[Foundation-l] This week's board meeting

[Michael Snow]

I don't recall if I'd updated this publicly before, but we ended up 
changing the location of the February board meeting. At Wikimania last 
year, our preliminary plan was to have the meeting in New York, but for 
logistical reasons it proved to be more practical to use the office in 
San Francisco. There was some mild disappointment from our European 
board members who thus have farther to travel, but since the April 
meeting will be in Berlin (combined with the chapters meeting), they get 
a break next time. We do hope to hold a future meeting in a suitable 
midway point like New York eventually, as we cycle around different 
locations, although the office will always be a useful fallback.

Coincidentally, there happens to be a San Francisco meetup using the 
office Saturday afternoon, so I hope the board members will stop in to 
say hello when our day's work is done. One of the reasons I'd like to 
meet in New York sometime is for something similar, as there are quite a 
few people who could make a New York meetup that I would be eager to 
finally meet in person.

Anyway, our agenda for this weekend is pretty simple, aside from minor 
housekeeping items. We're devoting one day to board development and one 
day to strategic planning discussion. The first part means defining and 
understanding our role as a board, both what it is and what it isn't, 
which we've needed as the organization matures. The board is trying to 
mature along with the organization, which means both integrating our 
newer members and having the longer-serving ones adapt to the direction 
we are going. This will be important as we get closer to our full 
capacity (things are progressing, slowly but surely, on the remaining 
vacancy, we expect to interview some candidates in the coming weeks).

The strategic planning portion of the agenda is not approval of a final 
plan yet, but the process has advanced significantly enough to be 
looking at priorities and considering some recommendations. The task 
forces and the planning team have generated a lot of information that's 
being synthesized here, and I appreciate all the effort people have put 
in. My nose has basically been buried in this for the past week 
preparing for our meeting, but it wouldn't be possible to move this 
forward if it was just the board and staff, many other people have done 
a lot of hard work too. Thank you, all of you.

--Michael Snow