[Linux-aus] Minutes - January 24th 2003

[Pia Smith]

http://www.linux.org.au/minutes - to be posted soon!

LINUX AUSTRALIA
COMMITTEE MEETING - MINUTES
1300 hrs EST
24 January 2003

HELD AT: Library Cafe
University of Western Australia
Perth, WA, 6009
Australia

PRESENT: Pia Smith President
Stewart Smith Vice President
Anand Kumria Treasurer
Andrew Cowie Secretary
Hugh Blemings
Leon Brooks
Andrew Tridgell

CALL
Order

The meeting was called to order at 1312hrs. The agenda for the meeting
was approved as follows:

Chair of the meeting
Waiver of Notice
Previous meeting Minutes
New President's goals
Membership
Procedures
Other Business
Future Meetings

Chair
Pia Smith, as President, chaired the meeting.

Notice
The meeting date had been agreed verbally and all members of the
Committee were present.

Prior meeting minutes
As this is the first Director's meeting of the fiscal year, there were
no prior minutes to be read.

NEW BUSINESS
New President's Goals
Pia opened the meeting with some remarks about her philosophy and her
goals for the Organization, with emphasis placed on organizational
structure (gaining more members for Linux Australia and ensuring that
corporate entities were able to participate) and advocacy (raising the
profile of Linux in the corporate world and working towards greater
acceptance).

Membership
Membership and Fees were discussed.
It was suggested that given the financial health of the organization,
normal registrations be free.
Corporate memberships were discussed. It was thought that many companies
would be willing to be associated to Linux Australia, and would agree to
pay a nominal fee to do so. It seems that the present “Associate Member”
status provided in the Constitution would be sufficient, although
charging a different amount to corporate entities may require a
Constitutional amendment if that is what the Organization decides to do.
Suggestions were made of trying to get benefits for members, perhaps
discounts on books. These and other benefits may be of interest in
encouraging new members to join and support Linux Australia.
It was realized that before proceeding any further with pursuing
memberships or changing the Organization structure to include new kinds
of members that the benefits of membership would have to be clearly
defined. Further research and consideration is required, and will be a
major topic of discussion going forward.

ACTION Investigation to see if any companies he interacts with may be
interested in offering a discount to LA members.
Andrew T

Procedures
It was agreed that minutes will be published publicly.
Andrew Tridgell suggested that the best format for doing so would be a
“Twiki”, a web based system that is integrated with CVS allowing comment
and updates to documents - all with version control. It was agreed that
such a system would be ideal not just for formal documents but also to
keep contact information, and to conduct peer review of documents.
Andrew T agreed to set one up.

ACTION Setup user accounts on the linux.conf.au machine for the
committee members.
Anand

ACTION Set up a Twiki system for publishing documents
Andrew T

ACTION Send Anand ssh keys to be used for access to linux.conf.au
All

OTHER BUSINESS
Finances
Andrew Tridgell asked for an more detailed description of the financial
position of the Organization, with a focus on the monthly/annual
obligations of the organization. This was provided by Anand.

Constitutional Validity of AGM
It was mentioned that there was a possibility that someone may question
the constitutional validity of the AGM on grounds of procedure or due to
the organization not having had a large number of Members previously.
As four out of five of the previous year's members were present in
person or by proxy, it seems that quorum was present. Further, the
participation of these four in the AGM seems to imply their concurrence
with its validity.
It was agreed that the necessary forms had been observed, but that
further verification would be done with the previous year's Membership
to ensure they were fine with the matter.

ACTION Check with NSW Incorporations Act
Anand

ACTION Consult with previous committee members by email.
Pia

CLOSE
Next Meetings

It was agreed that in general teleconference meetings would be held the
second Wednesday of each month.
The necessity for face-to-face meetings was discussed, and it was agreed
that in-person meetings represented great value and that they should be
held approximately three times per year. It was pointed out that if
meetings were held in the Sydney or Canberra area, only one member would
need to fly from the west coast and the remainder would either be in
situ or could cheaply travel by car or train, and as such costs would be
kept to a minimum.

Next meetings are as follows:
Committee Teleconference Meeting Wednesday 12 February 2003
Committee In-Person Meeting April-May, TBC

Adjournment
There being no further business, the Meeting was Adjourned at 1415.
_____________

Regards
Pia