[Ambassadors] EMEA: Preliminary Statutes

[Thomas Canniot]

On Sat, 19 Jan 2008 18:33:34 +0100
Jeroen van Meeuwen <kanarip at kanarip.com> wrote:

> Hi There,
> 
> this message particularly addresses the EMEA Ambassadors, although of 
> course every Ambassador regardless of the geographical location is free 
> to comment.
> 
> Attached is the first initial draft of the Statutes of Fedora EMEA, 
> which have been submitted for a principle (non-official) approval to the 
> German Financial Department some time ago, too.
> 
> As we have not yet heard back from the German Financial Department, we 
> need to treat this initial draft with a little caution as far as 
> additions or changes are concerned; The document is in PDF format for a 
> reason ;-) I send this version of the document to all Ambassadors 
> anyway, because we do need some time to read the document and collect 
> all comments before the group of Ambassadors attending FOSDEM 2008 in 
> Brussels, Belgium takes it up for voting.
> 
> The Statutes are based on a set that has been previously accepted by the 
> German Financial Department (a local LUG), with some minor changes as to 
> what the geographical scope and possibilities (meetings in person, etc.) 
> are.
> 
> Please note that although the scope of the NPO according to these 
> Statutes is very, very broad, the NPO will not (can not) interfere with 
> normal Fedora Project's daily operations, principles or other 
> contributors and Ambassadors regardless of the continent either of those 
> take place in -it is primarily founded to provide a legal entity to 
> those of us (Ambassadors) in the EMEA area that need to share some kind 
> of resources (think of a purchasing an Event Kit that is being shipped 
> from one place to another, and cover the back of those Ambassadors that 
> now invest privately in getting a booth at an Event, etc.).
> 
> Please also mind that none of this is set in stone, and the board (to be 
> elected at FOSDEM 2008 if Statutes are accepted) will need to make the 
> final decision on those topics.
> 
> Any comments to what is in the document are welcome (via the mailing 
> list or to myself in private); any comments as to what is happening here 
> I would prefer you send to me in private to prevent any kind of 
> discussion taking any direction we are going to regret at some point in 
> time.
> 
> Thank you,
> 
> Kind regards,
> 
> Jeroen van Meeuwen
> -kanarip
> 


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 :)

Cheers

Thomas Canniot
-MrTom
-- 
Thomas Canniot <mrtom at fedoraproject.org>