Public Request for Meeting Minutes

[montano]

To Whom it May Concern:
Please publish the OSM Board Meeting Minutes for November through February. During this time span there have been two new members appointed, a Summit Meeting, and new bylaws approved.

http://opensourcematters.org/policies/2 ... nutes.html

8. ARTICLE VIII - PUBLIC OVERSIGHT

To the extent the corporation creates any of the following documents, it will, within a reasonable period of time, publish such documents for public review: annual reports on the state of the organization and plans for the coming year, minutes of Annual General Meeting, minutes from all meetings of the Board of Directors, financial reports pertaining to periods of 3 months or more, tax filings, reports of audit results. Nothing in this provision will be construed to require the corporation to create any of the mentioned documents.

Revised and ratified by the Open Source Matters Board of Directors on November 6, 2013.

Sincerely,
Cindy Montano

[montano]

According to The Bruce R. Hopkins Nonprofit Law Library Essential Questions and Answers the IRS requires meeting minutes to be published either by the next board meeting or 60 days, whichever comes later.

As of today, March 1, 2014, it has been 117 days since the board's summit meeting on November 6, 2013 held at JWC in Boston. http://www.opensourcematters.org/news.html Several important things happened at this meeting. Two new members, Joe Sonne and Victor Drover, were appointed to the board. (note: no public nominations were held), and the bylaws were overhauled.

The latest published minutes are from October 29, 2013

The Bruce R. Hopkins Nonprofit Law Library Essential Questions and Answers Bruce R. Hopkins Google Books.png

[porwig]

Hi Cindy,

Thanks for your interest to read the more recent OSM board meeting minutes. We want to balance thoroughness, accuracy and timeliness, while also respecting the many other demands on the lives and the time from our volunteers. Sometimes that means things take longer than we would like. I hope you will accept that and have continued patience regarding getting our more recent board meeting minutes published.

FYI, the points you excerpted from the Bruce R. Hopkins resource refer to tax-exempt organizations that file informational returns to the IRS. OSM is not a tax-exempt organization, and OSM does not file informational returns (we file monetary returns).

[montano]

Transparency: As Inigo said to Vicini "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

I cannot understand how this board, which I call the Class of 2010, can on one hand modify the bylaws to allow term renewals because each member is so "vitally" important, yet not perform the tasks they volunteered to do.

We want to balance thoroughness, accuracy and timeliness, while also respecting the many other demands on the lives and the time from our volunteers. Sometimes that means things take longer than we would like.

With all due respect this is a lame excuse at best. If a person volunteers, takes up one of the very limited seats, yet fails to perform, that person should resign. Not seek a term renewal.

From what I can gather, the concept of "openness and transparency" has been discussed ad nauseam by the Class of 2010, yet something as simple as meeting minutes are consistently 3-4 months out of date.

Google Groups.png

The Google Group for OSM has been live for 2 years, 8 months, yet there are only 62 topics. There was a full 6 months with zero posts.

hypocrisy-1.png

You have been an advocate for "openness and transparency" on paper, but I do not see it in deeds.

Meet Paul Orwig An Interview with the New OSM President.png

[montano]

Lessons about openness and transparency from a budget discussion.png

[porwig]

Hi again Cindy,

A fair assessment of OSM's openness and transparency would take into consideration many other areas besides just the two points you mentioned (how quickly board meeting minutes are published, or how frequently the public email list is used).

OSM has certainly made progress in that area during the past 2 years. Not as much as I would like, but I have learned that in an all volunteer organization, some goals are more easily accomplished than others. I hope that OSM will continue to improve in this area as well as others in the future, and I hope you will look for ways to give your support and encouragement to all of the volunteers who are giving their time and doing their best to help keep Joomla and OSM moving forward.

Regards,

paul