Status
Version 1.0
Date/Time/Place
The meeting was held on 29 January 2025 by teleconference.
The chair called the meeting to order at 16:01 UTC.
Present
Voting:
Dmytro Kohmanyuk
Jean-Daniel PAUGET
Kurt Kayser
Randy Bush
Rinse Kloek
Simon Leinen
Tobias Fiebig
Wolfgang Tremmel
Wolfgang Zenker
Non voting:
Daniel Karrenberg
János Zsakó
Jan Žorž
Kevin Meynell
Sander Steffann
Absent
Sandoche BALAKRICHENAN
Preliminaries & Agenda Setting
Jan welcomed all present and noted that a quorum was present.
There were some questions about the quorum for the meetings. Jan clarified that for meetings the quorum is 75% which comes down to 12 people. Voting on candidate selection requires 7 out of 10 voting members to be present.
Jan pointed out the draft agenda contained in version 0.2 of the minutes as circulated and available on the collab server. He asked whether there were any suggestions for changes to the agenda. There were none.
1. Voting Members
Jan reported briefly on the selection of the voting members.
Jan reminded the committee that only the voting members vote on the selection of candidates while all committee members may participate all discussions and vote about any other matter.
Also Jan reminded everyone that the discussions about selecting candidates will be confidential and not minuted.
Jan also stressed that it is not in our purview to change the rules for the process during our term and that we can just make recommendations to the community for changes in the future.
2. Advisors
Jan recalled that ripe-788 stipulates that the chair of the previous NomCom acts as an advisor to the committee with some special duties. Jan welcomed Daniel in this role.He asked Daniel to keep notes about the meetings and to produce draft minutes. Daniel agreed to do that.
Jan asked whether the committee wished to appoint any more advisors at this point. There were no suggestions.
3. Liaisons
Jan reported that the RIPE NCC Executive Board had appointed Sander Steffann as their liaison to the NomCom and welcomed Sander in this role.
Jan also reported that the RIPE Program Committee delegated Kevin Meynell as their liaison and the RIPE wg-chairs collective had delegated János Zsakó. Jan proposed that the committee welcomes Kevin and János. The committee did so.
Jan asked whether the committee wished to invite any other groups to delegate liaisons at this point. There were no suggestions.
4. Committee Organisation
Collaboration Server
Daniel reported that he had set up a ‘nextcloud’ collaboration server for use by the committee. This will be used to collaboratively work on and to store committee documents while the committee is in operation. The goals of using this server are to facilitate collaborative work on documents and, above all else, to reduce the proliferation of sensitive personal information about candidates. He said that all committee members had received credentials and logged in successfully at this point. He repeated the strong recommendation for all to set up two-factor authentication because of the sensitivity of the information that is going to be kept on the server. Currently Jan and Daniel have administrator privileges on the site. The NomCom agreed to use the collaboration server.
Simon asked whether the committee considered it OK to download information from the collaboration server. Daniel said that keeping things confidential is everyone’s individual responsibility and that the tools provided are only tools.
Dmytro asked where the server was located. Daniel answered it was physically in Germany and that all data including back-ups will remain inside the EU. Daniel added that Jan and himself had admin rights on the collab server. Dmytro asked whether e-mail notifications about document changes from the server were considered a data leak? No-one found this a problem.
Dmytro asked whether the committee would keep a public blog like last time. Jan responded that the blog already existed and that he intended to use it for maximum transparency about the process. He added that the blog was later on the agenda.
General Rules
Jan proposed to adopt the rules used by the previous NomCom. He summarized the main points.
Sander stressed that all deliberations about the candidates and the selection discussions remain confidential even to the liaison bodies.
Kevin asked what are liaisons allowed to take back to their respective groups? Jan responded that as a liaison he had provided general info about state of the process and relayed specific questions in both directions.
5. Time Line
Jan proposed a time line as circulated and available on the collab server. He explained the rationale and the highlights of the time line and invited discussion.
Daniel added that the NomCom can take some extra time to draft the call for nominations if necessary.
Sander said that he expects more detailed information about remuneration from the NCC shortly.
Kurt asked why we run this process at this point in time and if there was a term limit for the incumbents. Jan answered that we run the process now because the term of the current chair team agreed by the community is about to end. He added that any person can fill the role of chair and vice chair for two terms of five years each [ripe-787].
Wolfgang asked whether NomCom members would wear special badges during the next RIPE meeting. Daniel said he would request that from the RIPE meeting team. He added that he would request a NomCom office to be available during the whole meeting.
Kurt said that we should definitely also be available to remote participants. Jan said: ‘absolutely’.
Kevin asked when to start canvassing? Jan said you can start now and that the definite start would be when the call went out.
Dmytro said he supported a NomCom office and suggested a meetecho room for remote participants.
Dmytro said that the call needs to be specific on the chair and vice chair roles.
Jan stressed that he will try hard to lead the NomCom to achieve a consensus and not end up in a decision by vote.
Janos clarified that the confirmation by the RIPE NCC board is only supposed to confirm that the NomCom has followed its process correctly.
Jan added that Sander has to make sure the board does not surprise us. 😉
Daniel said that he is already drafting the final report of the NomCom on the collab server and that he intends to add to it as we progress. He invites everyone to follow along and to add text.
6. RIPE NCC Board on Remuneration for RIPE Chair
Sander reported that due to strong pressure from Jan the RIPE NCC board deliberated on the remuneration of the RIPE chair. The minutes are published at https://www.ripe.net/about-us/executive-board/minutes/2024/179th-executive-board-meeting-minutes under agenda point 11. He mentioned that this used remuneration structure for NCC staff, scale for the chair is higher than for the vice chair, chair full time, vice chair 20%. Budget is available and the contract will be constructed such that RIPE NCC does not give instructions to and cannot fire chairs.
Daniel asked whether the details of the draft contracts would be available to the committee as background information. Sander answered that he will check back with the RIPE NCC. Jan asked whether details about the salary bands are available. Sander said that he would check that with the NCC too. Jan asked Sander to thank the RIPE NCC Executive board for their work on this which is helpful for the NomCom.
7. Call for Nominations
Jan asked everyone to discuss this on-line based on the draft he had put out. He said that he hoped we could finalize this on-line before the next meeting.
8. Structured Questions to Nominees
Jan asked everyone to think about this as it will be on the agenda of the next meeting.
9. NomCom Blog
Daniel reported that together with Jan he had set up a blog for the NomCom at https://ripenomcom.org and that he had used the information provided by everyone to create https://ripenomcom.org/the-committee/ listing everyone’s details. He asked everyone to add to this as appropriate.
Jan and Daniel are admins of the blog. Any volunteers with WordPress expertise are welcome to help. Any member wishing to contribute could get author credentials.
10. RIPE Meeting Travel Expenses for NomCom Members
Jan said that those needing support should contact him and he will ask the RIPE NCC.
Janos asked whether any other in-person meetings were planned and Jan answered that none were planned.
11. Review of Time Line and Next Actions
Jan asked if there were remarks about the time line. There were none.
Jan reminded everyone to comment on the draft call for nominations and to think about structured questions for candidates.
12. Feedback to Committee and Chair
Daniel said he was happy about how the meeting went and thanked Jan for finishing just on time. There was a lot of virtual clapping and a lot of ‘thumbs up’ emojis.
Closing
The chair closed the meeting at 16:58 UTC.