[Linux-aus] No intent to change name of "Linux Australia"

[Kathy Reid]

I don't want to speak for Council, but given my time with that group 
(five years in various roles), the following information may be of 
interest for the curious:

Linux Australia Inc.'s constitution can be found here:
https://linux.org.au/about-us/constitution/

The relevant sections are 23-34 under "Section 4 - General Meeting".  
This gives Council significant leeway in holding AGMs, as long as the 
AGM is held not longer than 6 months after the end of financial year, 
which is 30th September, IIRC, and as long as appropriate notice is 
provided to Members before the AGM - which is 14 days (per Section 24) 
unless a special resolution is proposed, in which case it is 21 days.

Linux Australia Inc. is an incorporated association in NSW and therefore 
falls under the Fair Trading Act 1987 (NSW)
http://classic.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/fta1987117/

"Closing the books" on a financial year, and preparing the Annual 
Report, is a significant undertaking for Council. The Treasurer in 
particular has to satisfy themselves that the books are correct, arrange 
an audit, respond to the auditor's questions and queries, and prepare an 
analysis for the Annual General Meeting. Preparing the Annual Report 
requires each of the Subcommittees to provide a report of their 
activities to Council, Office-Bearers must write their report for 
inclusion, and the Annual Report is then compiled, usually in booklet form.

You can see previous Annual Reports at:
https://linux.org.au/about-us/annual-reports/

At the same time as prepping the Annual Report, the Council must also 
arrange an Election for Council, as (per the Constitution), Council 
Member terms are 12 months (or so - depending on the AGM timing). This 
requires doing all the comms for the Election (call for nominations, 
communicating what's required, amending any of the position descriptions 
- https://github.com/linuxaustralia/position-descriptions), as well as 
setting up the Election in the CiviCRM system that is part of the 
backend of linux.conf.au (the Election module was custom built for LA). 
While voting is going on, Council then seeks to find a Returning Officer 
and briefs them on the Elections, the Election system and so on.

This video explains what's involved in being a Returning Officer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLqxAIeFY64
(This includes a walk through of the Elections database and the x-checks 
a Returning Officer needs to do).

Once the Election closes, the Returning Officer satisfies themselves (or 
not) that the Election results are valid. The Election results are 
announced at the AGM.

So, there's LOTS of work to prep for an AGM - yes, most of it is 
documented internally to LA Council, but it's still lots of work, and I 
am sure that Council is planning for all of this prep work with their 
AGM timelines.

Kind regards,

Kathy Reid




On 16/10/2022 4:43 pm, Marcus Herstik via linux-aus wrote:
>
> Hi Jonathan,
>
> It wasn’t actually suggested. Rather it was a tongue in cheek reminder 
> that LA has had this discussion and it has been decided.
>
> It appears that some LA members are having issue with the EO 
> conference, which I just noticed has it’s own mail list now.
>
> I will do a deeper dive into the EO conference later but to me at 
> first glance it looks remarkably similar to the Linux  Australia 
> Conference (LAConf) and it’s associated miniconfs.
>
> This to me looks like a direct competitor to the LAConf and is even 
> covering many of the same topics.
> Hence the concern that some of us have had regarding this conference 
> and the lack of a true “Linux Australia Conference”.
>
> Also, I am rather interested as to when the council is planning on 
> holding its AGM as it now has no conference at which to hold it.
> Can the council provide some indication as to when it intends to do 
> so? (They may want to check the constitution and the act too.)
>
> Regards,
> Marcus Herstik
>
> M: 0405-569-466
> A: P.O. Box 2443, Burleigh Waters, QLD, 4220
>
>> On 16 Oct 2022, at 9:44 am, Jonathan Woithe <jwoithe at just42.net> wrote:
>>
>> Hi everyone
>>
>> It has been suggested in recent threads on this list that there were 
>> moves
>> afoot to change the name of "Linux Australia".  As a current member 
>> of the
>> Linux Australia Council I would like to make it clear that the current
>> council has no desire, intent or plan to revisit this.  The community
>> discussed and voted on a change of name in late 2017, and the definitive
>> result was that the membership did not wish to alter the name.
>>
>> Hypothetically, if any future council wished to consider a rename (or any
>> other change to the organisation's constitution) it will be approached
>> similarly to previous such changes: a community discussion followed by a
>> formal vote by members.  No change can be made to the constitution 
>> without
>> an affirmative result from a formal poll of members.
>>
>> Regards
>>  jonathan
>>
>
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