[MEI-L] MEI organization

[Axel Teich Geertinger]

Dear Johannes and others

Thank you for bringing up the question about the current MEI council. I was one of those concerned about its future when we started this discussion last year, because I believe that it is the one of the most valuable resources we have both in terms of development and spreading the word.
>From my perspective, all of the proposals imply splitting up the council in a smaller, elected group (the board) while making the rest simply members of the community or general assembly. In order not to lose the engagement and enthusiasm of the current council I think it is crucial to ensure in any future organizational model that the general assembly, which is open to all members, convenes regularly (say, once a year; most conveniently in combination with a conference). This may not have been sufficiently described in the proposals, but I actually think this should be formalized too to make sure the active members of the community get the chance to meet regularly. In my view, the general assembly substitutes the informal work of the current council, while the board takes over the council's formal and administrative functions.

Best, Axel

Fra: mei-l [mailto:mei-l-bounces at lists.uni-paderborn.de] På vegne af Giuliano Di Bacco
Sendt: 8. maj 2014 21:27
Til: Music Encoding Initiative
Emne: Re: [MEI-L] MEI organization


Also from my personal perspective:
1- I always assumed that the current Council would remain in place until the future Board is installed;
2- the conference is approaching, and I see this as a precious opportunity for both informal and formal discussion. So (at this point) I would wait until the end of it to draw any conclusion. Then the proposals could be fine-tuned and re-submitted for final discussion and approval to the list. As for Benjamin's excellent idea, we could attach a resumé of all pros/cons that people will have expressed so far (I am sure that those members of the Strat-group who will be in Charlottesville would be happy to collect more opinions--certainly I would).
Best,
Giuliano


Benjamin Wolff Bohl wrote on 08/05/2014 11:01:
Dear Johannes,
thanks for your questions, tah I'll answer below from my personal perspective:

Am 06.05.2014 21:18, schrieb Johannes Kepper:

Dear all,



thanks to those that did respond to the strategy group's proposals. For those who didn't - it's not too late, please give some feedback and help us to shape the future MEI. You can find the document with the proposals at



https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IBvbKFM1fo4lwyFnIYnneUhfwTj4DLrAmtCSUfqzeQs/edit?usp=sharing



Since we're approaching the conference, I'd like to ask some questions.



- All proposals don't make a statement about the current MEI Council. Was this an intentional decision? If I remember correctly, there was some concern about this group last year. I know that it won't be easy to find a solution for this one, but I think we should address it in one way or the other...

This is a great hint, I guess we just missed to articulate anything about this. From my part I always was assuming, that any new Board would replace the "current Council" but others might have another opinion?!



- At first glance, it seems that the first proposal triggered most feedback. Would it be a correct observation that most in the community prefer this over the other two _in principle_, but still would like to clarify some details about it? Please don't get me wrong - I don't want to get rid of the other two proposals, I just want to get a sense of where we are drifting. If you think my impression is wrong (which is perfectly possible), please disagree - either here on MEI-L or in the document linked above. If you like the other proposals (or aspects of them), please speak up - the sooner the better. Please remember that the google document gives the possibility of anonymous feedback, if you prefer.

Getting a feeling if general tendencies towards one of the proposals would be indeed very interesting! Nevertheless the comment frequency is not to be taken as general tendency towards one or the other... for example Raffaele shared a quite good argument for Model B over this list:


In general, I prefer Model B: it's lean and reflects well the size of the community. It also keeps the focus on the Guidelines and releases, which I agree with Sigfrid are the most important product of this community. I feel model B will allows us to move forward without having to jump through too many administrative hoops, while tasking people with essential admin responsibilities.

Maybe we should try come up with a general pros-and-cons list for each Model?


Thanks,
Benjamin







Thanks again for your interest and participation.

Best,

Johannes






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