Getting this show on the road

[John Goerzen]

Hello,

Now that we have a good idea* of the makeup of the committee, I'd like to
start talking about how we're going to do this.

* The board may need to approve the three new members yet, so we may need to
wait until that is accomplished to start doing any real business.

Our charter at
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/resolutions/resolution-2003-01-06.wta.2
states that we shall determine reasonable procedures for transacting
business, so to that end I'm posting the following first draft agenda.  It,
of course, is subject to modification after discussion with committee
members.

Draft agenda, present -- June 2003
----------------------------------

1. Self-organization
   a. Voting procedures
      We should decide on just what needs a vote and how to conduct them.
      I suggest that we vote on our initial organization and agenda,
      and on the documents we issue as we go along.  We could make voting
      easy -- whenever 3 people vote yes, the item passes; and whever 
      3 vote no, the item fails.  These numbers could be reduced if we
      know some members are going to be unable to vote.  Business
      will be conducted by e-mail.
   b. Deciding on our output
      We'll need to issue at least one document: a proposal for bylaws
      amendments.  We can also consider issuing others, such as a rationale
      for each proposed change.  We'll probably update these as we
      go along.
   c. Selection of first secretary
      We should chose someone from our members to act as secretary,
      maintaining our documents and tabulating results of votes.
      This secretary need not be the same person for the entire duration
      of the committee.

2. Identification of problems
   Our charter contains a list of things we are to consider, and also leaves
   the door open for us to identify other problems.  This stage should be
   solely the formation of a list of things we agree need help, and in the
   next stage, we'll decide whether each problem should be fixed by
   a bylaws amendment, and if so, how to do so.

3. Drafting of solutions
   For each separate problem, we will decide whether a solution is best
   achieved with a bylaws amendment, and if so, what the amendment should
   be.

4. Publication of results
   We will publish results as listed in section 1b.

As a final note, I see my role as one of making sure that our work advances
in a timely fashion and is done in accordance with applicable existing
resolutions and bylaws rules.  If anyone has a problem with that, speak now
or forever hold your peace :-)

Thanks,
John Goerzen