Please come to this meeting to select an acting chairperson. If you can’t attend, send proxy by emailing me (or anyone you know will be at the meeting).
Hello, someone please give an indication that they have seen this. and if you know you will be coming.
A committee member could make their proxy known by replying to this post. Yes, I know this thread is not members-only, but we know who the members are.
So far only Josh has definitely said he will take the position if elected. I know at least two people in the neuro interface group have told me they would like to see Brian as chairman, but were not certain whether he wanted the position. I contacted him by email but have not heard from him yet.
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If this is so important, is someone putting together an agenda for the meeting? Be nice to know the sudden challenges Science is facing.
Otherwise your proxy would be straight line voting.
The main purpose is to elect a committee chair. They don’t have one.
Man, kinda of a revolving door! I would like to chair science at some point but have to get this finance monkey off my back.
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The only agenda item is choose chairman. I guess while we are at it we should also choose someone whose job it is to put together agendas for meetings, unless that is the chairmans job.
Curious what happened to the prior.
Wasn’t that Ashely? Last I knew she had big plans for the Summer…
A vacant chair seems like something that should be largely known, but I was clueless (I know, I don’t attend the Science Committee meetings, am not as “active” a member as we’d like, and don’t run in “those circles”, but it still seems like this came out of the blue…)
It is.
Unless they can con…vince someone else to do it. 
Who all is in the running?
I know. None of my business unless I show up. And that’s fine. I’m mostly curious, and it doesn’t seem like the sort of thing that needs to be secret…
Not sure, life happens. It just seems to happen faster or more often with science chairs.
Chair Turnover: I think this has been the bane of Science as a committee. They’ve had very high turnover there is a loss of continuity. This isn’t a blame thing, just a statement of fact as I observe it. I think most committees work best when they have Chair that is there for a year or even six months if there is vice-chair working closely with them that steps up.
However, in the past 3-4 months I believe that Science committee has kicked up their presence quite a bit, they’ve had a lot of interesting classes going on. IMO, they’ve gone from being very narrowly focused and insular to much broader topics that are engaging members with a lot of classes over a wide range of topics.
I hope they have a successful meeting and get a chair that will be proactive and lead them in the direction they want to go. Like all committees, I think their success is directly proportional to having an effective Chair, in an all volunteer organization this is critical.
Kris and I were talking with Gonzalo in the kitchen late the other night, Thursday I believe. He was asking about how to go about getting a new chair. We, I in particular, pushed him to have a Science Committee meeting before the next BoD to select a new chair. That any person interested could call a meeting since there wasn’t a chair to call it. That’s why it’s on the calendar and on Talk - to get the word out. He’s taking the initiative to get it back on track and I support that. Who will be selected as Chair? I don’t know but the interested people will do so just as they do in any other committee.
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But how do we know there’s no chair? Last I knew, there was one…
Well, in this case, even though I’d heard about it the week before,he came and told two Board members and asked how to get a replacement formally recognized. I’d say that was notification and posting it on the calendar and Talk is definitely putting the word out.
Not being snarky at all, as far as I know there is not an “official” notification way. Is there a particular method/place/format you’d like or recommend? In this case you heard about it because it is made public. he may have also reached out to those he had emails for.
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I understand. I guess my concern here is that I’ve never heard anything about abdication by the sitting chair. Only an assertion there is none. And I suppose if there IS a sitting chair who’s uninvolved enough that these assertions are not met with rebuttal, so be it. But I hate to think the sitting chair was out of town for the week and was ousted.
It’s all good. And I appreciate your taking the time to fill me in on the goings on.
I, to, hope for a good meeting, good chair-elect, and great things from the great folks doing great classes and very interesting projects in this committee. 
Well I resigned as Chair of Machine Shop when I was elected to BoD. At the next committee meeting Nick Silva was elected.
In fact, I was elected at a committee meeting after Brian Gangwere resigned his membership.
Hatcher’s elected it’s chair at a committee meeting after a resignation. I believe VECTOR has also done this.
It occurs more frequently than people suspect, just the transitions seem to be smoother and not noticed unless you were active in that committee.
In fact to all outward appearances it would seem @Ashley_Newland is still the Science chairperson: https://talk.dallasmakerspace.org/u/ashley_newland/summary
https://dallasmakerspace.org/wiki/Science_Committee#Members
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But I remember (most of) those. I recall the chairs expressing interest in turning over the reins (or in some cases even more obvious abdication, e.g. “unmembering”). Or as in past science chair elections, it’s having been obvious the supposedly sitting chair was inactive or disinterested. And unless Ashley has graduated, she’s likely got school going on now, with little time for DMS, so it’s certainly not unprecedented nor unbelievable that the chair might be considered vacant. But it IS news, which I found to be peculiar in its presentation. No matter. Best wishes. Pip pip. Cheerioh, and carry on and all that.
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Ashley posted a message on Talk when she quit, and attached a very official-looking letter of resignation.
I know someone, possibly Ashley, should have done something about arranging for succession before it, but I guess everyone thought it must be someone elses job. I sure did, but I am a newby and thought wheels were turning somewhere. I still don’t quite get how it all works.
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Ah, as far as who is in the running, that is very good question. Maybe it would be a good idea not to elect at this meeting, but just to lay down ground rules and establish who wants the job and what their “campaign positions” are, then leave voting to next week.
There must be a better way to do this. Couldn’t we do it all on talk? OK, maybe using the “DMS members only” section. Its not like we have a secret ballot. Everyones Votes, proxies, arguments pro and con various candidates would all have a permanent record. Including what exactly candidates propose to do as chair, for later comparison with actual performance.
off topic, I don’t think congressmen should ever all be in the same city at the same time either, just to vote on legislation. No longer necessary, and brings down the neighborhood.
She did post her resignation very publicly on Science Talk
You might be right, although I am sure we agree it is somewhat moot at this point. That said, as a regular scanner of Talk forums, I don’t remember, nor can I find with a quick search, the post to which you are referring.
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As recently as August 24, she appeared to be active on TALK as the chair of the Science Committee (which is still attached to her TALK profile, making me think the Infrastructure folks were unaware, or they would have removed that; or Ashley could have, as well, upon resignation, but did not).
So it might have happened privately on TALK, but I have agree with Marshall; if it happened publicly, I’m unable to find it on TALK, nor on Discord, nor anyplace else.
But at this point, I’m just
You COULD, but you’ll get doofuses like me who want to butt in and argue things to death at our keyboards. In person meetings tend to be the best place to get the folks who actually get things done to come to consensus. Which having said, nothing prevents any candidates from publicly announcing that fact, or their platform. David Kessinger tends to do that, from time to time, as I recall. It’s kind of nice for those of us who spend less time chewing the fat @ DMS than we’d like, or can’t make the committee meetings, which inevitably seem to be scheduled on nights where we’ve already got commitments.
You might be on to something there… 
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This. Greatly cuts down on the chicken:pig ratio.
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