We had a chat at the Board meeting last night and there was a bit of
nervousness at the fewness of people who have expressed an interest in
standing for the Board. The applications are going straight to the
tellers so the current Board members won't actually know who's applied
until they're anounced in about a week's time (so that they dont get
an unfair advantage over other candidates) but from discussions it
looked like only two of the five interim Board members have applied
and the other three are looking to retire; two non-Board members are
also interested in applying and we don't know of anyone else who has
come forward.
One aspect which might be putting people off is the frequency and
length of the Board meetings we've been having to date. The initial
Board has met 23 times so far (nearly once per week on average) often
for 3 hours or more. Whilst this is probably necessary when we're
getting things sorted out, I'd like to suggest that the next board has
shorter and less frequent meetings. I think meeting once per month for
no more than 2 hours would be ideal, so that it's not too much of a
burdon on Board members and we avoid burning our volunteers out. At
the same time we can change the Board into more of an "oversight"
role, and do more "organising" work outside.
It's surprising what you can acheive when working to a strict
deadline, and our productivity does tend to dive after a couple of
hours.
Hopefully this will also encourage people who are thinking of putting
their names forward but are put off by the commitment of meetings.
What do others think?