[Ambassadors] EMEA: Preliminary Statutes

[Gerold]

OK,

sorry I'm at work and have no access to my regular mailsystem and account,
but I think I have to reply here and try to describe a little ...

> Le Mon, 21 Jan 2008 02:20:43 +0100,
> red_alert <red_alert at the-psychiatry.ch> a écrit :
>
>> Jeroen van Meeuwen wrote:
>> > Thomas Canniot wrote:
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> I read the stautes and as promised here are my coments about them.
>> >>
>> >> In France, so as to avoid maybe misimpretation, we are used to
>> >> definded terms in a 0 article. For example, we define Fedora, Open
>> >> Source Software, mail (postal mail or email?), GNU/Linux, meeting,
>> >> vote, signature (handwriting or not?) so as they can't be any
>> >> misunderstanding while reading the statutes. The purpose is as
>> >> well to avoit problems. For example, if you send e-mail to ask
>> >> people to join a major meeting, with the vote of the board for
>> >> example, and that it is mentionned in the statutes that a postal
>> >> mail will be sent to ask people to come to the meeting, the
>> >> meeting and all its content could be canceled because the statutes
>> >> were not respected. Just my 2 cents.
>> >>
>> >> 4.1 "written request" > if someday you decide to permit people to
>> >> fill an online formular on the web to subscribe to the
>> >> association, their application won't be valid. Don't go into
>> >> details like this, or define that "written" means for you that you
>> >> assume it is also "written" when you fill up a form on da web.
>> >> Same for 4.3
>> >>
>> >> I see ntohing to add but at the 8.4 article. You should describe
>> >> the tasks of the members of the board. What does the president,
>> >> the vice president, the treasurer and the secretary do ? In fact,
>> >> always the same, if some people became inactive, he could not be
>> >> dismissed because of his inaction, as the statutes do not tell
>> >> what he has to do. We had this problem in a lug in the North of
>> >> France... this was damn crap.
>> >>
>> >> I don't like this idea of quorum ...  it could also prevent the
>> >> association to work fluently in the future. If people don't come
>> >> to the meeting, nor expresses any word about it, it is their
>> >> problem, and the association should not suffer from it. 7.4
>> >>
>> >> I think that's all :)
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > Others, please reply with your comments as I'll be watching this
>> > thread very closely and adjust the Statutes with some of the
>> > additions Thomas made unless I hear otherwise.
>>
>> I'm not sure If I understand that right, Thomas - would you give the
>> GMM the quorum even if there's not half the members present? I'd say
>> that's pretty dangerous.
>
> Well I don't think so... I think an association lives thanks to the
> people who feels concerned by it. If more than half of the members are
> away, it would be a problem and maybe you couldn't held a meeting
> before waiting for cleaning up your member base.
> And don't forget there are proxies, normally you could be able to write
> down on a paper and say : "i trust this person he can vote for me" or
> "As i can't come, vote for this people / I agree the decision being
> made".
^^
The law wants that as the board is part of the member and act in the name
of the member, that decissions like "member fee" or what is really
important to decide, is done in the (lets call it) yearly "member-meeting"
in which the members have to fullfill request from the law e.g. yearly
commitment to the financial department etc.

AND if you don't get the percantage you (!!!!!) decide in the statutes are
in person at this meeting you have to announce a second meeting which is,
no more depending on the amount of available members, written in stone.

Let me try to make an example to clear out:

We'll have 100 Users; we decide (by the statutes) that a voting is done,
when 20% of the members vote at a meeting.
So we go ahead, and write a invitation to all members, we meet on January
1st.
So 81 persons of our members are not in front of us (including the board)
at the 1st so we need to invite for a second meeting ....
we invite for 1st of february, ...
unfortunately there are only 10 persons who are coming and voting BUT ...
because this is the second invitation this vote is law.
So it's up to us to define the quote of "how many persons" must attend at
such a meeting (which must be held yearly once) to decide something and
it's up to everybody to attend the invitation (because the timeframe
before the meeting is also given by the statutes) at the first time.
AND the members have every time the possibility to WANT and initiate a
member meeting if they are unsatisfied with the board for example ...

Any questions? Any comments?
Any more explanations? Hopefully in german, because my english is not the
best *bg*

>
>
>> Still, I understand your point that organizing a second event is
>> contraproductive. I'd say expand 7.4 to say that there must be a
>> online (maybe over ML or a web-form) poll on the date and place of
>> the GMM. Maybe we should also add that the meeting is only taking
>> place if over 50% of the members announced their participation
>> previously (or maybe 52% to be sure). It's very likely that 50% are
>> at the meeting then and that no second meeting needs to be organized.
>>
>
> You could. The biggest lug in France sends email to you regularly so as
> to vote online if you can't come.
>
>> On all other points, I agree on what MrTom said.
>>
>> Regards
>> red
>>
>
> Cheers,
>
> Thomas


Regards

Gerold