[Linux-aus] Nomination to fill the causal vacancy - President for LUV

[Russell Stuart]

On 10/7/22 17:33, Russell Coker via linux-aus wrote:
> True.  But after becoming a subcommittee LUV had continued to have
> AGMs and the general agreement was that it would continue to do so.
> However one could argue that by having no AGMs since before Covid19
> that agreement was broken.

For clarity,

Becoming a Linux Australia subcommittee doesn't change much operational
wise.  The Linux Australia Executive doesn't want to be in the business
of running LUG or other groups, and speaking for myself don't have to
time to do so.  So LA's subcommittee policy requires a subcommittee
still has all the organisational structure a they would normally have
operating outside of LA.  It's needs a executive, (president, secretary,
treasurer), and fair and open way of electing them which is documented
somewhere (typically in a constitution), and have at least one regular
meeting each year.

This "subcommittee" thing is a service to all open source groups, not
just LUG's. A subcommittee can gets more than a few things out of it
such as a bank account, public liability insurance, proper accounting
records and tax.  That can save them some work.  If a group of you are 
banding together for open source project/conference/club, and want a
bank account, or need insurance, or free VM or a mailing list, then
taking advantage of this is probably going to save you effort.

There is a trade-off: subcommittees get access to these things because
legally they are operating as Linux Australia, which also means they
must operate in accordance to LA's policies and constitution.  But in
reality LA does little active monitoring beyond asking for an annual
report and insisting finance and accounting follows some well defined
procedures.  So although in principle the LA exec is the peak body
governing all subcommittees, no governing it likely to happen unless
there is a complaint or bad publicity.


-- 
Russell Stuart
Treasurer, Linux Australia