VZW General Assembly 2009-02-17

General Assembly Details

The second General Assembly was held Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 18:00 CET for a duration of 3.5 hours. The meeting was held over IRC in #drupal-association on irc.freenode.net. Out of 25 existing permanent members, 21 were in attendance. Quorum requirements were met and all decisions were legal.

Applications for new Permanent Members were accepted at a temporary website setup on Drupal Association President Dries Buytaert's personal domain, buytaert.net (http://buytaert.net/da-2009/). It was done here, rather than on *.drupal.org, in order to protect the results of the voting (because the permanent members are highly trusted, many of them have elevated privileges on *.drupal.org and could see who voted for which candidates).

Each candidate submitted an electronic application prior to the vote (and indicated whether they wanted to also apply for Board membership, if elected), and both the existing permanent members and the broader Drupal community had time and opportunity to comment on these profiles and/or ask questions prior to the election. During the election, potential candidates were also asked to join #drupal-candidates on irc.freenode.net, where permanent members could ask questions in real-time.

Attendance

General Assembly members in attendance for Permanent Membership election:

Khalid Baheyeldin
Addison Berry
Bert Boerland
Dries Buytaert
Angela Byron
Robert Douglass
Neil Drumm
Larry Garfield
Gerhard Killesreiter
Greg Knaddison
Dries Knapen
Kieran Lal
Boris Mann
Michael Meyers
Earl Miles
Naryan Newton
David Norman
Nedjo Rogers
Zack Rosen
Laura Scott
James Walker

Absent were:

Jeff Eaton
Jacob Redding
Steven Peck
Moshe Weitzman

General Assembly members in attendance for Board Membership election:

All of above, plus:

Tiffany Farriss
Bill Fitzgerald
Cary Gordon
Jeff Robbins
David Strauss
Kristof Van Tomme

Absent: Same list of absent members above, with the exception of Jeff Eaton who voted by proxy, and Nedjo Rogers who had to depart early.

Financial Status Update

Dries Knapen posted a financial overview of the 2008 budget to the Association mailing list prior to the proceedings (attached below). This document was prepared by our accountants, and shows the overall budget, our sources of income, our expenses, along with graphs depicting this data.

Dries Knapen pointed out that due to time constraints, he had asked the accountants to provide a financial overview, and if further details were required, to feel free to ask the accountants to send additional information.

The General Assembly was then given time to raise any questions/objections before approving the financial overview.

Khalid Baheyeldin inquired as to the large discrepancy between donations and sponsorships in 2007 and 2008. Dries Knapen responded that in 2007, the Drupalcon Barcelona sponsorship payments went directly to the Drupal Association's bank account, while in 2008, the Drupalcon Boston sponsorships did not. Part of Drupalcon Boston's money went to the Drupal Association, and another part went directly to the Drupalcon DC team.
David Norman asked whether the numbers meant that we had a loss in Hungary. Dries Knapen replied that no, this money still had yet to be wired to us, and there is some legal paperwork that needs to be completed for this to occur, but it should be along soon.

There were no further questions/comments, and the General Assembly approved the financial status update. (19 yes, 0 no, 0 abstain)

Departing Members

Dries Buytaert thanked Dries Knapen for his service, since he would be retiring after the meeting, and the General Assembly gave him a huge round of applause and best wishes.

Dries Knapen asked if it would be acceptable for him to still vote for the PMs and possibly the board. Everyone agreed that this was fine.

Permanent Member Election

At the start of elections, Dries Buytaert stated that voting would happen on the http://buytaert.net/da-2009/ website. We would be given 40 minutes to discuss the permanent member vote. Both Dries Buytaert (as President) and Angela Byron (as Secretary) would be given access to the website to give people proper permissions.

Prior to the election, General Assembly members were given the opportunity to raise any questions about the election while the voting process was set up.

"Miscellaneous:" Damien Tournoud, Joel Farris, Bill Fitzgerald and Aaron Winborn.
"Infrastructure:" David Strauss, Andrew Berry, Mike O'Connor and Gurpartap Singh.
"Marketing:" Tiffany Farriss, Jeff Robins, Simon Hobbs, Susan MacPhee, Tiffany Shackelford, Bryan House, Kristoff Van Tomme.
"Events:" Chris Charlton, Cary Gordon, Doug Van, J. Matthew Saunders, Fernando Paredes Garca, Jose A Reyero, Blake Hall, and Florian Lortan.

During the next 40 minutes, the vote took place, during which time the General Assembly gave the applications a final read-through, weighed pros/cons of candidates among themselves, and also spoke directly with some of the candidates. This part is not part of the official minutes, in order to ensure anonymity of voting.

In the end, 6 new Permanent Members were elected:

Tiffany Farriss
Bill Fitzgerald
Cary Gordon
Jeff Robbins
David Strauss
Kristof Van Tomme

Additionally, the following 16 members submitted a candidacy and were not elected at this time: Andrew Berry, Chris Charlton, Fernando Paredes García, Blake Hall, Simon Hobbs, Bryan House, Florian Lorétan, Susan MacPhee, Mike O'Connor, José Antonio Reyero del Prado, J. Matthew Saunders, Tiffany Shackelford, Gurpartap Singh, Damien Tournoud, Doug Vann, Aaron Winborn

The participants in the #drupal-candidates channel were informed, and the new Permanent Members were invited and welcomed into the Association channel.

Board Member Election

After an initial frenzy of excited talking when the new Association members met the existing ones, the Board Member election process began.

9 Permanent Members were running for Board positions:

Dries Buytaert: President
Tiffany Farriss: Brand Manager / Non-Technical Project Manager
Larry Garfield: Director of Legal Affairs
Cary Gordon: Events Manager
Gerhard Killesreiter: Infrastructure Manager
Kieran Lal, Business Development
Jacob Redding: Treasurer
Jeff Robbins: Marketing and Communications coordinator
David Strauss: Technical Project Manager

A discussion ensued about the candidates, which are not part of the official record in order to protect anonymity of voting. Most of the discussion revolved around the differences between David Strauss and Gerhard Killesreiter's target positions, and how the various marketing-related roles (Jeff Robbins, Cary Gordon, Kieran Lal, and Tiffany Farriss) fit together.

At the end of the voting, Dries Buytaert asked for a round of applause for the 2008 board.

Of the 9 board member candidates this year, 7 were elected: