traditional view. Our finances are primarily handled by the accountant and the CFOO, who are both staff members. The treasurer will not have "the hands in the books". His role will be to * Manage, with the finance committee to be created, the board's review of and action related to the board's financial responsibilities; * Work with the chief executive to ensure that appropriate financial reports are made available to the board. Regularly reviews reports to board on key financial events, trends, concerns, and assessment of fiscal health; * May work directly with the bookkeeper or other staff in developing and implementing financial procedures and systems; * Serves as support to the financial officer of the organization and as chairperson of the finance committee; * Serves on the audit committee; * Review the annual budget that is presented to the balance of the board for approval; * Review the annual audit and answers board members' questions about the audit; * Provides financial and operational advice and guidance to the board as required. This role will be clearly separated from the management, so there is no self-control. In comparison, in all our chapters, the treasurer has a much larger role, doing both control and execution. This is generally considered ok in small organizations and it was the case of WMF in the past as well (Michael was both controlling and doing the accounting). If (when) chapters grow, they will have to separate roles, or at least set up an independant audit. Ant

A charity's treasurer is always a member of the board. It is one of the positions that is more you *must* have than more than *should* have. Where you have a staff and noticeable amount of financial transactions to deal with, the treasurer does not deal with these aspects. They employ someone on staff to do the daily bookkeeping; either a Chief Accountant, or in more Americanised terms, a Chief Financial Officer. Looking at a small organisation, my father spent several years as the treasurer for his local church. He had salary for a staff of one (the priest), accounting of costs such as the manse and church buildings, and management of donations to handle. This was all something that he could get 90% of done in a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon after church. In this case, an accountant was only involved for a few hours every quarter when government documents had to be filled out and filed. WMF is bigger than that, at least in terms of the amount of money involved. The record-keeping requirements are also more complex. To deal with this you need someone full-time. Being full-time it means on staff and paid to perform work that the smaller operation only periodically needs an accountant to do. The position of treasurer on the board then becomes more important, but - hopefully - less onerous. Someone else is doing the daily bookkeeping and you're in an executive position as treasurer. However, you need to know enough to double-check the work of the CFO from time to time and give intelligent advice on what priorities are. You also need to take the CFO's work to the rest of the board. This is the hard work part of being treasurer. For these reasons you ideally need someone who has the experience to fill the CFO position, but actually just act as the executive above them. This makes it very difficult to elect a suitable candidate and far more appropriate to appoint one. Someone taken from the community would obviously be preferred, but the pool of qualified candidates is small. Brian McNeil -----Original Message----- From: foundation-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:foundation-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Ilario Valdelli Sent: 26 February 2008 11:01 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Next board meeting The point is this: the board *must* represent the community but the board *must* be also the link between the community and the management (it's natural because the choice of the management is that any manager can be *not* wikipedian). With a function of *control* of the board on the management's work the community can have *trust* on management's work. In this vision I said that the role of treasurer is bigger than the role that a board's member can have, but if we are looking for a treasurer in a traditional point of view the treasurer must be a person outside the board (probably), but in this case he will be a member of the management. Result: the management control himself, and this is not correct. After the choice to take management's members from board's members it's clear that the management doesn't have the "memory" of Wikipedia and without an "osmosis" between the management and the board this "memory" cannot be easily reach. Result: the risk is that the management cannot have the trust of the community and the community cannot recognize the management. Ilario On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 12:33 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote: _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l