Re: [Fsfe-uk] New committee proposal

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, Jul 25, 2003 at 01:59:31PM +0000, Martin WHEELER wrote:
> I am seriously beginning to wonder whether I wish to continue
> participating with the work of this organisation if it's going to
> descend so quickly into in-fighting, back-stabbing and general
> blazer-badge-politician pseudo-intrigue for personal gain.

I'm really sorry you feel that way. I'm not sure what personal gain you
feel I might be getting out of this; I assure you there is none, I
would be much happier not having to have this discussion (and no, that
doesn't mean I want it to go away, I wish we could have done things
differently).

> All organisations have controversial figures; individuals who can't
> stand one another; and others who are out to make a commercial profit
> from their position within the organisation.
> 
> Can someone clearly explain what's going on here?

This is the short version, so please don't think it definitive. The position
we found ourselves in was that we were unable to run an election, so -
needing new blood - we decided to co-opt. This relies on ctte voting people
in, not members. Everyone on this list would have seen the e-mail from
Marc about this at the end of June.

In Andrew's case, there was no majority in his favour. I can't say what the
reason was, because there wasn't 'one' reason and I would imagine each 
ctte person voted for different reasons. But the overall result was that
we didn't feel comfortable voting him in. Co-opting is clearly not the 
mandate that an election is, so there was an element of caution in the
proceedings. I'm not sure on what basis we could have done co-option other
than a vote of the ctte, there isn't really any scope for us to use those
powers to enforce the result of an 'election' for example.

> And how many others like me feel that they should now stand for office,
> just to force things out into the open?  (Because, quite obviously, and
> like it or not, the bunch we've got at the moment manifestly can't cope.
> Change is needed.)

I would welcome that (others standing, that is). We do have a serious 
constitution issue with elections, which I mentioned previously, though.

I don't think that we "can't cope". We honestly did our best with this 
process. You can disagree with the ctte decision, that's fine. We couldn't
make it not a ctte decision, because of the circumstances. 

My personal feeling is that the fault is with the constitution. Given I
was one of the ones who helped draft it, I accept blame for that. I have
to stand by the ctte decision, because that's what happened. I also knew
that people would be rightfully concerned about the process, and I accept
blame for that not going particularly well.

I'm sure we couldn't have taken any other action, though, in terms of
process. Change is clearly required, because if you would have asked
me beforehand what was going to happen, I wouldn't have described a 
co-option process to you. But that's what had to happen, and no-one
complained about the process when we told people about it. 

Cheers,

Alex.