[Linux-aus] Converting Linux Australia's "Committee" to a "Board"

[Stewart Smith]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 22:30 +0900, Bret Busby wrote:
> On Thu, 15 Feb 2007, Jonathan Oxer wrote:

> And, the organisation would likely need to be come a corporation, and be 
> subject to corporations law (and get taken over by the federal 
> government ? :) ), ti institute a Board of Directors.

I don't think any of these changes would change our position under NSW
law. We're already goverened by a whole bunch of the stuff (as, for
example, is LUV... but in Vic, and a bit different).

> > This change is about enabling more community involvement, not less.
> >
> > So just renaming "Committee" to "Board" and making no other changes
> > would be a good start. However, what I have in mind is to go a bit
> > further and also remove the Treasurer and Secretary positions as elected
> > positions, leaving an annually elected 7-seat Board consisting of the
> > President, Vice-President, and 5 Members. The positions of Treasurer and
> > Secretary can then be filled by any selected member of the Board rather
> > than having a specific person voted into that position.
> 
> Then we could have a situation like in state and federal governments, 
> where we have a clueless berk in charge of things like all of the money, 
> with no aptitude for the task, and it becomes a matter of political 
> favours, rather than good governance.
> 
> Having positions like Secretary and Traesurer, elected by the masses 
> means that it is mopre likely that someone with some clues about the 
> task, and, some aptitude for the task, would occupy the position.

I completely disagree.

It's *very* common in voluntary organisations for positions such as
treasurer and secretary to go unfilled, or be filled by semi-unwilling
volunteers each year in part due to the extra workload of holding these
roles (ESPECIALLY for a full year).

Being able to move the roles around would mean the flexibility of:
- active training of new people (especially for treasurer) and sharing
of workload (especially for treasurer).

The workload of the treasurer is IMMENSE. Sorry... i don't think that
got the point across...

the workload of the treasurer is
 _                      
| |__  _   _  __ _  ___ 
| '_ \| | | |/ _` |/ _ \
| | | | |_| | (_| |  __/
|_| |_|\__,_|\__, |\___|
             |___/      

and it has a tendancy across volunteers to wear people out and have them
running for the hills at the end of the time, or do a really half-arsed
job and leave some poor sod to try and clean up the mess (like having to
wind up the organisation because it discovers it's bankrupt).

Solving this problem is probably THE most important thing for an
organisation to achieve to be sustainable.... we've probably solved it
20%.

Think of the situation in the current system if nobody nominates for
treasurer... what on earth do we do then? Panic is probably the best
answer.

If treasurer and secretary came from the board, we'd know that somebody
on the board would have to take this role (even if it were by drawing
the shortest straw) so we'd be in less of a disaster.

The work of the secretary is also quite a lot as well. Being able to
rotate this when needed (especially things like the maintenance of the
minutes of formal meetings) will lead to a more efficient operation as
these things will be less likely to fall off the plate when, for
example, the person in that role has increased work/real life
responsibilities for a period of time during the year/election period.

I don't see the roles rotating much, but the possibility provides
flexibility - as well as bringing the organisation closer to a more
standard model.

> > This provides
> > more flexibility to do things like switch roles mid-term if individual
> > members find that they are unable to adequately fulfil the role, or even
> > if it just seems logical to do so due to changing interests etc. For
> > example, there have already been discussions that Terry and AJ as
> > Treasurer and Secretary would like to role-swap part way through this
> > year. Under the current constitution where individuals are elected to
> > those specific positions that may not even be possible.
> >
> 
> Then, we hacve a situation like "ooh can I have access to all of the 
> money this week? I feel like a trip to Rio.", and, when it ccomes time 
> for the auditor's report at the end of each financial year, who will 
> have responsibility, if the position that is responsible for the funds 
> and the financial records, is occupied by various people playing musical 
> chairs? "Ooh, it wasn't me, I only did the job for a week, so I didn't 
> have to worry about what was happening with the money, or reconciling 
> the bank statements, as they came in after I had done my week sting in 
> the job, between bank statements.".

I'm glad you're so concerned about due process - and would welcome
contributions in setting these up - especially for areas such as
finance. Systems and processes (incl operating procedures) would solve
all this. They're non-trivial to set up properly too. 

> > To remain in keeping with standard practise in other organisations we
> > could then replace President with Chair[man|woman|person] and either
> 
> The correct title is CHAIRMAN. It has nothing to do with gender. The 
> word uses the Latin root of the word man, for the action of doing, so 
> the word chairman, simply means the person who chairs. It has nothing to 
> do with the use of the word man to mean a person who is a male. Any 
> decent book or training in meeting procedure, should reveal that. 
> Perhaps, the members of the LInux Australia committe, should read an 
> authoritative book on meeting procedure, to explain these things.

over the years we've had ppl on committee who are quite familiar with
meeting procedure of various organisations, committees and the like
drawing from their real world experience to improve LA's procedures.
this last sentence reads rather insulting to those people to me.


> > drop the Vice-President position or replace it with Vice-Chairman. In
> > fact it's usual in other organisations for even the Chairman not to be
> > an elected position specifically, but for a member of the Board to be
> > selected for that position by the other Board members.
> 
> This depends on the defined role of the position. The President of a 
> non-profit organisation, other than presiding over meetings (or, 
> chairing meetings, if you like), is generally defined, where the term 
> President is used, as the sole official spokesman and representative of 
> the organisation, so that you do not get a member of the 
> Council/governing committee of an organisation, saying to external 
> bodies, such as the media, "The <organisation name> does/will do ...., 
> and believes that..., and intends that....", unless formally delegated 
> to so do, by either the governing body of the organisation, or the 
> president of the organisation. Otherwise you can get allkinmds of 
> differening representations of what is going on, and, of policies, of an 
> organisation, especially when dissenters to majority decisions, are 
> present in a governing body, and where the President of an organisation 
> is not the sole person to whom speaking for the organisation, is 
> limited. Similarly with signing contracts and agreements on behalf of an 
> organisation.

Being on the same page, or having a single person as a spokesperson is
important. It's also quite possible for the president in the current
structure to not recall the details of everything.


> The role of a Chairman, is generally limited to solely chairing 
> meetings, and some defined position, such as a Public Relations Officer, 
> may be the role to which speking for the organistaion is limited.

yes.

> I suggest that you, and the other members of the committee, need to both 
> get and read some good reference books on meeting procedure, and, 
> research the implications (legal and otherwise) of the proposed chages, 
> so that you can better understand how things should be operating with 
> the constituition as it stands, and, the implications of the proposed 
> changes.

I think we'll gladly continue on the tradition of doing things the best
way, not just the way somebody else did it. That being said, any
specific resources you're thinking of?
-- 
Stewart Smith (stewart at linux.org.au)
Linux Australia
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