Erik Zachte wrote:
It is my intention that we be very very careful in this process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to empower and defend the community model. :)
preserve or reaffirm ?
Both!
Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that search process, in conjunction with the board and community leaders of all kinds.
leaders or members ?
Both!
Urgent matters obviously need to be resolved now. In Rome emergencies were also addressed by subsiding democracy and *appointing* a dictator for half a year (the meaning of the term dictator has drifted quite far since then).
There is no dictator here.
After we catered for emergencies, I still hope that the same community that wisely elected Angela and Anthere (hurray for them) will some day be given more direct responsibility in deciding how to resolve deficiencies at the organisational level. To me a community and a foundation are not separate entities ( I heard this as a closing argument all too often recently ), no more than a people and its government are separate entities. A government serves the people and is guided and controlled by the people. I'm not an expert in political matters, but I feel it makes more sense to draw our metaphores from an area of human activity where many are to gain from the actions of some (state/governement) than from areas where some are to gain much more than others from the activities of many (large corporations).
I agree completely. I resist very strongly any separation of foundation and community.