Board Governance Committee (BGC) Minutes
7 January 2009 at 16:00 UTC
BGC members present: Roberto Gaetano, Dennis Jennings - chair, Rita Rodin Johnston and Steve Goldstein
BGC member not present and sends apologies: Demi Getschko
Staff Members Present: John Jeffrey, Diane Schroeder and Amy Stathos
The following is a summary of discussion, actions taken and actions identified:
- Approved minutes from 3 December 2008 meeting (with one abstention).
- Discussed revisions to BGC charter and common language for all charters. Action: Committee to comment via email on language within next week.
- Discussed Board Governance Committee Procedures for Board Nominations and suggested revisions to include reference to liaison roles on committees. Agreed that while liaisons may participate in committees, at this point liaison participation will not count toward quorum and liaisons will not vote. Action: Staff to revise Procedures per discussion and distribute to committee. The committee will use revised Procedures when slating new mid-term seated Board members to committees and will then re-visit suggestions for further revisions, if any.
- Discussed process and value of performing Board member skill assessment at this point given status of Board Review working group. Action: Staff to distribute sample assessment tools for committee review and discussion at future meeting.
- Discussed Board member training. Action: Staff to develop and distribute short memo with suggestions for gathering and maintaining training materials for access by Board members and topics for in-person training during retreats.
- Discussed Ombudsman Framework and Ombudsman’s further response to suggested revisions made during last committee meeting. Action: Staff to further discuss BGC comments with Ombudsman and present results of those discussions at future BGC meeting and to draft paragraph re: Ombudsman budget and financial controls for inclusion in Framework or as stand alone document.
- Discussed Standard Operating Procedures for Committees: Action: Staff to publish to all committees as version 1, noting that it is work in progress.
- Briefly discussed concept of Stakeholder Relationships. Action: Committee to consider issues and discuss at future BGC meeting.