Re: [Fsfe-uk] Proposed constitution for a UA

[Alex Hudson]

On Fri, 2002-02-01 at 20:51, MJ Ray wrote:
> All comments are welcome, but this was drafted by smarter people than me, so
> I'd prefer to only change details (the bits in []s and the obvious
> additions).

Looks okay. I have a few comments, although some of them are in the 'do
not touch' areas :/
- 7i. (query ;) Are we delberately sticking to this, on the grounds that
someone not fit to be the trustee of a charity is unfit for membership
of the committee?
- 7. I would like to see a further sub-clause to remove people who
participate in an anti-free software action: this would be extremely
difficult to word, though, but I could see it being a useful
big-red-button...
- 9a (query) another reference to the charities' act.
- 10a. Committee quorum of 0.5 seems fine; 0.1 of members seems vastly
unobtainable :( I could see a lot of people joining AFFS having read an
article about it in a magazine, for example, so it's not beyond the
realms of possibility that we're going to have hundreds of members.
Let's say we reach 1000 - quorum is then 100 people. That seems
unrealistic in terms of an AGM; although it would be great if that many
people would participate that actively. 
- 10b. Postal voting, but not e-mail voting. Shurely shome mishtake? :)
- 10b. I would like to see more detailed rules on voting members to
committee: simple majority is a bit British ;) I would prefer
alternative transferable vote, or some similar system, although I
realise that the complexity often puts people off. 
(like http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/sep/votingsystems/avrules.htm)
- 10b again ;) We should explicitly designate a returning officer per
vote; someone other than the chair (Secretary, or Treasurer, in that
preference perhaps?)
- 12d. I didn't note anywhere where it said who the signatories were:
chair, vice chair/secretary and treasurer, presumably?
- 14.2 name of the assocation clause? I would also drop the 'written
permission... Commissioners' section; they should just be invariant ;)
- 14.3 charity again.
- 14.4 commissioners again
- 16. E-mail as well as snail mail, preferably. We shouldn't, by any
means, rule out snail mail, but an email copy helps.

> I'd like to move forwards with this swiftly.  If enough of us are going to
> the RMS talk, maybe we could adopt this constitution beforehand?

Gets my vote, so long as we can agree on this? So... is the plan to
become unincorporated first and then take a more considered approach? I
thought that we were going for articles & memoranda for a ltd., but a
few bits in this don't necessarily make sense (being bound by Charities
Act 1993) - maybe I'm just not aware of these kinds of legal framework
;)

Cheers,

Alex.

signature.asc
Description: This is a digitally signed message part