Re: [Fsfe-uk] AFFS conference, AGM, reform

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2005-01-31 at 16:57 +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> Alex believes clause 6b blocks any solution based on changing
> only 6d, so I suggest that we look for a minimal solution which
> changes only 6b. 

I think clause 6b does make things difficult, yes. 

> I think the obvious change is to add to the
> end of it, so it would read something like:
> 
> 6 (b) The members of the Committee shall be elected at the Annual
>    General Meeting of the Association in accordance with Clause
>    9 hereof. {+ If this is not possible for reasons of lack of
>    candidates, quorum or otherwise, an election process in
>    accordance with the Rules of the Association will be started
>    at the Annual General Meeting, disregarding part (d) below. +}

Well, I'm not sure why we should restrict ourselves to one election per
year post an AGM; I would still prefer a situation where we can call an
election whenever one is needed. This doesn't really make much practical
difference, but if we're going to change something I don't think we
should restrict ourselves like that without reason.

The above would probably work, though. But it does pose one problem:
honorary officers. We still cannot elect those without an AGM (5a), and
one of those is our Treasurer. Personally, I would be happy dropping
honoraries completely (or, at least, deciding at AGM not to elect any),
but it would perhaps be useful to prepend all titles with the word
"Honorary" so that we're clear that those roles are not filled. Does
that sound acceptable to you?

I would still like to remove "PROVIDED THAT ..." from 6d. too. Do you
see any reason to keep it?

> The first attempt at rules should be approved by the
> committee. That power is given in the constitution and it's
> one of the reasons why we have a committee. If we want everything
> to be developed in general meeting, then we could probably just
> rip out the committee and add some distributed decision process.

Well, we would have to approve to rules at AGM come what may. I don't
think people will really care who came up with the rules, just that they
are sensible and they get the chance to jettison them.

Cheers,

Alex.