[FOSS4G-Oceania] Governance

[Alex Leith]

Hi John and others

I'm not clear yet what the minimum we can do is, in terms of a legal
entity. Do others have experience here? I had a quick read here
<https://www.ato.gov.au/Non-profit/Getting-started/In-detail/Registration/Overview-of-legal-structures/>,
but determined that I need an adult to help me with the choices!

I have served on the board of SSSI, and understand the structures of that
organisation, which is a not-for-profit in Australia, and there's a fair
bit of governance and documentation. I think the minimum if we had an
organisation like that would be a constitution and a board + the conference
organising committee for each year.

I think that creating an entity would be a great thing to achieve, and we
certainly have the core to start with, with our enthusiastic committee and
successful event. I'm a little hesitant, though, as I see that we can make
it work without one... we have a lot of avenues for support, in terms of
juggling finances and contractual agreements. SSSI, SIBA, Locate, LINZ,
etc...

One more comment about the draft document is that I think limiting
committees to those that are absolutely essential is important. So if the
legal entity needs a board, we have a board, and a conference committee. If
it just needs an annual meeting, we have an annual meeting and a conference
committee! My $0.02.

Cheers,

Alex

On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 at 16:12 John Bryant <johnwbryant at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi committee, time for the most exciting topic of all - governance!
>
> Over the last several months, and especially last week, there were a
> number of conversations among committee members about 'what next', and many
> of these have touched on the topic of how we organise this committee in the
> future.
>
> I expect there will be quite a few ideas around this, and a range of
> opinions, so I'd like to kick off a discussion so that we can choose our
> path and move forward.
>
> We've had a productive year of working together, culminating in a
> successful event. We managed to do this quite informally, using consensus
> building to foster a shared sense of ownership of the conference. I'm
> extremely happy with how this group has worked together.
>
> I feel we are at an inflection point though, and I don't think we can
> assume that what worked this year will automatically continue to work. Now
> that we have people's attention with a successful event and an energised &
> engaged community, I feel it would be wise to come to more robust terms on
> how we manage this.
>
> Because we need to kick off a new conference planning cycle in the new
> year, we also need to determine how to bring in new people (importantly,
> including some New Zealanders), how to appoint a new chair, etc etc.
>
> At a bare minimum, I believe our next iteration of governance should
> include an updated Terms of Reference, outlining processes for managing
> committee membership, processes for appointing leadership and executive,
> rules/norms for decision making, and expectations around levels of
> participation.
>
> But there are good arguments to be made for creating a legally-recognised
> entity:
>
>    - it would enable us to manage our own funds when the time is right
>    (whether we choose to do this immediately or not)
>    - it would enable us to enter into agreements as a body (Alex and I
>    had to personally sign our partnership agreement with SSSI, as individuals)
>    - it normally comes with a well-developed set of rules for governance
>    that we can adjust to our liking
>    - I believe that committee members would be somewhat protected from
>    personal liability
>    - it would provide a strong signal to the community that there is a
>    persistent body in place to steward the conference and other initiatives,
>    and ideally lay out a strong foundation for the long term
>
> I have definitely heard people warn against the administrative overhead of
> setting up a formal entity, but having done this in the past (in Canada
> mind you), and reading through the docs, I don't see this as especially
> onerous. But there is more work to do on understanding the details.
>
> In any case, we need to figure out how to move on to the next phase. In
> terms of timing, I think *we should try and come to agreement on a clear
> path forward within about 2 weeks (14th Dec)*, so that we can begin the
> new year with purpose and direction.
>
> Daniel and I had a good chat about this stuff this morning, and have
> started a draft document
> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KkUl-qwb2pE5OomHy-0RwKSsXJDOkFx0dpW6Dhfv624/edit>
> we can use (in addition to this email thread) to focus our efforts.
>
> *Your thoughts/questions/ideas/concerns please!*
>
> Cheers
> John
> _______________________________________________
> FOSS4G-Oceania mailing list
> FOSS4G-Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/foss4g-oceania
>
-- 

Alex Leith
0419 189 050
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/foss4g-oceania/attachments/20181129/7edcd033/attachment.html>