[Linux-aus] Notice of Linux Australia Special General Meeting to be held on 29/08/2011

[Peter Lieverdink]

----- Original Message -----
> I'm glad to see the last motion. It is new, and hadn't been previously
> discussed, other than that I alerted members to the problem. What has
> been conspicuously absent is any direct and transparent response by the
> council. Sure, such a change would be needed, but why has there been no
> explicit acknowledgement of the issue? What other issues are there?
> Every time I've needed an example of something concerning with the
> proposed change I've found one, so I think prospects are good, if good
> is the right word, of finding more, should someone look.
> 
> I'm very disappointed that the council fail to address the fundamental
> issue of what is changing.
> 
> I protest against the SGM as announced. I believe the motions in
> Agenda
> item five are fundamentally flawed and cannot properly be put. No
> change to the constitution may be voted upon other than at a special
> general meeting, which requires advance notice of all motions
> including
> the specific wording for motions to be put. The motion, "Apply changes
> to the constitution to bring the constitution in line with current
> practices," is meaningless; it could mean anything, and thus must mean
> nothing. A properly formed motion says, for example, "clause x(y) is
> to
> be amended to, 'The financial year of the association is to begin on
> the
> first day of September each year'"; likewise, "All dollar amounts in
> clause c and d(e) are to be set at $0.00" I warn that the last three
> motions cannot succeed due to deficient form, and that the council is
> leading us towards a SGM that changes our constitution to be exactly
> the
> current model, July to June Financial year and membership fees
> included.
> 
> I urge all members attending to vote no to all motions put at the
> special general meeting, if it goes ahead on August 29th. Before a
> meeting can be called, the specific motions must be worded; the first
> motion in item five might stand, but probably not without also
> including
> a copy of the model constitution that the motion aims to adopt. Every
> other change must be likewise detailed.

As has been done on github. John included links. I shall include them for you again. Please read the content they point at.

The proposed changes can be found at GitHub
https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution/pull/1 in a pull request.

The model rules can be found at
https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution/blob/master/constitution.txt

The new proposed constitution can be found at
https://github.com/linuxaustralia/constitution/blob/sgm2011/constitution.txt

Please do not respond with another TL;DR email. It wastes everyone's time.

> I also repeat my question to the council: What is wrong with simply
> amending the constitution, as it appeared on the web site, to add the
> financial year?

We cannot amend the constitution with simply that item. If we want to make any change whatsoever, even a typo fix, the entire constitution must be brought into compliance with the new legislation. The easiest way to do that is to adopt the new model as per the legislation and then apply all our changes to that new model. We're also using this opportunity to remove some cruft that was added some years ago but never used.

I was under the impression that this had been explained several times now by several people. I apologise if that is not the case, but I do hope that the above sentence explains it clearly for you.

You are still free to attend the SGM in person or by proxy and vote against any or all of the proposed motions.

- Peter.