SBAY.ORG Members

The list on this page shows the membership of the South Bay Community Network, Inc., also known by its domain name "sbay.org", a California non-profit corporation based in Silicon Valley. sbay.org serves as an umbrella for communications-related technical groups and forums. It's all about creating and maintaining community.

On this page...


The purpose of membership

Membership in the corporation is for those involved in the community-building and supporting roles that the corporation serves to the projects and groups which are organized under its umbrella. It actually isn't necessary to be a member of the corporation to participate in any projects or attend forums.

Anyone interested in the purposes of the corporation is qualified for membership. Generally, we expect members to be someone who participates in at least one Special Interest Group (SIG) or brings to the organization connections from their community involvement in Open Source Software or electronic communications. Just as with the SIGs, there are no dues for corporate membership. This is entirely an advisory and participatory role. The members of the corporation are in effect a wider pool of advisors than the Board of Directors. The members elect the officers and directors, and are the ones eligible to hold officer and director positions.

One scenario where a participant might choose to seek membership is when they're involved in one of the SIGs and take an interest in the wider community that the corporation serves. This becomes more likely when someone participates in more than one SIG.

Another scenario is if anyone seeks a position as an officer of a SIG. In order to maintain a sufficiently strong organizational link for the Volunteer Protection Act of 1997 to apply to the SIGs, we must require that officers of SIGs are members of the corporation. For the same reason, the leader of each SIG is also given a non-voting seat on the Board of Directors if they weren't already elected to a voting seat.

Becoming a member

Membership in the corporation is a privilege earned through participation. A potential new member may be nominated by any one of the following: Nominees are voted in by the entire membership.

List of members

The members of the corporation are as shown in the table below.
Name Amateur Radio Callsign SIG Affiliations Community Affiliations
John AmosK6TVMSVWUXARRL SCV Assistant SM, San Jose RACES
Craig AndersonN6YXKSVWUXSan Jose RACES
Reg Charney  ACCU
Mark CohenK6EFSVWUX, Linux Picnic 
Jeremy CooperKE6JJJStratofox 
Bill DaleN2RHVSVWUX, Linux PicnicARRL SCV SM, Milpitas RACES
Jennifer Davis Linux PicnicBayLISA
John Delaney Linux PicnicIEEE, SVEC
Owen DeLongKB6MERStratofoxARIN Advisory Council
Brad DouglasKB8UYRSVWUX, Stratofox, Linux PicnicGRASS GIS, SBARA, Fremont ARES, Fremont CERT
Elise Engelhardt SVWUX, Linux PicnicSVEC, ASME
William Estrada SVWUX, Linux PicnicMt Umunhum Wireless
Thomas "TR" FullhartKG6WELSVWUX, Linux Picnic, Stratofox 
Ian KluftKO6YQStratofox, SVWUX, Linux Picnic, RadioExamSan Jose RACES
Ben LoomisKG6BNLSVWUX 
Steven LoomisK6SPISVWUX 
Sean LynchKG6CVVStratofox, SVWUXSan Jose RACES
Ted MatsumuraKC6RTBSVWUX 
James Morgan SVWUX 
Justin RochaKG6SGUStratofox, SVWUX, Linux Picnic 
Steve RubinAE6CHStratofox, SVWUX 
Cliff SkolnickN1DPHSVWUXApache Software Foundation
Heather SternKG6ZYCStratofox, SVWUX, Linux Picnic, RadioExamBayLISA
Warren Turkal SVWUX 
Tim UtschigKI6GDXSVWUX, Linux Picnic 
Mark WhittingtonKA8IStratofox, RadioExam 
Michael WrightK6MFWLinux PicnicSVEC, San Jose RACES

Other organizations which use the "meritocracy" membership model

A "meritocracy" means governing by those who have made accomplishments. This membership structure was loosely based on that of the Apache Software Foundation. ASF also serves as an umbrella for volunteer projects. Though there are plenty of differences in the organizations, there were many times during the writing of our corporate By-Laws that it was observed we were trying to solve problems ASF had already dealt with. At those times we considered what was applicable to our organization. It's fair to credit ASF for the ideas and give a tip of the hat for the nice work.

Voting status of members

In some relatively rare circumstances, such as amending the By-Laws, a 2/3 vote of all the members is required.

We wanted to try to prevent situations where less than 2/3 of the votes are available to be cast, making such a vote impossible. During the discussions about the new meritocracy membership system, there were some ideas about having voting privileges expire and have members re-qualify for them. But that's not at all consistent with the kind of organization we've been or want to be. That idea didn't get far. Though it was a step along the way to better ideas.

It's unavoidable in any volunteer organization that people have cycles in which they have more or less time available. So we wanted to allow members to put up the figurative "do not disturb sign" when they need to, and then not be pestered to help reach a 2/3 vote. But we needed the system to be open for members to return to active status, which is consistent with the all-volunteer nature of our organization.

So the system we arrived at is simply to allow members to decide for themselves whether they're currently able to be active. Each member may declare that they are "active" or "inactive" for voting. These declarations may be made any time, including just in time for a vote. A declaration of active voting status is good for 12 months.

 
The South Bay Community Network, Inc.
a 501(c)3 tax-exempt California non-profit corporation
Mon 28-Dec-2009 <webmaster@sbay.org>