[Foundation-l] Expert board members - a suggestion

[Thomas Dalton]

2009/8/28 Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de>:
> Thomas Dalton wrote:
>> That's only because we don't specify such an obligation. There is
>> nothing stopping us having such an obligation included in the rules
>> for the advisory board.
>>
> Yes there are. See my answer to Antony about dedication.

I did see your answer. I didn't see any reason for not having
dedicated people on the advisory board.

>> Brion and Véronique have that expertise and could easily be brought in
>> to whatever meetings they are needed for.
>>
>> Sue seems to be pretty good at that kind of thing.
>>
> Naturally are staff expertise very important for the board, but they
> cannot substitute board expertise. The board must have expertise of its
> own to supervise the staff. Replace the role that Jan-Bart is taking on
> the board with Sue would be a good example of bad governance.

As I've already said, the oversight part of the job can be assisted by
advisory board members. I would expect you to know what kind of
expertise you will need for oversight as soon as the agenda is put
together, so the appropriate advisory board members can be invited. It
is the discussions about future direction that are likely to need
unexpected expertise and there is no reason not to use staff for that.