[Computerbank] AGM Fiasco Redux

[Dan Treacy]

Just when you thought it was safe to hold another CAI AGM.

*SIGH*

One would have hoped something might have been learnt from last years
shitfight but alas it appears not.

For those who are interested wrt to my nomination.

I spoke to Grant on Friday after realising nominations were due then and
at about the same time I actually posted an email to the lists asking if
we'd had any noms. 

The call to grant was to make sure that the meeting before the AGM to
ratify "outstanding" members would take place as the President can call
the meeting of his own volition assuming he gives the required 3 days
notice. This was cause at the last CBNSW Ctte Meeting the subject of CAI
was brought up and it was decided that something needed to be done and a
number of the CBNSW executive actually filled in the forms to join It
was supposed to simply be a matter of chcking my mebership stauts and
then processing the paperwork but it appears as usual it got lost in the
shuffle. It was also at this time Grant informed me that he wouldn't
ratify any new members. That's entirely his perogative. I also
personally asked Grant if he'd support my nomination as President as I
was going to nominate myself (couldn't see anything stopping that in the
cons. of course the fact that it appears that you can actually NOT be a
member of the organisation and nominate and presumably hold a position
on teh ctte seems a little anomalous) and as it says in the cons. I
needed a two members. Me and him, simple.  After some discussion he
thought it would be "cleaner" if he and someone else nominated me. I
said fair enough and that I'd send the acceptance letter to the
secretaries email address. Now whatever occured after that point as to
when Grant put forward the nomination etc I'm unsure and to be honest I
don't really care. I'm already a member of the ctte so it makes no
difference to me. The main reason for my nomination was no-one else
seemed interested and there were things to be fixed. 

If it comes to it I'll withdraw the nomination and nominate from the
floor like everyone else. 

But for the most part all this is beside the point. It's fiddling
semantics, Everyone involved at the moment sounds like a bunch of
politcians as opposed to people who are trying to do some good and help
people. 

In case you have all forgotten we are a volunteer organisation and as
such are reliant upon good will, the good will of the donors and the
good will of the volunteers but sometimes even moreso the good will of
the organisers. Instead of petty bickering and semantics, Build a bridge
and get over it. 

In NSW have 3 incorporated groups aside from CBNSW itself, CB New
England, CB Hunter and CB Sydney. Now we regualrly get fairly large
donations coming into Sydney and up in New England (NW NSW centred
around a town just south of Armidale for those who aren't sure where it
is) they are lacking in machines. This was discussed at a recent CBNSW
ctte meeting regarding the equitable distribution of machines coming
into Sydney, as it was assumed Sydney would be in surplus. Now there's
no real way we can supress the desire for our group to be successful and
as such you want plenty of computers. The Regional groups were the same,
Sydney's arguement was basically we do allthe work picking the computers
up etc etc  why should we just ship you anything you want?  I'm sure
you've come up against it and I notice that recently Vic sent some
machines to SA. And that's great it's exactly what we need to do. So why
does the goodwill seems to stop as soon as it comes to meetings and
management, as soon as a position is mentioned or something even vaguely
related to anything that might be mentioned in the cons. all the good
will seems to evaporate right before your eyes and it's all about what I
can get for me. At least that's how it appears

Computerbank is/should be/will be bigger than any one person and if
you're after individual glory I point you towards the AEC and suggest
you start collecting signatures for the next election. This is about
getting computers to people who need them pure and simple.

The BIGGEST problem CAI has had in all the time I've known about it is
lack of good will, Whether it's personal fueds or quibbling over the
semantics of what is a fucking pitiful constitution. Those invovled have
managed to nullify the entire organisation and bring it to the verge of
tearing itself apart.

The REALLY sad thing about it is that as recently as a few days ago I
had hope that things were finally sorting themselves out.  

I'm sure you're all more than aware that the "branch structure" is/was
and abject failure. CAI is operating as 3 separate entities (well
possibly 4 if you want to include CAI itself, although to be honest I
have a great deal of difficulty separating it from Victoria.) If this is
the case let it exist as such. It's been on the agenda and dicussed the
entire time I've known members from the other states, maybe not openly
but it's been there. And who the hell knows what Qld wants anyway
(although they were looking at incorporating themselves at one point,
cause they asked CBNSW for our consitution), does anyone even hear from
them AT ALL?

So let, no in fact encourage/demand/make/beg the state bodies to
incorporate, then they can deal with the day to day running of
Computerbank operations, the getting the computers out to the people who
need them, the running of the WFD projects, the handling of recruiting
and training of members, the funding of their own operations. 

Let CAI become an advisory body, a peer group. A group to facilitate
co-operation between the states, exchange of excess machines and
hardware and misdirected applications/donations, to foster new
computerbanks in areas they don't already exist and to form liasons with
groups on a national level(Federal Govt., Linux Australia, Sun, IBM
etc..) and to negotiate National corporate sponsorships and donations.

Let all the members of the state bodies be members of CAI through
affliation and vote on the 4 executive positions (Pres, VP, Sec, Treas)
where nomination to those positions is open to any member of CAI. Then
have a representative/delegate/whatever from each of the state bodies.
Get WA involved, and not just in a token way they are a part of
Australia too last time I looked. 

That means 4 executive and currently NSW, Vic, SA, Qld and hopefully WA,
5 states. 9 person committee. maxiumu you're likely to get if we set up
Tassie, NT and ACT is 12 person. more than manageable. The other thing
is that the states as a whole group have the ability to override to
executive if they don't feel the proposal is in their best interest. 
Linux Australia use teleconferencing for their fornightly Ctte meetings
provide by IBM I think it is.. I'm sure we can find someone to help out
in that regard for meetings. Cause IRC meetings suck and are
exclusionary. 

Once a year conference (could possibly even be held at/during LCA, just
a suggestion) rotating around the various cities at a set time of year
to get together and spend a few days discussing things a la teh National
Premiers conference.

WRT members I'd encourage and have CAI encourage the states to make the
people who do the work for us JOIN, even if it's $1, have them join and
become members. You guys may or may not think you are Computerbank but
you're not, the people who give up their weeknights and weekends to come
in and help out are. They deserve a say. Whether or not they use that
opportunity is up to them. Having a national organisation with what? 15?
members is pitiful. It's time to do soemthing similar to the amazingly
selfless act the previous LA ctte did when they automatically made all
the attendees members of LA to revitalise the organisation.

Onto the current AGM which FWIW is actually in volitation of the
consitution before it's even begun :-) (read section 9.1)

Personally I think it's a moot point and the important meeting is the
one to be scheduled for July next year when the changes come into
effect. But assuming that those changes are all supposition on my behalf
at the moment I say the there are only two requirements that need to
come out of this AGM.

1. The new ctte devotes it's major focus to changing the structure of
CAI and a cons. rewrite.

and possibly most importantly

2. Isn't made up of entirely one state with token members from elsewhere
*smiles politely at the victorians*  

Cause whilst in some respect I agree with and applaud what Victoria
decided to do at their meeting the other night the decisions regarding
CAI and the like were still way too unilateral and Victorian centric. 

This way there's no accusations of bais or tampering or any other thing
thatpeople seem to have great delight accusing other people of. Even if
the 4 executive positions are filled and the 2 ordinary members left as
causal vacancies (which they can be if no-one nominates for them). Then
combined with the 4 State co-ordinators will make for a fairly balanced
group and not require lots of people from anywhere.

If this means we need time for the various states to sign up members
then lets agree on a suitable timeframe and postpone the meeting. If,
despite the evidence against the meeting being in line with the
consitution anways which I'm willing to ignore, you want a process for
doing that...


15. ADJOURNMENT

15.1 The Chairman of a General Meeting at which a quorum is present may
with the consent of the meeting adjourn the meeting from time to time
and place to place, but no business shall be transacted at an adjourned
meeting other than the business left unfinished at the meeting at which
the adjournment took place.

15.2 Where a meeting is adjourned for 14 days or more, a like notice of
the adjourned meeting shall be given as in the case of the General
Meeting.

15.3 Except as provided in Rules 15.1 and 15.2, it shall not be
necessary to give notice of an adjournment or of the business to be
transacted at an adjourned meeting.

that should cover it.. so we have the meeting and Grant (or whomever is
chairing) adjourns it to a date we've agreed to beforehand and then we
hold the AGM on that date. 

WRT to nominations in that instance, it seems teh consensus was people
would be able to nominate from the floor at this AGM anyway so the same
would apply at the postponed meeting.

Ideally (but unlikely) we can work it out before the meeting and only
have one nomination for each position then teh AGM can be a formailty
and we can get on with the real work.

No matter how/when we have it I think I should be an interim group at
best. There should a new AGM scheduled for July (August at the latest)
next year. No excuses with regard to audits etc. Get it done. If you
have a date you know it needs to be done by then it shouldn't be too
hard even if you have to pay for it if you need an auditor let me know
I'll find one. And whoever ends up serving on this ctte their ONE major
focus for the 6 or so months is to rewrite the consitution to reflect
the organisational and structural changes and changing nature of CAI and
to prepare the states and various other groups to implement the changes.

Someone will also need to contact Qld and let them know what's going on.
The current draft of the CBNSW consitution is almost done and could act
as a very useful basis for the CAI one as CBNSW operates in much the
same way as CAI would based on the above plan. It's also DGR ready which
is something that CAI should defnitely get (Geoff Tregenza the CBNSW
President has worked on it extensively with his wife (who happens to be
a lawyer well versed in that area of law)).  And yes I know they tried
but even i could tell you the current cons. wouldn't get DGR.

My most humble christmas wish is that everyone would stop bitching about
the current situation and come up with some constructive way of fixing
it. I'm sure people will see flaws in teh plans I've outlined above..
good see em fix em. The FOSS way, program doesn't work write a patch
don't whinge about it.

So stop whinging and start writing patches people.

Dan Treacy
President Computerbank Sydney
Vice President Computerbank NSW