Fwd: Re: Co-chairs and vice-chairs

["Eve L. Maler" <eve.maler@east.sun.com>]

Following is the response from the OASIS group that owns the TC 
process.  Here is what I suggest:  Adopt a standing rule that the chair can 
appoint (or, alternatively, that the TC can elect) a vice-chair who is 
empowered to help with chairing duties at the chair's direction.  The 
vice-chair would stand ready to serve as chair pro tem but would, as a 
formality, need to be voted in each time.  The "real" chair would bear 
ultimate responsibility for the TC, but could share the load as they and 
the vice-chair see fit.

Appointing a vice-chair is not *too* different from what I've already done 
in appointing other positions, such as secretary and subgroup leader; 
however, the difference is that the OASIS rules and RROR do give chairs 
additional explicit powers, and the committee is supposed to elect its own 
leader.  So the group might prefer to elect a vice-chair rather than have 
them be appointed.

Thoughts?

         Eve

>Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 14:39:30 -0700
>From: bosak@ort.eng.sun.com (Jon Bosak)
>Subject: Re: Co-chairs and vice-chairs
>To: workprocess@lists.oasis-open.org
>
>| Do the OASIS rules (or RROR) have any provision for co-chairs or a
>| vice-chair?
>
>No.  In fact, in some places (I can't remember where now, but it's
>clear when you read it) RROR implicitly relies on the fact that
>there is always one and only one person in the role of chair.  We
>considered and rejected the notion of co-chairs when we designed
>the TC process.
>
>| I can figure out how to do this informally (e.g., appoint a helper
>| who then serves, at the pleasure of the TC, as a chair pro tem
>| whenever called upon to do so), but it would be nice to know if a
>| formal arrangement is allowed.
>
>RROR explicitly forbids the appointment of a chair pro tem in
>advance of a meeting.  If the regularly elected chair cannot
>attend and a quorum is present, then the members present at that
>meeting have to elect a chair pro tem for that meeting.  In
>practice, this usually takes about 10 seconds.
>
>As far as we know, there is nothing that would prevent a TC from
>adopting a standing rule that would define a co-chair role and
>would allow one or more members of the TC to be so designated.
>This ability of any committee to define roles and appoint people
>to fill those roles was a factor in our decision to stick with the
>formal rule that there is always just one "real" chair.  If a TC
>defined a role for co-chair and appointed someone to fill it, then
>the candidate for the position of chair pro tem at a meeting where
>the chair was not present would be pretty obvious, but as a matter
>of form, I believe that the TC would still have to elect that
>person chair pro tem at the beginning of each such meeting to
>completely follow the letter of the process.
>
>Jon

--
Eve Maler                                             +1 781 442 3190
Sun Microsystems XML Technology Development  eve.maler @ east.sun.com