Summary Notes of the Ninth Meeting of the JACoW Board of Directors @ IPAC2015

30 April, 2015

Present: on-site: Ivan Andrian, Todd Satogata, Christine Petit-Jean-Genaz, Jan Chrin, Raphael Mueller,
through videoconference: Matt Arena, John Poole
Absent: Yongbin Leng
Present on invite: Volker R.W. Schaa

1. Discussion and decisions towards a modified Charter to be proposed for approval at the next Stakeholders Meeting

The meeting started with Ivan summarizing the work done in the previous meeting that led to three different proposals for the composition of the Board of Directors. Jan proposed that, before going into too much detail, the scope of the Board of Directors should be clearly defined: he questioned whether it should be more a management body (focused on JACoW organisation and on JACoW activities) or more a political one, driving the view of the collaboration, the future to pursue, its contacts with the Stakeholders and any other "external" body with which JACoW needs to interact.

After a discussion, the Board was in favour of the latter. However, the importance of the internal JACoW organisation was emphasised and it was decided that JACoW should enhance the internal organisation of the Team into small working groups focusing on particular JACoW activities (e.g., enhancement and maintenance of templates). Each working group would be lead by one team member (becoming then an officer) who would report to the Board and be responsible for the pursuit of the targets established by the Board.

Since the BoD would then be able to focus on strategic decisions, it was felt that the number of Board members should be kept to a minimum. The ideal number of components was thought to be five, with a flexibility of three optional invited members if and when needed.

These five positions would be: Chair, Deputy, Coordinator and two BoD members with no precise role or title.
Two different models to define the BoD were discussed:

1. All five members to be elected by the Team. Additional optional members to be invited by the BoD
2. The Chair and Deputy to be elected by the Team, who would then invite the Coordinator and two additional members on the Board, subject to the approval by the Team. Additional optional members could be invited by the BoD

Two conditions apply for both: that all regions (Asia-Pcific, Americas, EMEA as now) be represented on the BoD; that, to guarantee continuity, the BoD members would be elected in rotation through the years, not all at once.

After a thorough discussion a vote was felt necessary. The outcome from the eight voting members was as follows:

• 4 people voted for option 1 (all five BoD members to be elected)
• 2 people voted for option 2 (two BoD members - Chair and Deputy Chair - to be elected, the rest invited by them, with the approval of the Team)
• 2 people abstained

Option 1 then is to be presented to the Stakeholders Meeting for approval. If the Stakeholders will accept this, a modification process would be needed to reduce the current 8-member composition to 5 as described above.

It was decided that:

• Jan and Matt volunteer to leave the BoD with immediate effect
• John's mandate will end this year and he won't stand for re-election
• for continuity, Volker will be invited to sit on the BoD for 1.5 years (until the end of 2016)
• the concept of regional representative will be dropped with immediate effect

With this strategy at the end of 2015 the BoD would be composed of six people (five plus one invited) and no elections would be necessary this year, since the mandates of all the elected members started in 2015 and will last until 2017. However, to respect the "continuity" constraint, starting from the 2016 TM and for three years one BoD member will step down and then stand up again for re-election, as already done in the past.

2. AOB

Communication with the Stakeholders. It was decided to sound the Stakeholders as to the quality of communication within the Collaboration, and whether, if possible, it might be improved.

Team Meetings: Raphael proposed to provide some time and space during the Team Meetings for discussion on precise technical topics in smaller groups, so to be able to develop new techniques and tools. This is because the last Team Meetings ended up being more "educational" (presentations, training sessions, etc.) than "collaborative”.

Christine’s proposal to contact the Stakeholders following each Team Meeting and invite them to review the Agenda and Conclusions was agreed.