[OSGeo-UK] IMPORTANT: announcement about OSGeo:UK

[Mike Saunt]

Jo

Sounds great - seems like a good evolution & structured way forward.

Kind regards
Mike

On Wed, 16 Mar 2016 at 14:17 Jo Cook <jocook at astuntechnology.com> wrote:

> Dear List,
>
> I have an important announcement to make!
>
> OSGeo:UK has previously muddled along happily as an informal group of
> like-minded people but with no formal definition. For reasons that I will
> outline below, we find it necessary to become a legal unincorporated
> organisation, with an officially elected committee, and a constitution
> outlining our aims and objectives.
>
> Our main reason for doing this is to allow us to set up a business bank
> account, and this needs to happen extremely quickly in order to allow us to
> process payments/accept sponsorship for the FOSS4GUK 2016 event in June.
> Our previous banking arrangement is no longer available to us, due to
> circumstances beyond our control.
>
> Due to the need to get the constitution adopted and a committee in place
> before we start the business of opening a bank account, we're not holding
> elections at this stage for the committee positions. I (Jo Cook) will be
> the initial Chair, Steven Feldman will be the Treasurer, and Antony Scott
> has kindly agreed to act as Secretary. These positions will be put up for
> election at our first official AGM, which will be within 12 calendar months
> of the adoption of the constitution.
>
> We have put together a constitution (attached as a pdf) that we feel sets
> out the aims and powers of OSGeo:UK. It's based on a standard legal
> template so there should be no concerns about wording. The aims are taken
> from our initial aims that the group was recognised under by OSGeo. The
> powers are worded to be as light touch as possible- these can be amended at
> some later date by calling a Special General Meeting. The guidance we used
> putting this together can be found here:
> http://www.netlawman.co.uk/ia/unincorporated-associations and see also
> https://www.gov.uk/business-legal-structures/unincorporated-association
> and
> http://www.valonline.org.uk/setting-community-group/write-your-constitution,
> which contains a link to the template we used, and others.
>
> The eagle-eyed amongst you will notice that, amongst the powers listed in
> the constitution, we reserve the right to charge membership fees for both
> individuals and organisations to join the local chapter. Don't be alarmed
> by this- we are not proposing to turn this into a closed group, we will
> maintain this mailing list as our informal list of members, and most
> importantly the method by which every day decisions about what we do are
> made. However, becoming an organisation and having a bank account brings
> some running costs and responsibilities, and as such we will have a second
> category of member called a Voting Member, for which a small membership fee
> will be applied. The job of Voting Members will be to vote on
> constitutional matters, and only Voting Members will have the power to call
> General Meetings. The additional benefits of becoming a Voting Member, and
> the fee structure, will be announced in due course- but I emphasise it will
> be a small fee.
>
> Since there is an urgent need to get this constitution adopted so we can
> get the bank account in place, we're setting a deadline for
> comments/objections of close of play on Friday. Please do comment if you
> have any concerns, and feel free to contact me on or off list to discuss.
>
> If you're happy with everything set out here, then there's no need to
> respond. Silence will be considered acceptance.
>
> All the best
>
> Jo
>
> --
> *Jo Cook*
> t:+44 7930 524 155/twitter:@archaeogeek
>
>
> --
> Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18
> 7RL, UK
> t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com twitter:@astuntech
> <https://twitter.com/astuntech>
>
> iShare - enterprise geographic intelligence platform
> <https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/>
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> Helpdesk and customer portal
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>
> Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales.
> Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no.
> 864201149.
>
> ------------------------------
> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
> Astun User Group - Conference 2016
> <https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
>
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-- 
--
Astun Technology Ltd, The Coach House, 17 West Street, Epsom, Surrey, KT18 
7RL, UK 
t:+44 1372 744 009 w: astuntechnology.com twitter:@astuntech 
<https://twitter.com/astuntech>

iShare - enterprise geographic intelligence platform 
<https://astuntechnology.com/ishare/>
GeoServer, PostGIS and QGIS training 
<https://astuntechnology.com/services/#training>
Helpdesk and customer portal 
<http://support.astuntechnology.com/support/login>

Company registration no. 5410695. Registered in England and Wales. 
Registered office: 120 Manor Green Road, Epsom, Surrey, KT19 8LN VAT no. 
864201149.

------------------------------
<https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>
Astun User Group - Conference 2016 
<https://astuntechnology.com/astun-user-group-conference-2016/>

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