[OSGeo Oceania] What is an OSGeo Oceania Member [was: Re: Call for Feedback Due 23rd Sept - Board Election Process & Timeline]

[Adam Steer]

Hi Bruce, all

When OSGeo Oceania became an organisation ( a company limited by guarantee
) in early 2019 [see 1] it needed to have 'members' to vote on things,
defined by ASIC rules rather than 'being around and interested and doing
cool things'.

So an 'OSGeo Oceania member' grew a formal definition of 'someone who has
signed up to be a member of the company limited by guarantee using this
form: https://bit.ly/35zSXHN'

In acknowledgement of the long tradition of 'just join in', the barrier to
entry to this new definition of 'membership' has been made very low - lower
than voting rights in OSGeo (you need to be nominated by an existing person
with voting rights) or OpenStreetMap (pay money every year).

All that came about because we (the people who set in motion the company
limited by guarantee, of which I am one) needed a way to handle money and
resources to do things, and then tried to set the lowest bar possible for
eligibility to vote in board elections / nominate to join the board.

With that super low bar in mind, there has been some discussion (with
reference to the quote from Martin's post) about how to define 'commitment
to the community' from people who nominate to be on the board, controlling
the assets and direction of an organisation which is set up with the aim of
supporting the community.

The aim is also to include everyone who *doesn't* want to take that path -
so far there have been no divisions set aside from board eligibility and
voting - for example just like OSGeo, nobody gets a discount on conferences
or events for being a member, because that sets an artificial divide in the
community.

Hope that helps explain things a bit. And please keep asking questions - we
need to pay attention if things like this are not being communicated well.

Adam

[1] https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2019-March/001989.html
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/attachments/20200914/878598d6/attachment.html>