It has been a while since our last town hall meeting. Since the last town hall meeting we have announced new membership benefits, a new program we call Bizconnect, launched the Drupal Community Cultivation Grants, purchased new hardware for drupal.org, and a laundry list of work on drupal.org. The board has also announced a reorganization of the Association's governance structure and opened the call for new members to sit on the Board.
Now it's time to open our doors again and connect with the community that we are here to support. You are all invited to the Drupal Association's third Town Hall meeting!
Come join us!
Agenda
This is a town hall meeting, the agenda is set by you! Please let us know what you would like to talk about by submitting your questions.
Here are a few suggestions
- New Membership Benefits
- The Upcoming DrupalCon London
- BizConnect
- Community Cultivation Grants
- Governance model and new at-large community member board seats
Currently the Agenda is:
- DrupalCon Copenhagen by the numbers
Details:
Date: Friday, July 22nd, 2011
Time: 11am Pacific time. If it is 11am in Portland, Oregon the meeting is happening. (6pm UTC/GMT).
How to join:
Join us in person at:
OSU Open Source Lab's (OSUOSL) office in Downtown Portland
Corner of SW Washington and Broadway.
707 SW Washington St. Suite 500
Portland, Oregon
Via Telephone: 712-775-7300 # 408068
IRC: #drupal-association-townhall
UPDATE Information from the meeting
Download the full unedited MP3
Questions from the Town Hall Meeting
Does the Drupal Association have a specific policy regarding conflict of interest?
If so, is it public and how can it be found?
Originally answered here
Yes. At the retreat in Chicago a process to create a conflict of interest policy was started. This was largely borrowed from the work done for DrupalCon Inc., which had a policy since its filing. It has not yet been formally approved by the board so it is not yet public.
Is there a code of ethics board members must subscribe to as a condition of participation in the Drupal Association? If so, is it public and where can it be found? Changes to the board structure Public Meetings
Originally answered here
No. This is a great suggestion and one the many areas that we can do better so we can build trust with our community. However, during the last several years of elections nominees were requested to review and comply with the statues of the Drupal association.
I hear much today about top-down communication in regard to DA, but nothing about bottom-up communication. The board's job, as I see it, is to gather the [interests] and desires of the organization as a whole, then focus them into something actionable. Do you have a plan in place for this? Something like an email notification of an online poll, so that the community at large can provide their desires, so that you can act upon them? It's very difficult to lead people if you don't know where they want to go... and you soon turn around to discover that no one is following.
The Drupal Community is very important to the success of the Drupal Project and the Drupal Association, community input is the lifeblood of these two organizations. Input is sought out in multiple ways
- Surveys at DrupalCon
- Town Hall meetings
- An open forum at /forum
- The contact form
- Live Town Halls at DrupalCon
- Community Cultivation Grants
- The contact form
- Online polls (for example where should the next DrupalCon be)
As a member these online polls and surveys will come through as part of the newsletter. Please let us know if there are other ways that we should be listening.
Does the Drupal Association have a formal, defined purpose for organizing Drupalcon? My understanding, based on a large number of marketing emails I have received from the Drupal Association, is that the purpose of the event is to 'grow the Drupal community'. There are often other claims made, none of which seem to conflict with this one, but this is the single consistent claim of purpose that has been expressed since I began receiving messages from the DA. What is the DA's official position on why we have Drupalcon events in the first place?
Drupalcon is an educational conference design to connect, inspire, and educate people about Drupal. It is the family reunion of the Drupal Community and is a method to grow the Drupal community by moving the conference from geographic region to another.
Does the Drupal Association have a process for vetting vendors who will provide services at Drupalcon? If so, is it public and where can it be found?
Due to the manner in which most conference venues work there is rarely a choice in the vendors. However, when DrupalCon is allowed to choose their vendor DCI will either open an RFP on their website or seek out a minimum of three proposals to be decided amongst. Depending on the dollar amount the proposal may either be selected by the Event Manager, the Executive Director, or require a board vote.
What body ultimately makes the decision for where Drupalcon will be held? Is this the board, general members, or some other group? If this is through a formal vote, how can people find information about the vote and the language used in any motions? Who keeps the minutes of meetings of this nature?
City selection is a mix of a DrupalCon selection committee made of Drupal community members, board involvement, and the advice of DrupalCon's Events Manager, Sponsor Wrangler, and Executive Director. We solicit community input, sponsor input and recommendations. Meeting minutes are available at http://association.drupal.org/meeting-minutes.
What is the process for formally determining where Drupalcon will be held? Obviously, the community nominates specific venues, but what is the internal process within the Drupal Association for making this determination?
The DrupalCon Selection Committee makes a recommendation to the board. The board discusses it and ultimately makes a decision. Often this also includes other outside experts such as the logistics team, event manager, etc. However, the bottom line is that the board of DrupalCon Inc. has the final say.
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Comments
Can we please change this discussion to "How can we do better?"
[Note: This is a crosspost from the original conversation and there are positive responses from Alex UA over there (and he took down the accusatory website). Jacob requested the crosspost here because he wants to respond here.]
The good thing about open conversation and open conflict is that we can learn from it.
In this case, there is very little that we can do about past issues. Having read carefully through most of this page, I don't see any traction for an accusation of illegal or unethical behavior.
However, there's plenty of opportunity to learn as an organization and improve our approach to the future. I see that the DA has already spent considerable energy on this, but there's more to do.
Could we start with these requests of Alex and of the DA?
*Alex*, thank you for the fact that you've already toned down your rhetoric. In addition,
*DA and DCI*, please:
How about it? Can we acknowledge a learning opportunity and change our focus to the future?
Response to your questions from Amazon's post
From: http://association.drupal.org/blog/kieran/improving-the-association-July...
Randy Fay requested the following:
Completely clarify an industry-standard policy on conflicts of interest regarding DA money.
This process was started earlier this year and will be completed by the Conflict of Interest committee.
Commit to a standard annual audit. An organization of this size must have one.
This is a very good suggestion and one that the Association will consider. However, there a few complications here. First, Drupal VZW does not have a lot of funds. DrupalCon, Inc., the separate and independent organization that runs DrupalCon has significantly more assets. As I was involved in the decision of DrupalCon Inc's choice between 501(c)3 and 501(c)6 status I can state that one of the many reasons why (c)3 made more sense was the increased public scrutiny of a 501(c)3 compared to a (c)6. DrupalCon, Inc's filings are prepared and certified by an independent IRS enrolled agent.
Implement and publicize a reporting and conflict resolution process for issues of this type. One of the key issues in this whole dispute seems to be that a [member of our community] did not in general get appropriate, professional responses to his reasonable concerns.
The Association has always taken community feedback with the utmost seriousness. In the example you are referring this individual was provided access to the board, spoke with our chairman of the board, and also discussed his concerns directly with the laywer of DrupalCon Inc. We want it to be clear that we listen to our community and react. However, we can do better.
In addition to the contact form and open sessions at DrupalCon we have added two new methods to report issues to the Drupal Association. Here are all the methods to file a report:
Responded to
Randy,
As a legal entity with a fiduciary responsibility it regrettably means that it will almost always take us longer to respond that we would like. When direct and targeted accusations and legal threats are made we may (and in this case did) find it necessary to consult with our lawyer before responding to ensure that we are doing everything possible to protect the assets of the Drupal Community. Unfortunately this often takes time.
With that said we are committed to improving our communication over time and I hope that in future instances we will respond faster and more directly. As I am not a board member of either organization your request was more appropriately answered by a board member. Kieran responded here:
http://association.drupal.org/blog/kieran/improving-the-association-July...
-Jacob
Thanks for your response
I appreciate it. It was painful, but glad you finally answered those simple points.
In the future, please consider a responding immediately with a statement that works in the circumstances you find yourself.
In this case it would have been trivial to say "We already have a conflict of interest policy but it's not approved and thus inexplicably private. We may have trouble justifying the cost of an audit, but will certainly consider that. We agree that a conflict resolution process is a good thing and will attempt to implement something of this type. More authoritative answers will follow after we have consulted our lawyers and discussed these proposals."
Please don't justify delaying responses just because you can't give full ones. You wouldn't have had to suffer emails from me all week if you'd just said the above.
Good Advice
Randy,
I sincerely appreciate you taking the time to step in and work towards finding a resolution. Your advice has been heard and I(we) will take this as a learning experience going forward.
We are going to disagree on this specific instance and that's OK. Before your post we had already worked on a resolution process, a town hall meeting was scheduled for the community to talk with us, and the key stakeholders were all contacted. I do appreciate your emails and phone calls but I did (and usually do) place more emphasis on expediting actions that were already in progress instead of getting involved in a 130+ comment thread on g.d.o. I wanted to show our community that we are working hard on their behalf by responding with action. Perhaps this was a mistake but it was a decision that I made.
-Jacob