Re: Co-chairs and vice-chairs

[bosak@ort.Eng.Sun.COM (Jon Bosak)]

[eve.maler@east.sun.com:]

| 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