Linux Australia has assisted the organisation of DrupalSouth events over the past few years, providing financial and insurance support on a case by case basis. For each event, a new Sub Committee has been formed with new members.
The Drupal Association has provided support for DrupalCon Sydney 2013 and some individual camps in the past, but has made it clear that their primary focus on managing global DrupalCons into the future.
Linux Australia has recently released an updated Sub Committee policy (https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution_and_policies/blob/master/subcommittee_policy_v2.md) that strives to establish permanent Steering Sub Committees for major open source communities and events. Following discussions with senior Linux Australia members in late 2018, the council has approved the Drupal community to establish a Steering Sub Committee to represent Australia and New Zealand.
Purpose of a Drupal Standing Sub Committee
Drupal events and community initiatives in Australia and New Zealand have been organised in an ad-hoc manner by a wide range of committed volunteers over the past decade or more. The formation of a permanent Drupal Standing Sub Committee seeks to improve upon this approach in the following ways:
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Providing continuity around governance and knowledge transfer.
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Spreading the responsibilities of organising community initiatives across a wider group of volunteers in a more structured manner.
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Selection of annual DrupalSouth conference venues and supporting local organising teams with established processes and tools.
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Liaison with regional organisers to support meetups and smaller camps.
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Coordinating regional training and corporate outreach programs.
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Coordinating regional marketing activities.
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Management of ongoing budgets for smaller initiatives - grants, camps etc through its own Linux Australia bank account.
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Oversight of local community conflict resolution, such as breaches of the DrupalSouth Code of Conduct.
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Liaison with Linux Australia and Drupal Association on regional and global initiatives.
Inception Team
An initial group of past and future DrupalSouth organisers has been established to review the establishment of the DrupalSouth Steering Sub Committee.
Establishment Committee Members include:
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Owen Lansbury: DrupalCon Sydney 2013
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Josh Waihi: DrupalSouth Wellington 2014
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Donna Benjamin: DrupalSouth Melbourne 2015
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Vladimir Roudakov & Janna Malikova: DrupalSouth GoldCoast 2016
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Dave Sparks: DrupalSouth Auckland 2017
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Chris Skene: DrupalSouth Canberra 2018
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Campbell Tilley: DrupalSouth Hobart 2019
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DrupalSouth 2020 organiser
This document has been reviewed and updated to reflect the agreed intentions of this group and other interested community members.
The finalised proposal was presented at DrupalSouth Canberra in a BoF and conference presentation and will be published on groups.drupal.org and promoted via social media for broader community input in January 2018.
Voting for Members of the DrupalSouth Steering Sub Committee
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A call for self nomination of committee members will be made via groups.drupal.org in February 2019.
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These nominations will follow a similar format to that employed by the Drupal Association for board elections: https://www.drupal.org/association/blog/drupal-association-board-elections-2018
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Nominations will be published on DrupalSouth.org and promoted via groups.drupal.org and social media.
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A voting period for any interested community members will be held over a 2 week period in April 2019. Voting will be managed via a Google form with security to controls to ensure one vote per person from the local Australia and New Zealand communities.
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The committee will be finalised and inducted by July 2019.
Steering Sub Committee Roles
The following roles will be established as per Linux Australia guidelines:
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1 x Chairperson:
Voting member. Coordinates committee, represents committee to third parties. -
4 x Community Representatives:
Voting members. Will hold responsibility for roles such as Treasurer or community dispute resolution. -
Observers:
Any community members can listen in on committee meetings and put forward community issues and motions for the committee to vote on.
Committee members will be voted for and selected based upon the following guidelines:
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At least 2 Men and 2 Women Community Representatives to ensure gender equality.
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At least 2 Australian and 2 New Zealand Community Representatives to ensure geographic equality.
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The Chairperson will be nominated by the Community Representatives themselves from within the 5 successful members.
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Please note that this initial committee formation process is not trying to address broader diversity issues than is indicated by the quotas listed above. The committee itself will address diversity issues in the Drupal community once it is formed.
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Successful candidates will be selected based on a simple majority vote in accordance with quotas on a “first past the post” basis:
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Highest overall votes irrespective of gender or location
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Highest votes for an AU representative
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Highest votes for a NZ representative
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Remaining positions must fulfil gender and location quotas. E.g. If the first 3 members based on highest votes are all men, the remaining positions must be filled by women with the highest votes.
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Where no candidates exist to fill roles based on quotas, the highest number of votes will be used to select members irrespective of gender or location.
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Terms automatically renew if not enough candidates stand for specific roles in subsequent elections. Standing Sub Committee to agree on which members relinquish seats. If no agreement reached, a random selection may be required.
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Establishment Committee members will resolve any disputes about Standing Sub Committee voting with a simple 51% majority agreement (i.e. 3 out of 5).
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Establishment Committee members may nominate themselves for Standing Sub Committee membership but must not partake in any voting in which their candidacy is involved.
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Committee members may hold the same role for a maximum of 2 consecutive terms and nominate for alternative roles in subsequent terms. E.g. A Chairperson may nominate to be a Community Representative after holding 2 consecutive terms.
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All committee members must also be registered Linux Australia members (No fee) and be approved by the Linux Australia council by the time they’re appointed to the committee.
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At some point in the future, the committee may decide to open up positions for permanent Observer roles.
Sub Committee Term Lengths & Re-Election Calendar
In order to establish long term renewal of Standing Sub Committee members, the terms for each role will be as follows:
The following re-election calendar shows when roles will come up for renewal, establishing a roughly 6 month pattern for new members to be appointed every 2 years. This will ensure that knowledge transfer amongst committee members is maintained without abrupt changes.
Standing Sub Committee Processes
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All roles are on a strictly volunteer basis with no monetary or in-kind remuneration.
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Committee will establish and adapt its own charter of responsibilities and initiatives as they deem necessary.
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The committee will meet monthly via online conferencing tools and keep records of all motions discussed and passed. These meetings will be made publicly accessible to Observers.
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A quorum for committee meetings will be established with the presence of at least 2 Community Representatives and the Chair (or nominated alternative).
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All standard voting will be carried by a simple majority of 51% in favour of a motion of members present.
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All records of meetings and budgets will be published on DrupalSouth.org and made available to Linux Australia upon request.
Major Event Sub Committees
Following DrupalSouth in 2020, the Standing Sub Committee will help select and mentor event sub committees for major DrupalSouth events.
These Event Sub Committees will typically have a Local Lead organiser appointed who will report into the Standing Sub Committee. The Local Lead will be free to appoint their own organising team as they see fit, filling roles such as event treasurer, sponsor and speaker managers.
Each Event Sub Committee will manage their event separately using Linux Australia accounting tools in liaison with the Standing Sub Committee.
Committee Member Expulsion
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Expulsion motions may be triggered by obvious misconduct (e.g. Unapproved use of committee funds), consistent lack of availability for committee meetings (e.g. More than 3 consecutive meeting absences without prior notification and agreement by the committee) or lack of adherence to Linux Australia policies (https://www.linux.org.au/policies) and the DrupalCon Code of Conduct (https://www.drupal.org/association/drupalcon/code-of-conduct).
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A vote on the expulsion of a Standing Sub Committee member must be carried by an absolute majority of 67% in favour of the motion (4 out of 5 members).
Dispute Resolution
In the event that the Standing Sub Committee cannot resolve disputes amongst themselves, the matter will be referred to the Linux Australia Council for arbitration and resolution. A minimum of 2 Standing Sub Committee members may appeal to Linux Australia for arbitration of a dispute.