[OSGeo Oceania] Oceania Digest, Vol 8, Issue 22

Tue Sep 24 06:43:51 PDT 2019

Hi Tony, good questions. My thoughts:

Adding to Greg's comments - one of the key reasons we chose the type of
entity (Company Limited by Guarantee) was that it is more suited to having
directors from outside of Australia. We reckoned that having at least one
director ordinarily residing in Australia would be easy to achieve. The
other structures were more Australia-focused. This one keeps the door open
to a more regionally-diverse board.

*>Is membership of  Osgeo Oceania open to the global geospatial community
or is it ring fenced to Oceania?*
I think we would aim to include residents of Oceania, and those who are
contributing to open geospatial activities in Oceania. There may be edge
cases where it's not obvious, but by and large I'd imagine we could
exercise good judgement based on the criteria we articulate. Suggestions on
this criteria welcome.

*>Is there a definition of the geographic area members can come from  eg
the National Geographic Oceania boundary and the countries therein?*
This is the definition we've been using for Oceania in the Travel Grant
Program, and I think it's apt: "those countries within the United Nations
geoscheme for Oceania
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_geoscheme_for_Oceania>, with
the addition of West Papua and Timor-Leste"

*>Are there going to be regional groups within Oceania to which members of
the full organisation will need to be aligned to?*
I may or may not 100% understand the question. But I'll take a stab. We're
definitely not aiming to dictate what people can or can't do, beyond
establishing a basic process for membership of this particular
organisation. If someone wants to start a local group/chapter for Perth,
Christchurch, Vanuatu, etc... I would not see us standing in their way.
There's an existing Pacific Islands chapter of OSGeo and we don't seek to
assume any authority over their activities, or to dictate our members'
relationship with such organisations. I see us as having much more
productive aspirations, ie. collaborating with such groups to achieve
common aims. Apologies if I'm not getting to the heart of your question!

*>Also, my experience of user groups is that it is at sub regional levels
is where all of the support and knowledge of the work going on comes from.*
*>These groups traditionally meet regularly creating an even closer
affiliation among members. Also it cuts down travel or the reliance on just
conferences or regional seminars for communication, demonstrations of
projects etc. It has been mentioned about existing 'interest groups'.   Are
they the same as or as effective as more general sub regional groups?*
Again, sorry if I'm not totally answering the question. But I hope OSGeo
Oceania can play a supporting role in establishing and maintaining these
groups. Thinking about the local groups I'm familiar with, like Geogeeks
Perth, Maptime Melbourne, and the Georabbles. I'm sure there are many
others. At the same time, I see a lot of value in bringing the people in
these sub-regional groups together in an annual conference.

On Tue, 24 Sep 2019 at 03:59, Greg Lauer <gregory.lauer at gmail.com> wrote:

> In answer to your last question the legal requirements require us to have
> one director who is ordinarily resident in Australia. Doesn’t actually have
> to be citizen -legal resident is fine. So this means as long as we meet the
> above requirements the other directors can be citizens and/or resident of
> any country. We currently have several directors who are  non-citizens,
> dual citizens and/ or not resident in AU.
>
> Greg
>
> On 24 Sep 2019, at 09:15, Tony Batistich <ajfbat at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 
> Membership
>
> I guess being such a broad area that Osgeo Oceania is covering all this
> concern about membership is inevitable compared to setting up a one state,
> or small country localised group.   The discussion continues to raise
> questions that either I've missed the answers to,  haven't been addressed
> or maybe don't need addressing. But I'll raise them anyway.
>
> Is membership of  Osgeo Oceania open to the global geospatial community or
> is it ring fenced to Oceania?
> Is there a definition of the geographic area members can come from  eg the
> National Geographic Oceania boundary and the countries therein?
> https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/oceania-physical-geography/
>
>
> Are there going to be regional groups within Oceania to which members of
> the full organisation will need to be aligned to?
> If so it would be more likely that those running the regional group would
> have a better knowledge of those intending to become members to support
> applications.
>
> Also, my experience of user groups is that it is at sub regional levels is
> where all of the support and knowledge of the work going on comes from.
> These groups traditionally meet regularly creating an even closer
> affiliation among members. Also it cuts down travel or the reliance on just
> conferences or regional seminars for communication, demonstrations of
> projects etc. It has been mentioned about existing 'interest groups'.   Are
> they the same as or as effective as more general sub regional groups?
>
> A final point: if I've read what's online correctly,  the business model
> that you have chosen means that only Australian residents or Australian
> citizens living outside of Australia ( and then only in minority numbers on
> the Board ) can be members of the Board and therefore Directors of
> Oceania?   Is that correct?
>
> Regards
> Tony B
>
> On Tue, Sep 24, 2019 at 7:00 AM <oceania-request at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:
>
>> Send Oceania mailing list submissions to
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>>
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>>         oceania-request at lists.osgeo.org
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>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of Oceania digest..."
>>
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>>    1. Re: FW:  membership - elections - AGM (Kerry Smyth)
>>    2. Re: membership - elections - AGM (Kerry Smyth)
>>
>>
>> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 01:10:10 +0800
>> From: "Kerry Smyth" <kerry.smyth28 at gmail.com>
>> To: "'John Bryant'" <johnwbryant at gmail.com>,    <Oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] FW:  membership - elections - AGM
>> Message-ID: <02ac01d57231$c3a40d10$4aec2730$@gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> Hi John
>>
>> I meant “letters after your name” valued in CVs etc.
>>
>> eg Jane Brown CA (Chartered Accountant)  John Brown MIA (Member Institute
>> Architects).
>>
>> I am not sure who determines these learned institute or such like.
>>
>>
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Kerry Smyth FSSSI
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Oceania <oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of John Bryant
>> Sent: Monday, 23 September 2019 3:59 PM
>> To: Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] FW: membership - elections - AGM
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks Kerry. Can you clarify what you mean by this?
>>
>> Will there be an entitlement to post-nominal (eg MOSGeo Oceania)
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>> Message: 2
>> Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 01:13:42 +0800
>> From: "Kerry Smyth" <kerry.smyth28 at gmail.com>
>> To: "'John Bryant'" <johnwbryant at gmail.com>,    <Oceania at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] membership - elections - AGM
>> Message-ID: <02c901d57232$41895c30$c49c1490$@gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> No objects
>>
>> Kerry Smyth
>>
>>
>>
>> From: Oceania <oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of John Bryant
>> Sent: Monday, 23 September 2019 4:30 PM
>> To: Oceania at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [OSGeo Oceania] membership - elections - AGM
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks all for a quite robust discussion on this important topic, it's
>> really great to see this much engagement. There seems to be a fair bit of
>> discomfort with the two tier model proposed, and I agree that it may
>> introduce more complexity than we really want. To move forward, I'd like to
>> propose a simplified alternative:
>>
>> *       We have a single type of membership that confers voting rights.
>> *       To ensure a reasonable level of engagement, while protecting the
>> org against bad actors/hostile takeover/etc, we roughly follow this process:
>>
>> *       take nominations for new members
>> *       use an eligibility threshold that balances accessibility with
>> genuine engagement
>> *       include a ratification step that could be done by the board, or a
>> membership working group (TBD)
>>
>> This doesn't capture all the detail of how this would work, but if it's
>> acceptable in broad strokes, I can update our draft policy and we can work
>> through the details over next couple of days.
>>
>>
>>
>> Any objections?
>>
>>
>>
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>> End of Oceania Digest, Vol 8, Issue 22
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