Re: [Fsfe-uk] Once more, unto the constitution, dear friends...

[Alasdair G Kergon]

On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 07:52:10PM +0000, MJ Ray wrote:
> I've just uploaded some minor spelling fixes, but is the constitution in a
> state where people would be happy to sign it now?  (Or am I just being
> wildly optimistic?)
Some quick comments based on
    http://www.cloaked.freeserve.co.uk/affs-so.html
    http://www.cloaked.freeserve.co.uk/affs-const.html

(I'm still short of time until into next week, so this is 
abbreviated, based on a single read-through.  I think it's mostly
the standing orders rather than the constitution that needs
more debugging.)

Objects: word "to" duplicated ("established to to promote" etc.)

Do we need:
    President, Vice-P, Chair *and* Vice-Chair?  If so, what is the
role of the P: C seems to have more power and P is hardly mentioned.

'regions' is not defined - do we really need this?

post - 3 days or 10 days?  or something inbetween?

(opinion)
I believe committee members and voters should always be fully "paid-up"
which means any committee members "suspended" if they haven't paid
subscription by due date irrespective of whether they've had reminders.  
No grace period.
Is the intention that "annual" means subs are Jan-Dec?
Clearer statement that except for approved expenses, 
committee (and companies in which they or spouse? have substantial interest) 
can't be paid anything?
(So contracts for services cannot be awarded to committee members etc.)
Two years then a one year gap could be too short for 
continuity - think the 4 year version is better (with 
re-election reqd every 2 years).  Rules for who stands down each year
are often complex: I prefer simple and unambiguous rules.

I'd also like something saying that minutes of committee meetings
(summarised where necessary to remove personal/confidential bits) will 
be made available to members; and that any member may attend 
committee meetings as an observer provided that two committee members
give their specific permission (separate permission required for each
such occasion for each individual).

"The Chair and the Honorary Officers shall automatically be members 
of the Association" - even if they've failed to renew their subscription
*after* their election?

"Bring together in conference representatives ..."
not sure if preventing companies from sending representatives is good or bad?
Or maybe any such event just has to be called a "meeting" instead 
of a "conference":-)

Rules for removing committee members need tightening to prevent
the rest of the committee "ganging up" on another of their number
and holding 4 (or 3 depending which bit you read) consecutive meetings 
at times they know that the other person will find it very hard to
attend: eg add a timescale (eg also attended no meetings over a period
of 3 months) (Four consecutive meetings could all be on the same day!)
I've seen another organisation do this: arrange 3 meetings in the
course of 2 weeks (normally they meet once every 6 weeks) at very
short notice and at times when someone was known to be unavailable
(out of the country part of the time) and then "spring" a rule similar
to this upon them afterwards.

Needing 20 members to support a poll seems high - I doubt there'll
be large numbers at these meetings - I'd prefer 3-5: if some people
doubt any result announced is correct, then I think they're entitled
to ask for votes to be counted to remove all doubt about the result.

Appointing two tellers on the stated terms could be another headache for
a small meeting.

STV?  Personally I'm not keen on it when voting for *multiple* people:
if I'm voting for two people I want a say about *both* of them: I
don't want to find that only my first preference was taken into
account and my second preference was effectively ignored (because my first
preference wasn't eliminated until near the end.)
I'm OK with STV when just appointing one person.
But it can be painful to administer and sometimes produces strange
results.


More of this tomorrow, maybe...

Alasdair