what makes a good president and chairperson?

[Daniel Pocock]

On 04/09/18 09:54, Bernhard E. Reiter wrote:
> Hi Daniel,
> 
> Am Montag 03 September 2018 19:04:25 schrieb Daniel Pocock:
>> The ideal president or chairperson needs to be somebody who can unite
>> staff, volunteers, fellows, supporters, donors and external parties.  To
>> chair meetings, lead effectively and gain respect when representing FSFE
>> publicly, they need to be above the controversial politics we have seen
>> recently and acceptable to everybody.
> 
> and how do you find such an ideal person?
> 

In most organizations, they let any member of the community nominate for
the position and then all the people can vote.  An election.


>> The president doesn't have to be staff, it could be a volunteer too, we
>> have over 1,500 people in the community and I'm sure there are many good
>> candidates there.
> 
> Our anchor person has much to do, a volunteer wouldn't have enough time on her 
> hands to do the job. 
> 

The key responsibilities are to prepare for the annual meetings and
chair those meetings.

Everything else is optional or could be delegated to staff or other
volunteers.  Remember the days before email?  Somebody
could be on various committees and boards and if they stayed home one
night they wouldn't hear about any of them.

Perpetuating the current burden on the president only guarantees that
nobody else will apply to be in the role, perpetuating the culture that
people are complaining about.

Regards,

Daniel