[OSGeo-Board] Re: German OSGeo Chapter formation, bank account

Gary Lang gary.lang at autodesk.com
Mon Aug 21 11:49:30 PDT 2006


I think we don't know if those chapters could call this money 'OSGeo Ottawa' money, from a legal standpoint.

I think your donut reference makes this issue sound simpler than it is. Naturally people can collect money for donuts. If they want to collect and disperse funds for more substantive purposes under the OSGeo name, as President of the corporation, you are liable for what OSGeo does. 

Still sanguine about this?

Is Rich listening? I'm open to this if there are no legal or fiduciary responsibility issues with this.   

Gary

--- Original Message ---
From: "Frank Warmerdam (External)" <warmerdam at pobox.com>
Sent: Mon 8/21/06 2:06 pm
To: "fundraising at fundraising.osgeo.org" <fundraising at fundraising.osgeo.org>
Cc: "board at board.osgeo.org" <board at board.osgeo.org>, "discuss-de at visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org" <discuss-de at visibilitycommittee.osgeo.org>
Subject: [OSGeo-Board] Re: German OSGeo Chapter formation, bank account

Arnulf Christl wrote:
> We need local money to pay for local 
> expenses. Else a lot simply ends up in superfluous transactions fees.

Folks,

I'm not sure that I have adequately followed this thread, but it seems
completely reasonable to me that local chapters which wish to "have
finances" would have their own local bank account managed by themselves.
To this extent, the bank account should be seen as belonging to the local
chapter, not to the Open Source Geospatial Foundation.  But likewise, it
would be the local chapters responsibility to take care of, and not the
foundations.  From a legal point of view, I am presuming that local
chapters are not exactly part of the foundation.  They are distinct, but
related organizations.

We *might* want to put in place some rules on financial transparency for
OSGeo local chapters at some point, but I think that might be premature.

Heck, if the Ottawa chapters raises some money by some activity, I hope
they will keep it local to pay for future meeting donuts and so forth.

So, it seems to me the German OSGeo chapter, once formed, should open it's
own bank account with the appropriate treasurer designated to manage it.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | President OSGF, http://osgeo.org


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