Re: UK-TUG constitution

[MJ Ray]

Davi Leal <address@hidden> wrote:
> Dave Crossland wrote:
> > Davi Leal:
> > > A quick look at the UK-TUG constitution [1] could be interesting.
> > >
> > >  [1] http://uk.tug.org/events-files/agm/2007/constitution/draft_2.pdf
> > >      Ref. from: http://uk.tug.org/#membership
> >
> > I'm also on the UKTUG committee and we've just sent out the 4th draft
> > to members; its based on the UK Charities Commission model charter,
> > iirc.
>
> IMHO the GNU Herds project must be never in a hurry, but follow improving 
> slowly but surely based on the people contributions.

Beware that model charter.  It has a few key undefineds, such as:
What happens if members join during the notice period of a meeting?
Who is the final decision-maker on interpreting the charter?

I used a previous version of that model charter for the UK's
Association For Free Software, so much of the criticism of it is
on-line.  Steve McIntyre (now Debian project leader) called it a
"train-wreck" which I think was a bit strong, but it was buggy.

Otherwise, there were three types of problem:
  1. people attempting to "play" the constitution (inevitable?);
  2. attempts to modify the constitution;
  3. initial failure of the executive to adopt working rules.

If I was doing it again, I'd address them by:
  1. self-destructing neatly if people start playing about;
  2. try to avoid modifying it and decide that the oldest or newest
section "wins" if there are inconsistent modifications;
  3. require adoption of working rules for meetings and elections to
be the first act of the executive.

Phil Hands also wrote that 20 was too high a quorum.  The 17 in the
UKTUG one isn't much better.

My history of AFFS up to my resignation is at
http://mjr.towers.org.uk/writing/stateoftheaffs.html
If we have 20 AFFS members (probably from 2005!), we could restart it.

Regards,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef)
Webmaster for hire, statistician and online shop builder for a small
worker cooperative http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ http://mjr.towers.org.uk/
(Notice http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html) tel:+44-844-4437-237