[Foundation-l] board candidacies
Ray Saintonge
saintonge at telus.net
Fri Aug 11 20:43:01 UTC 2006
Erik Zachte wrote:
>Walter van Kalken:
>
>
>>I personally feel that one of the big issues is that people are required
>>to spend their own money for things. This means that if you life outside
>>of the US, even outside of Florida that your costs will be prohibitively
>>high. I personally find that one of the most prohibitive requirements.
>>Many people whom would have the time and the enthousiasm do not have a
>>bankaccount for that. And that is one of the reasons I have a lot of
>>respect for Angela and Anthere. They are willing to spend their personal
>>savings for the betterment of the projects. People should realize that
>>the next time they start complaining with them.
>>
>>
>I concur with this entirely. We have enough dot com millionaires on the
>Board, and the Advisory Board might add some.
>This is not personal to anyone, those concerned probably just got their
>priorities right.
>
>What 'saddens' me however is the way Anthere was treated during the Board
>session last Sunday when the issue of paying board members was brought up.
>Jimbo made a casual remark to the effect of "(I'm not sure) we want to pay
>board members, besides it is not allowed by the bylaws" (paraphrasing here).
>Easy to say in his position. Then someone made a witty but badly timed joke
>about the situation, the chairman of the Board might have intervened at that
>moment. I feel it was humiliating for Anthere. Maybe the bylaws allow other
>board members than Jimmy to accept well paid invitations for keynote
>speeches?
>
I recently sat on a committee of a local unrelated organization that
dealt with the compensation issue on a much smaller scale. There too,
one of the borderline issues had to do with babysitting. It can be a
very tricky issue that needs to be approached with a great deal of
sensitivity. Before answering I made a point of reviewing the
transcript
http://wikimania2006.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Board_Panel
There is a clear distinction between paying a salary to a board member,
and reimbursing him for out-of-pocket expenses. The specific quote from
Jimbo is "I have no interest in being paid." I would not extrapolate
from that comment an inference that no-one should be paid. On the other
hand paying the airfare for key people to travel halfway around the
world is perfectly acceptable.
Anthere, IMHO, has a reputation for taking principled positions. If she
felt that it was unethical to be reimbursed for her babysitting expenses
I need to respect that position. I am certainly not prepared to
prejudge what would have happened if she had asked for a reimbursement
of that expense. Very few of us need to deal with that specific
expense. I can also look at the joke in the spirit in which it was
intended, and not as a real criticism of anybody. Anyone there who
actually saw the tiny baby in the gentle hands of a gorilla would have
laughed.
If someone wants to generously pay a board member to give a keynote
speech that board member is entitled to keep it. This is not a matter
for our by-laws. I don't think that Jimbo is the only one giving
speeches, though I did think that the criticism of Brad for accepting a
speaking engagement when he "should be in the office" was somewhat petty.
Ec
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