My DrupalCon Dublin Board Retreat!
Shyamala Rajaram
Wed, 11/21/2018 - 14:21

Drupalcon is always special! Back from DrupalCon, left feeling happy, proud to be part of a caring Board, a passionate DA team and last but not least the wonderful Drupal community.

Drupal Board Retreat

Was in Dublin Friday evening 23rd September. Saturday and Sunday was the Board retreat at The Gibson hotel.

The Board meetings at the conferences are day-long sessions where the 12 Board members along with Megan the Executive Director of the Drupal association work together on a strategy for the Drupal Association. The 12-Member Board includes 1 Founder Member (Dries Buytaert), 9 Class Directors bringing various expertise and 2 At Large Directors elected by the community. We have a very interesting mix for our 9 Class Directors - Tiffany, Vessa and Jeff all run successfully large Drupal shops, Rob who earlier worked with NBC & now part of Acquia, Mike who works with Pfizer, Danese brings with her the best of Open Source Strategies from her various open source associations, Sameer from the education background - brings a good external perspective, Donna brings in her expertise from having organized large open source events, a great community person, Steve comes from a technical background, the COO of Docker project, involved or been a part of multiple open sources technologies - again brings a good external perspective and experience from similar communities. Addi & I are the community elected At Large Directors on the board.

To know more about us checkout https://assoc.drupal.org/node/1589

Drupal association is a non profit to support initiatives that in turn benefit the Drupal project and community. The Drupal association operates with the Mission that - Drupal powers the best of the Web. The Drupal Association unites a global open source community to build and promote Drupal. The key initiatives that Drupal association has been sustainably maintaining drupal.org and running Drupalcons. The Board worked with Megan in defining the strategic direction and the boundaries in which the association should operate to ensure Sustainability. The Board also actively involved in the implementation through Task Force that jointly represent the community, Board and the association.

Megan presented us the work of the Drupal association and this was followed by a strategic planning session that was facilitated by Adam. Adam plays the most important role to make sure we work towards structured outcomes that then provide direction to Megan and the Drupal Association staff. Key objective of the retreat being:

• Reach a shared understanding of issues and opportunities for the Drupal Association in 12 - 24 month duration.
• Pick the top three opportunities and strategic focus areas
• Discuss to provide guidance and help identify resources, Task Force to support the same

Day 1 had the Executive update and Financial update from Megan, followed by a session to Discuss and select Strategy Questions to address. Day 2 was spent on more elaborate discussions on the selected Strategic focus areas. Watch out for the Public board meetings at DrupalCons where the DA presents the work that they have done and the Board and DA jointly take questions from the Community. Below is the video of the Public boarding.

My Next Steps

I am proud to represent the vibrant Drupal Community as a Board member. Besides being involved in the strategic planning want to spend my next few months speaking to more members of the community - Drupal developers, Core Developers, Drupal Community Champions, Shop owner and more. Do reach out to me for any clarifications or support. Best way to connect with me is by dropping a mail to Shyamala@unimity.com

Watch out for my next blog on the Board Staff Mixer!

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