quorum at f2f meetings

[Diane Jordan <drj@us.ibm.com>]

After the discussions on quorum following
the last f2f meeting, I promised to consolidate the ideas folks had for
managing our ability to vote during f2f meetings before the next f2f.  
I'd like to discuss them on today's call.  For the June f2f, we have
28 people who've said they are coming, 25 of whom are voting members.  Our
current membership is 49 so we may reach quorum in the room.  We can
expect that some of the 28 will be arriving late due to the overlap with
the WfMC meeting and there will be additional folks on the phone.

Here are some ideas for the upcoming
f2f:    
- make sure we are enforcing the attendance
rules carefully.  We have been doing this right along.   After
today's call, I will contact anyone who has missed 2 out of 3 of the previous
meetings and encourage them to change their status if they will be unable
to make the f2f.    
- designate a certain time as the "official"
attendance and update records accordingly.  Anyone who is not present
(in person or on the phone)  who has received an attendance warning
saying they needed to attend this meeting to maintain voting priviledges
could be switched to observer/prospective member at that point.  

- be rigorous in designating times for
voting and asking those on the phone to be sure to be present at those
times.  In the last two meetings, we took agenda checkpoints and roll
every two hours on the hour.  I'm open to ideas on how to improve
this.
- use kavi ballots for subjects we are
voting on at f2f's when we don't have quorum.  Open the ballot at
the time the discussion is held.   It would not close for 7 days allowing
those who are not present to vote at a later time.   (This has the
advantage of providing more visibility and documentation on resolutions.)


These are some ideas that involve different
ways of operating, or changes to OASIS process.  I'd want to discuss
further before deciding to use the first two.  
- we have not enforced the more subjective
aspect of the OASIS rules - ie, those who regularly miss 2 out of 3 meetings
may have their membership status changed.   We could consider identifying
these folks and, if they don't appear at the f2f, putting them in prospective
member/observer/loa status at that point.  
- we could treat each of the three days
of the meeting as a separate meeting and take attendance accordingly.  Warnings
on missing 2 out of 3 would be sent on a daily basis to the relevant folks
and they would be switched to observer/prospective member/loa immediately
after the next day's attendance if they are not present.  Note that
this requires us to have an "official" attendance time also.
 
- a separate attendance requirement
should be developed for f2f meetings so that voting rights cannot be maintained
if a member misses too many f2f meetings.  This would require an OASIS
process change.   
 
I want to note that the spirit of the
discussions was how to make official progress on issues where there was
strong consensus among the members who were present, who while not quite
quorate, represented a substantial number of active members.   The
intent is not to find a way to artificially manipulate quorum numbers to
allow voting on issues where the TC is highly divided. 

Regards, Diane
IBM  Dynamic e-business Technologies
drj@us.ibm.com
(919)254-7221 or 8-444-7221, Mobile: 919-624-5123