[Fsfe-uk] appointments 2003

[Brian Gough]

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Dear AFFS Members,

Marc Eberhard (chairman) has asked me to post the minutes of the
appointment process.

The new committee consists of the following members:

      Dr Marc Eberhard
      Alex Hudson
      Richard Smedley
      Mark Ray

      Adam Bower (new appointment)
      Ian Lynch  (new appointment)

After the original announcement for nominations it was discovered that
the constitution only allows nominations prior to the AGM, not after.
As such, it was not legally possible have an election process afterwards.

Consequently, the only way for the committee to add new members was by
filling vacancies to replace members standing down, and adding
additional members directly (restricted to 2 by the constitution),
which was done from the nominations received.

- -- 
Brian Gough

(AFFS Secretary)


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ASSOCIATION FOR FREE SOFTWARE - COMMITTEE APPOINTMENT MINUTES 2003

SUMMMARY

No additional members could be elected to the committee this year, as
the constitution has a restriction which states that nominations can
only be made prior to the Annual General Meeting, and no nominations
were received before that time.

However, the constitution provides for the committee to appoint up to
3 additional members, at its discretion. The 3 nominations that were
received were considered through this process.

The committee unanimously agreed to appoint all 3 nominees if no
objections were received from members.  An objection was received, and
the committee then reconsidered each appointment by majority voting
after conducting an email interview.

The two nominations which received no objections from members were
coopted onto the committee.  No further appointments were made.

Brian Gough
Secretary
Association for Free Software

29/7/2003

DETAILS

- - Nominations for committee members must be received 10 days before
  the meeting, clause 6(d).

- - No nominations were received prior to the AGM.

- - Less than 20 paid-up members were present at the AGM on 17/5/2003
  and the meeting was inquorate, under clause 10(a).  Thus no formal
  elections of members to the committee could be held at the meeting,
  even if nominations had been received.

- - The committee announced their intention to hold elections later and
  a call for nominations was made.  However, the constitution does not
  make any provision for elections to occur after the AGM, clause
  6(b), or for nominations to be made after the AGM.

- - As such, there were no elections for this year.

- - Instead the committee exercised its power to co-opt additional
  committee members under clause 6(e), and fill casual vacancies under
  clause 6(f), which are both at the discretion of the committee.

- - Clause 6(e) has a limit of 3 coopted committee members and "one THIRD
  of the total membership of the committee at the time of cooption".
  The committee had five members. The opinion of the secretary is that
  2 members can be coopted, as they then do not exceed 1/3rd of the
  committee (2 out of 6).

- - The voluntary retirement of the secretary opened a casual vacancy
  which may also be filled by the committee under clause 6(f) This
  gave 3 positions total at the discretion of the committee.

- - The nominations received by the committee were : Adam Bower, Ian
  Lynch, Andrew Savory.

- - Since 3 nominations were received from members, and there were 3
  available positions, the committee proceeded on the basis of
  considering these nominations for the discretionary appointments.

- - The committee agreed unanimously to accept all nominations for the
  discretionary appointments if there were no objections from members.

- - The chairman posted an announcement to all members on 30/6/2003 that
  the 3 nominations would be accepted unless objections were received
  to the process or the nominations by 14/7/2003.  The announcement
  referred to the absence of a requirement for elections when
  nominations do not exceed vacancies (clause 6(d)), which is
  technically correct but not applicable in this case since the
  appointments could only be made under 6(e) and 6(f), and not by
  election.

- - There were no objections to the process from members.  

- - There was 1 objection to a nomination from a member.

- - Since an objection was received the proposed appointments were
  reconsidered by the committee.

- - An email interview of all nominees was conducted, with regard to the
  objects of the organisation.

- - Each appointment was subjected to majority voting of the committee
  members.

- - The two nominations which received no objections from members were
  coopted onto the committee.  No further appointments were made.

- - The new committee consists of the following members:

      Dr Marc Eberhard
      Alex Hudson
      Richard Smedley
      Mark Ray

      Adam Bower (new appointment)
      Ian Lynch  (new appointment)

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