Drupal Carolina's Communication Proposal

Since I mentioned that one of the outcomes of the "Drupal Camp Asheville and Drupal Carolinas LLC" discussion should be a communications proposal, I'll step up to the plate. (ref: http://groups.drupal.org/node/139499#comment-458504)

I'll first start off by saying that many people have already done this, we just need to understand what our needs our and what is the best way to solve them. I think a critical part of any sucessful organization is having a clear way to communicate and a governance model that works for the groups needs. Let's see what that might like to get thing started...

1) Monthly meetings
There should be a monthly meeting of the core group (i.e. a rep from each DUG) set on a regular day and time of the month. All members are welcome to participate. This meeting can be held on #drupal-nc or determined IRC channel. Alternatively, the group could meet by teleconference.

The notes from the meeting should be posted to the group.

Before the meeting, we need to establish an agenda and how an item gets on the agenda. We'll need to determine who runs the meetings. (see below)

2) Organization
We need figure out if Drupal Carolina's is an individual member organization or representative. I'm going to suggest a representative model where each DUG can elect a primary / secondary representative who has voting rights for the large group. Amongst the "elected" body, the large organization can decide to go with a board model (President, VP, Sec, Treasurer, board members) or something else that works for the group.

This is just a suggestion, there are many different models that we could go for. I think a town-hall meeting (suggested) is a great way to discuss this topic--because email is not so good at trying to relay intentions and go back and forth. We should leverage the different experiences that people have in other organization, determine what our needs are, and pick the best things that would work for this potential group.

After we determine how to organize, we should define the rolls and responsibilities. We may also want to consider "term limits" so that we can have fresh people representing the various DUGs, but also have some experiences members run the org. Think, "we need to create a leadership pipeline" so that we set this up for years of success, not just the short-term.

3) How decisions are made
The group needs to establish and agree upon how decisions are made. Is it with voting? If so, who votes? We need to consider how decisions being made are balanced between DUGs so that the DUG with the most members can't skew the outcome. This is another reason why I like the representative model.

So here's a start. I think if we can start figuring out these three items, then we can continue the conversation about creating a legal entity and how the entity handles money. Until then, we need to test out how this model works and have it in practice for several months to work out the kinks.

What do you think? Did I miss anything? Does anything here resonate with people?

Thanks,
Jason