Hello community!

Lately we have had two resignations from the Hildon Foundation Board. As some have already noted, the Board bylaws state that the Board has seven days to fill a vacancy if the number of Board members falls below 3. If they fail to do so in that time period, an election is triggered.

As you presumably all also noticed, Rob ("SD69") has now appointed two replacement Board Directors, Craig Woodward ("woody14619") and Jim Jagielski, a person who has not been a member of our community, but is an experienced figure in the FOSS world as a whole, and might bring valuable experience to the table. Woody had the recommendation of the Council for this position for a while now, and still does. Jim Jagielski we are unsure about at this time, and thus have no formal Council position for or against. Woody has accepted his appointment, although he expressed a slight reservation about its validity as it was not done at an official Board meeting, something which the Board has mostly insisted should be the case for decisions made in the past. We do not presently know if Jim Jagielski has or hasn't accepted his appointment. (It's worth noting woody14619 ran in the Board election and was one of the closest runners-up.)

That summary out of the way, we bring this to the Community for discussion because we wish to gauge what the Community opinion is about the current situation with the Board: the only member left was appointed earlier, one has just been appointed and accepted, and one has been appointed and might accept their appointment shortly, leaving a completely unelected Board? Furthermore, how does the Community feel about the Board having members from outside the Community? Would the Community members like the Board to hold an election in the near future to validate itself as a Community-elected body again? If so, how soon - immediately, as soon as the Nokia transfer of infrastructure assets is completed, in a certain time period?

And finally, the Bylaws give the Community Council the power to trigger an election for both bodies. Would the Community members like us to exercise this power, if the Board does not initiate its own reelection in the time that the Community would like to see it happen? (On this note, keep in mind that the Council has to call for its own reelection fairly soon anyway - we had our first session in 2012-11-09. This means that if we the current Council are to do this, it will have to be relatively soon, because we have until 2013-04-09 to announce the election. Granted, the Council that follows this one could do the same thing, but it would mean two elections' worth of nomination, contemplation, and voting periods' time before such a move can be undertaken instead of one.)

Sincerely,
Alexander Kozhevnikov
Council Chair
[This post is made on behalf of everyone actively in the current Council]